I have just started writing a column for a local paper, called "Earth and the Heavens". My purpose is to politicize the Environment by using the rhetoric of morality. Here is my first column:
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Earth and the Heavens: Genesis

“I guess you’d say I’m a good steward of the land,” said George Bush at the second Presidential debate. Analysts called this Biblical reference an appeal to the Evangelical vote--but there are a lot more of us out here who care about the land and need to know just what Bush intends as its “good steward”. Let’s look at some of the Biblical sources he’s calling on.

Genesis makes it plain. After creating light and water and land, and “the great sea-monsters” and “every winged fowl” and “every living creature that creepeth”, and seeing that all was very beautiful and very good, God gave to the first man and woman a magnificent two-part stewardship: the privilege of dominating the earth and the duty to nourish it. “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over every living thing”. (Gen. 1:26-28)

In the New Testament there are two words translated as “steward”, one meaning a guardian (Mt. 20:8; Gal. 4-2) and the other, a manager (Lk. 16:2-3; 1 Cor. 4:1-2), including being a steward for Christ’s spiritual rule of the world (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; Col. 1:25). So a steward is someone chosen to handle another’s property or affairs, but not the creator or owner, not the big boss.

Like so many Americans, from many different traditions, I was taught that earth’s energy and cycles of life are what keep us in balance and connect us to each other across the world and to all creation. That if we push nature permanently off balance, we destroy our entire existence. That we have to keep our ear tuned to the earth. What a recent presidential candidate said of his mother, I can say of mine: When we walked in the woods, she would say, “Shhh. Just listen.”

George Bush intends to push the following measures through Congress. How well do these fulfill the Biblical virtues of stewardship of the land?:
1. Revive the Bush-Cheney energy bill, which would establish oil and gas drilling as the dominant use of Greater Yellowstone and other western landscapes, giving billions of our tax dollars to giant energy companies.
2. Open America’s greatest sanctuary for Arctic wildlife to massive oil development.
3. Jump start the so-called Clear Skies bill, which is backed by some of America’s worst power plant polluters and biggest campaign contributors. This dirty air bill would weaken and delay health protections required by the Clean Air Act.
4. Weaken the Endangered Species Act in ways that would allow essential habitat to be destroyed and wildlife populations to continue their decline toward extinction.

There’s no more appropriate judge of Bush as the land’s steward than the Evangelicals themselves. One such website (isebrand.com, E-Pamphlet #13) reached the following verdict: “Bush has not been a good steward of our nation’s natural resources and environment. He opened waters off Texas, California, and Florida to oil drilling, over those States’ objections; stalled a multibillion-dollar effort to restore the Florida Everglades; refused to protect federal water rights needed to support wilderness areas, National wildlife refuges, and endangered species like Pacific salmon; and cut the budget for sewage plants and stormwater controls by $500 million, the largest cut of any EPA program. Hosea (4:3) mourned when the land began to languish and Genesis commanded humanity to take care of the earth.”

Be the first kid on your block to get one of these!

'Radiation-Proof' RVs to Launch Soon in U.S.

Tue Jan 11, 4:36 PM ET (Reuters)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl==story&u==...turing_rvs_dc_1

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two private U.S. companies have designs on building the first luxury recreational vehicle that could withstand nuclear radiation.

Parliament Coach Corp., a privately held company in Clearwater, Florida, which converts Prevost buses into high-end RVs, has partnered with Homeland Defense Vehicles to offer consumers a luxury motor coach that can protect occupants against nuclear radiation from dirty bombs as well as biological and chemical attacks.

The idea is to offer the option on the pricey vehicles to consumers worried about terror attacks, officials for both companies said Tuesday.

"Many people enjoy the RV lifestyle, but we also live in an era when people have some level of fear about terrorism," Parliament Chief Executive Harvey Mitchell said in a statement. "These concerns about terrorism are linked to states where people with RVs like to travel."

The vehicles, costing from $1.2 million to $2 million, will be introduced Wednesday at the Tampa Super RV Show in Florida.

Parliament takes the Prevost buses, which are like transit buses without seats, and adds a luxury interior that sleeps from two to four people, while also providing such amenities as a satellite navigation system and plasma televisions.

The RVs run from $1.1 million to $1.9 million, including a trailer, Parliament said. The filtration system, which uses positive air pressure, will be an option costing about $100,000, added Parliament, which builds 12 high-end RVs a year.

Occupants could live for several days in the custom-built motor coach, said Daniel Ayres, president and CEO of Homeland Defense, a privately held company based in Newton, Texas, which makes mobile medical and command center vehicles for universities, county and state governments, and the U.S. Department of Defense (news - web sites).

