Animated clips from Exploring Time, a science documentary on the Discovery Channel, are among those created by our highly acclaimed multi-media artist Jeff Bedrick.

Taking My Passions Public

When I was a child, I filled black marble notebooks with poems and pencil illustrations of dreams of invincibility, revelations of vulnerability, questions about the meaning of life, and declarations of love for Paul, a blond upperclassman. I kept my journals hidden, mostly from my brother who would tease me about my latest crush.

Now that my brother and I have spouses and families of our own, I’ve taken my passions public in my expanding blog, Dream a Little Dream.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my posts. It’s a joy to hear from you!   - Aggie Perilli 

What the World Needs Now
To Engage, Unify and Transform

How did I get into the business of communication, and what is my company’s secret to success? This post is the first in a series on the art of communication.

by Aggie Perilli

In 1990, Pfizer hired me to support its emerging vision to become the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. The vice president who hired me had just returned from a leadership conference that advocated three essentials: communicate, communicate, and communicate! I had understood this as attract, unify and transform, and wrote and produced an award-winning news magazine that effectively launched my business.

As the word spread, other executives hired Aggie Perilli Communications (APC) International to create a dozen periodic publications for Pfizer alone. By the time Pfizer realized its vision as the world’s largest pharmaceutical company in 2002, our publications had grown into global awareness campaigns, and led to branding and advertising for other organizations, including non-profits.

Since our first publication, APC International has consistently achieved both results and recognition, and has continued to add services: website designs by Caroline Szeto Dahlmanns; multi-media art and animation by Jeff Bedrick; and commercials, films, and videos by both Daniel Herman and Joe Wein.

As a writer for APC International, my love of words dates to childhood, when I discovered the liberation of poetry and had a nature poem recognized by the New Jersey State Teens Arts Festival.

Today, I’ve expanded my concept of poetry, which T.S. Eliot said, “can communicate before it is understood,” to include advertising, the films above, and other forms of inspired media.

It has become clear to me that the power of communication is driven by the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others, and our interdependence with the environment which sustains us.

In his book, The Uncommon Sense of Internal Communication, Russell-Oliver Brooklands describes communication as the one discipline that informs and drives every other discipline. Communication, he states, “directly or indirectly prompts or enables people to take or avoid actions immediately or eventually.”

It’s the Way We Communicate That Inspires

Nevertheless, it’s the way we communicate that inspires a world of response. “Organizations that communicate with courage, innovation and discipline, especially during times of economic challenge and change, are more effective at engaging employees and achieving desired business results,” reported Towers Watson in its 2009/2010 Communication ROI Study, Capitalizing on Effective Communication.

Publicly, if not privately, the beloved Steve Jobs was one of the world’s most renowned communicators. Early on, Steve Jobs advised Apple employees that marketing is not about products and competition, but values.

His words echoed those I’d heard at Pfizer while in pursuit of a values-driven vision, and at a conference held at the respected Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina.

At the conference, a speaker asked an audience of executives which qualities they most wished their organization would embody, and listed them on an easel. The audience stated equality, loyalty, responsiveness, and similar qualities.

Asked which qualities describe their organizations now, the audience stated hierarchical, faithless, unreliable…

Pointing to his easel, the speaker asked, “If all of you value the same qualities, why is there such a discrepancy between these two lists?”

With his hands on his hips, the speaker, who––tall and so round, he couldn’t button his suit jacket––said he knew a quality which would close the gap. A quality every individual in every organization desired: unconditional love.

As the executives stared at him dumbfounded, the speaker defended, “If you think that’s easy, try spending a half hour alone with your adolescent child!” And the audience roared with laughter.

For any organization to establish enduring vision and trust, it’s essential to reflect the values your brand represents. Communicate these values frequently and consistently. Before long, people will identify you with your values and act as enthusiastic ambassadors for your organization.

Inspire a World of Response

Aggie Perilli Communication (APC) International gets to the heart of issues and inspires a world of response. Our team of writers, artists, and technology innovators delivers transformative employee and client communication.

•    websites, blogs, and interactive marketing, including social media;
•    animation and visual effects for the Web, video games, and mobile devices;
•    magazines, newsletters, catalogs, and annual reports; and
•    commercials, films, trailers, 3D micro-visualizations, and more.

