By Tatsujiro Suzuki 
Professor and Director, Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University,
Via The Conversation
Six years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011, but Japan is still dealing with its impacts. Decommissioning the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses unprecedented technical challenges. More than 100,000 people were evacuated but only about 13 percent have returned home, although the government has announced that it is safe to return to some evacuation zones.
In late 2016 the government estimated total costs from the nuclear accident at about 22 trillion yen, or about US$188 billion – approximately twice as high as its previous estimate. The government is developing a plan under which consumers and citizens will bear some of those costs through higher electric rates, taxes or both. Continue reading
Mapuche protest Ralco Dam 
E.O. Wilson
Jacques Cousteau, the 20th century’s best-known advocate for marine environmental protection, was born on this day in 1910.
Cousteau was known for producing 115 documentary films and television programs about the ocean environment and adventures on the research ship the Calypso. He was also the co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung or “scuba” tank.
Cousteau’s international fame came with his role as narrator and star of the television series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.” Among his many awards and honors were three Oscars and ten Emmy Awards for his films and television programs and the International Environmental Prize of the United Nations for 1977.
Cousteau trained as a pilot at the French naval academy but an auto accident in 1933 kept him out of the sky. Shortly afterwards, a pair of watertight goggles introduced him to the undersea world. He became obsessed with developing snorkels, body suits and other diving gear and in the early 1940s he worked with a Parisian engineer to invent a regulator for a compressed air tank to allow free movement and breathing under water. It was known as “scuba” diving (for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).
Scuba was a great improvement over the heavy diving suits used at the time. Cousteau used scuba to help the French resistance in World War II and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur for his service. After the war, Cousteau developed scuba diving as part of a French Naval research group. He wanted, also to challenge age-old superstitions and open the underwater realm to scientific exploration.
Cousteau was initially known for his 1953 bestselling book “The Silent World.” A film by the same title won a 1957 Academy Award for best documentary. Cousteau became director of the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco and, in that position, led a successful campaign to stop nuclear waste dumping in the Mediterranean. He also set up experiments in deep undersea living on the continental shelf called Conshelf I, II and III, The experiments were documented in Cousteau’s films, as were his many oceanic adventures in a converted French minesweeper named the Calypso. Much of his environmental work was carried on by an organization he founded in 1973, the Cousteau Society.
Overall, Cousteau produced 115 films including three full-length theatrical feature films: The Silent World, World Without Sun and Voyage to the Edge of the World. He also wrote, in collaboration with various co-authors, more than 100 books including Jacques Cousteau's Amazon Journey (1984), and Jacques Cousteau / Whales (1988); in French, Les Iles du Pacifique(1990), L'Ile des esprits (1995), Le Monde des Dauphins (1995) and the posthumously published L'homme, le pieuvre et l'orchidée (The Man, the Octopus and the Orchid).
怨 Lawsuit settled with Shell Oil
Environmental Action Archive
Ellen Swallow Richards
The hats that created bird sanctuaries 
Pollution regs saved lives
¶ A giant tree's death sparked the conservation movement in 1853. Terrific article by Leo Hickman of the Guardian on June 27, 2013. The
¶ Dymaxion car 
¶ Aldo Leopold