ABOUT THE BOOK

Raised in the tumult of Japan’s industrial powerhouse, the 11 men and women profiled in A Different Kind of Luxury have all made the transition to sustainable, fulfilling lives. Based on Andy Couturier's popular articles in The Japan Times, this lushly designed volume has a wealth of stories about real people who have created an abundance of time for contemplation, connecting with the natural world, and contributing to their communities. In their success is a lesson for us all: live a life that matters. Read an excerpt of the book here or here. Read a review of the book here, here, or here.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Feature article in Huffington Post

I just placed an article in the Huffington Post about the one-year anniversary of the tsunami-earthquake-nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.  


It is very helpful if you either "comment" on the article at the bottom, or share it with your friends and family by email or facebook, etc.   By the logic of the online journalism world, the more people who do that, the more voices of this kind get promoted, and spread around.


I hope you go to their site and read the whole article, but I'd like to excerpt a couple of pieces here.  First of all, if you need a refresher (or a primer) on the arguments against nuclear power, here they are:


Let's dispatch the common arguments for nuclear power, since the nuclear industry's PR machinery will soon be kicking into high gear on this anniversary of the Fukushima tragedy.
Nuclear power is not carbon neutral. It takes petroleum to mine the nuclear fuel, to refine it, and to transport it. Uranium is often dug up in huge open pit mines in areas inhabited by, and thus endangering, Native Americans and Australian aboriginal peoples. It takes huge amounts of petroleum-based resources to build the nuclear power station and to transport the waste. By their very nature nuclear power stations are targets for terrorists, and it takes tremendous human and material resources to guard and protect them. Areas of the earth in Ukraine and now Fukushima are abandoned wastelands. And if the Japanese, who are rightly renowned for their advanced engineering and their attention to detail, cannot operate nuclear plants safely, no one can.  
Furthermore, after 50 years of nuclear power, no one has yet discovered a solution to the problem of nuclear waste, waste that will have to be kept separate from all life forms for thousands of years. And although the nuclear industry is still asking for (and getting) huge subsidies from governments all over the world, Wall Street investors don't want to touch nuclear power with a ten foot pole.
I myself am off in a few minutes to a protest at the closest nuclear power plant from where I live, in San Luis Obispo, the Diablo Canyon Plant.  My partner Cynthia got arrested protesting it 27 years ago when they were building it.  Directly on an earthquake fault.  


Please take a moment today to do something to oppose nuclear power.  Thanks.


Here again is the link to the article.

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