Contact us at aggie@aggieperilli.com, and, together, we’ll decide how best to inspire a world of response for you.

         

by Aggie Perilli

Our acclaimed animator and multi-media artist Jeff Bedrick captured the spirit of the season in A Christmas Carol, an oil painting reproduced by Elms Puzzles as a hand-cut wooden puzzle. Jeff’s inspiration came from the classic tale written by Charles Dickens to open the hearts of the fortunate so they’d seize the day and return the love. Dickens’ tale about the redemptive power of the human spirit remains as relevant today as it was in 1843, when the story was first published.

This has been a year of expansion at Aggie Perilli Communications International, and I’d like to introduce you to some of our newest team members, all of whom are exceptional talents.

Jeff Bedrick’s digital paintings and animations have been featured in television shows and feature films including Shrek 2, The Little Mermaid II, and the History Channel’s Life After People.

Among Caroline Dahlmanns’ many distinctive and elegant designs are our updated website and our increasingly popular blog. We are equally enthusiastic and grateful to Caroline for her beautiful design of this premiere issue of our newsletter!

Joe Wein created the AIDSRides website for Pallotta TeamWorks, which generated more than $10 million in registrations in its first year. Joe has combined his passion for film and new media in merging streaming video projects for Downy fabric softener and for Dickies Clothing. In addition, his television commercials and feature films have garnered many industry awards.

Cinematographer Daniel Herman has produced hundreds of films, commercials, documentaries, and corporate videos, including a public service announcement featuring His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Several of Daniel’s award-winning narrative features and shorts have appeared on television and at film festivals around the world.

Wendy Wegner is a filmmaker and a prolific social media strategist who attracted more than 300,000 Facebook fans within three months for Stand Up to Cancer! Wendy’s articles have appeared on Oprah.com, Peter Greenberg Worldwide, and Livestrong.org.

Familiar team members we know and cherish:

A pioneer in digital publishing for the iPad and other tablet devices, Jeff Witchel published his first book, The Best of Layers Magazine Tips of the Day, which will be highlighted in InDesign magazine. Jeff is one of the few Adobe Certified Instructors for InDesign and Illustrator in New Jersey, and the author of several training DVDs and how-to magazine articles on the latest Adobe techniques.

After traveling to Italy for a vacation, renowned artist and illustrator Harold Shull painted Canal Rhapsody, which placed first in New Jersey’s Middlesex County Art Show and third in the New Jersey Art Show:

Dream a Little Dream

Aggie Perilli, writer and creative director, responded to the needs of the times by launching her company blog with an introductory post on clean energy. Nearly 1,300 people from around the world have responded with enthusiasm. An inspired audience has spread the word and generated a stream of responses which, in turn, inspires Aggie daily.

Aggie Perilli Communication International gets to the heart of issues and inspires a world of response. Our team of writers, artists, and technology innovators delivers transformative employee and client communication. Contact us at aggie@aggieperilli.com, and, together, we’ll decide how best to inspire a world of response for you.

Our last blog post of 2011 is dedicated to the selfless volunteers who rescue our animal friends and post their pictures on the Internet:

Can You Buy Love? Adopt a Pet this Holiday Season

My husband Michael and I paid $295 to adopt a fifteen-pound bichon poodle from the Last Chance Ranch Animal Rescue in Quakertown Pennsylvania. The cost covered Raphie’s vaccinations, de-worming, neutering, and medication to prevent kennel cough and other infections. (Our local veterinarian would have charged that much for vaccinations alone.)

The Last Chance Ranch had rescued Raphie from a “high-kill” shelter in Philadelphia, where he was curled up in a fetal position in the corner of his cage.

Raphie’s previous owner had claimed the dog was too much responsibility.

When Michael and I met Raphie at the Last Chance Ranch, he threw himself belly up at our feet.

“He’s so sweet-tempered you can really have fun with him,” said Volunteer Coordinator Barbara Maroney, spinning Raphie around on the concrete floor. Raphie remained wary as he clung to Barbara.

Michael and I looked at each other and smiled. Raphie needed a home, and we longed to fill a gap the size of the Grand Canyon left by the passing of our maltipoo, Tinkerbell, two months earlier.