Last week, Homeland Defense introduced a similar filtration system for the luxury version of the Medium Tactical Vehicle used by the U.S. Army and built by Stewart & Stevenson Services Inc.

The vehicle, dubbed "Bad Boy Heavy Muscle Truck," weighs more than 13,000 pounds, is 10 feet high and 21 feet long, and has a ground clearance of almost 2 feet. Homeland Defense hopes to sell 50 of the Bad Boy HMTs this year at prices as high as $750,000.

* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net * (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *

Chernobyl and the Collapse of Soviet Society

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl...rnobylCoSS.html
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March 3, 2004

CHERNOBYL HEART Documentary Wins Oscar

Next month marks 18th anniversary of disaster
The film features work of Chernobyl Childrens' Project

Contact: Kathy Ryan
Email: KathyR@aol.com
web: http://www.ccp-intl.org

Washington, DC—An independent film highlighting the work of Chernobyl Children’s Project (CCP) received the Academy Award on Sunday for Best Documentary Short Subject.

CCP is the Irish affiliate of US organization Chernobyl Children’s Project International (CCPI). The win comes as CCP and CCPI prepare to mark the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster with a medical and humanitarian mission to Belarus.

CHERNOBYL HEART, produced and directed by independent filmmaker Maryann DeLeo, focuses on the continuing effects of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 on the children of Belarus, the country most affected by what the United Nations calls the worst technological disaster in the history of the nuclear age. The film follows an October 2002 delegation of CCPI and its partner, Chernobyl Children’s Project/Ireland, as representatives traveled into the “exclusion zone” to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The film chronicles the invisible trail of radiation to the country’s hospitals, cancer centers, orphanages and mental asylums.

“This film has helped shine a light on the situation that still exists in Belarus, 18 years after the Chernobyl incident,” said Adi Roche, CCPI’s international executive director, who is featured prominently in the film. “The children there suffer debilitating illnesses, declining social and economic conditions, and psychological effects as a result of the disaster. This is a generation that has been marked by this disaster.”

The 39-minute CHERNOBYL HEART features the children of the Vesnova children’s home, which is located about 125 miles (200 km) southeast of Minsk, near Bobruisk. The facility houses more than 150 high dependency children and young adults, aged five to 25. Chernobyl Children’s Project has been working with Vesnova since 2002 to improve conditions and treatment for the children there.

The film also features Dr.William Novick, a noted cardiac surgeon whose work in Belarus is funded by CCPI. More than 7,000 children in Belarus are on an ever-growing waiting list for lifesaving cardiac surgery. The CCPI cardiac surgery program offers operations, and training for Belarussian physicians that will allow them to provide appropriate care on an ongoing basis. The next series of surgeries are schedule for the first week of May. During the same week, CCPI and Operation Smile will launch a 5-year mission to provide surgeries and medical training to aid children in Belarus who require facial reconstructive surgery.

“CCPI congratulates Maryann DeLeo, and all those associated with the film,” said Sherrie Douglas, CCPI’s U.S. executive director. “Our hope is that the film will build awareness of the plight of the children who continue to suffer from the medical, social, and economic effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. It is our responsibility to offer not just humanitarian aid, but long term solutions to be sure that the children of Chernobyl are not forgotten.”

About Chernobyl Children’s Project International

Chernobyl Children’s Project International Inc., (CCPI) is a not-for-profit, 501©3 organization. based in New York City. CCPI is dedicated to providing humanitarian and medical aid to the three to four million children the United Nations recognizes as suffering from the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. CCPI is the U.S. affiliate of the Chernobyl Children’s Project Ireland and was created in an effort to bring additional U.S. resources to the children affected by Chernobyl. These aid programs aim to increase self-sufficiency and permanent change in the region. Through partnerships with governmental agencies and medical facilities in the region, CCPI encourages joint solutions and permanent solutions to better serve these children. For more information, visit http://www.ccp-intl.org
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Atomic Age Timeline Animation:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf

* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net * (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *

What the heck does this have to do with the OP?
It should be noted that if a 25 kg dirty bomb- made from the spent fuel of a western nuclear reactor- were set off in Times Square on New Year's Eve, with 500,000 people down there, and assuming the materials dispersed quickly, there would be, on average, two cancer deaths due to radiation. Workers could immediately come in, wash off all of the buildings and the streets (they'd get a dose of a dozen millirems each; about the radiation in a chest x-ray or two), and radiation levels would be pretty much back to normal.