On the way home, Raphie sat in my lap and leaned over the center console to keep his paw on Michael’s arm. The three of us were bonding already.

Settling into his new home, Raphie chased his ball with so much exuberance, he skidded into the wall, banged his head on the coffee table and resumed running as if nothing had happened.

Happily, Raphie lives in the moment. No longer curled in a corner collapsed in on himself, Raphie stands tall with his eyes wide and his mouth open in a smile.

This holiday season, the Last Chance Ranch and other animal rescues could use your donations. One of the most rewarding ways to donate is to adopt a pet. When we share the love, everyone thrives.

My husband Michael and I paid $295 to adopt a fifteen-pound bichon poodle from the Last Chance Ranch Animal Rescue in Quakertown Pennsylvania. The cost covered Raphie’s vaccinations, de-worming, neutering, and medication to prevent kennel cough and other infections. (Our local veterinarian would have charged that much for vaccinations alone.)

The Last Chance Ranch had rescued Raphie from a “high-kill” shelter in Philadelphia, where he was curled up in a fetal position in the corner of his cage.

Raphie’s previous owner had claimed the dog was too much responsibility.

When Michael and I met Raphie at the Last Chance Ranch, he threw himself belly up at our feet.

“He’s so sweet-tempered you can really have fun with him,” said Volunteer Coordinator Barbara Maroney, spinning Raphie around on the concrete floor. Raphie remained wary as he clung to Barbara.

Michael and I looked at each other and smiled. Raphie needed a home, and we longed to fill a gap the size of the Grand Canyon left by the passing of our maltipoo, Tinkerbell, two months earlier.

On the way home, Raphie sat in my lap and leaned over the center console to keep his paw on Michael’s arm. The three of us were bonding already.

Settling into his new home, Raphie chased his ball with so much exuberance, he skidded into the wall, banged his head on the coffee table and resumed running as if nothing had happened.

Happily, Raphie lives in the moment. No longer curled in a corner collapsed in on himself, Raphie stands tall with his eyes wide and his mouth open in a smile.

This holiday season, the Last Chance Ranch, http://www.lastchanceranch.org/, and other animal rescues could use your donations. One of the most rewarding ways to donate is to adopt a pet. When we share the love, everyone thrives. 

At the Pennsylvania Conference for Women in Philadelphia in October, writer, lecturer, feminist and social justice activist Gloria Steinem presented a 5,000-member audience with her list of the top ten ways to live fearlessly. In the style of David Letterman, the legendary Steinem read her list backwards.

10. Take the golden rule and reverse it: treat yourself as well as you treat others. Take the time to nurture your own physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being so that you can be and share your best.

9. View discomfort as a sign of growth. Take yourself out of your comfort zone; continue to learn and to develop your skills in new and helpful ways.

8. Recognize your anger as precious. There are many reasons to be angry, for example, the injustice of economic disparity. Channel your anger constructively and do all you can to make a difference.

7. Apply your talents in new and helpful ways. Laughter is a sign of openness. When Einstein had an idea while shaving, he’d laugh and had to be careful not to cut himself.

6. Pursue your real interests, rather than what society tells you is interesting. And drop hierarchical thinking. When professors at a university wanted to protest for tenure, they joined forces with maintenance workers and secretaries fighting for a raise. Divided, each group risked termination. United, all three groups achieved their goals.

5. Measure by real, not ideal parity. What is the actuality here and now?

4. Recognize the enormous advantages of being female. Human qualities we usually consider feminine, such as gentleness and compassion, are available to all of us. Rather than imitate, innovate.

3. Anyone can learn how to change. Decades ago, when secretarial pools consisted almost exclusively of women, some men claimed they were incapable of typing. When computers came out, men learned how to type overnight.

2. Ask for help. Surround yourself with people who make you feel smart. Spend time with people who have faith in you, and who encourage and trust you to be better than you think you are.

1. Commit to self-actualization and nonviolence every step of the way. Abuse during our developmental years can undermine our ability to empathize with others. In fact, humiliation and violence in the home normalizes humiliation and violence everywhere. Our ends are our means; insist on democracy at home, in the office, and in our foreign policy.

How do you achieve fearlessness?

Recommended Media

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/gloria-in-her-own-words/synopsis.html

In just one month, responses to my opening blog on clean energy have mushroomed from 70 to 865. During this Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I am grateful to all those who responded for their enthusiasm: students working on research papers, professionals in the nuclear power industry, concerned parents, and non-English-speaking readers who took the time to respond through an online translator.

I was also touched by 280 new responses to my follow-up post on nuclear power, and more than 150 notes of appreciation for my congratulations to gay and lesbian couples married in New York in July.

To proponents of clean energy who asked to donate money, financial contributions are always welcomed at the nonprofit organizations I interviewed: the Union of Concerned Scientists based in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Physicians for Social Responsibility in Washington, D.C.; and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Takoma Park, Maryland.

To those who asked to connect with me more directly, I’ve added social media links for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I invite all of you to “like” my business on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and connect on LinkedIn, where I post clean energy updates regularly.

Readers who requested help with their own blog and other digital and/or print communications are welcome to a price estimate. Please e-mail your project specifications to aggie@aggieperilli.com and we’ll get back to you.

Thank you again for inspiring me with your kind and insightful comments, and for posting and reposting my articles on Digg and other social media websites! I look forward to corresponding with you more frequently in the future.

When I posted my first clean energy blog in August, I was dismayed to have to report 14 significant events or near-misses at nuclear reactors in 12 states last year. Near-misses raise the risk of accidents that can have lethal effects on the workers, the public, and the environment.

While writing that blog, I was shaken by an earthquake that drove home the urgency of our need to develop energy sources we can live with healthfully and safely in both the short and long term.

In the US, last year’s near-misses occurred in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina (three times), and Virginia. “A combination of broken or impaired safety equipment and poor worker training led nuclear power plant operators down a path of potentially catastrophic outcomes,” wrote the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in a report on the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear reactor safety.

Additionally, the UCS nuclear and environmental watchdog reported “serious safety problems” in New York, at the Indian Point Energy Center, in Pennsylvania, at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, and in Vermont at Vermont Yankee.

Nearly every one of those near-misses and safety threats could have been avoided “if plant owners (and the NRC) had corrected known deficiencies in a timely manner,” wrote the UCS.

Putting Health and Safety Before Profits
At the Indian Point Energy Center owned by Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the liner of a refueling cavity at Unit 2 has been leaking since at least 1993. “By allowing this reactor to continue to operate with equipment that cannot perform its only safety function, the NRC placed people who live near Indian Point at elevated and undue risk,” UCS reported.

Indian Point sits astride two subtle but active seismic zones on the east bank of the Hudson River well within 50 miles of New York City, where scientists say a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake is possible and potentially devastating.

In Pennsylvania, at the Peach Bottom Atomic Station owned by Exelon, the same company involved in the near-miss in Illinois, safety issues were equally disturbing. Employees reportedly “slowed down control rod testing to evade regulations that would have required a plant shutdown; NRC inspectors were aware of the problem but failed to address it adequately.”

Coincidentally, in March the UCS had compared Peach Bottom’s practices unfavorably with those of the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia, where the earthquake in August was centered. According to the report:

North Anna’s owners…took a financial hit for doing the right thing–only to watch as the NRC allowed Peach Bottom’s owner to avoid a financial hit by doing the wrong thing. North Anna’s owner has a long track record of putting safety first. Not all owners can match that record. The NRC must deprive owners of the option of placing safety second, third, or lower.

Bill Dean, an executive of the NRC is relatively new to the Pennsylvania region. When I asked him about Peach Bottom’s 2010 evasion of federal regulations, he said he would have to look into it. If he found a licensee avoiding required safety precautions, he said he’d respond to that “fairly stringently.”

“Nuclear technology does require constant vigilance on the part of the NRC,” Bill Dean noted. “Because of the magnitude of issues surrounding nuclear technology, “to a certain extent, we really have to rely on the ability and integrity of licensees to operate their plants safely.”

When employees of the NRC or nuclear power plants witness suspicious activities concerning fraud, waste, abuse, or misconduct that endangers the public health and safety, Bill Dean encourages them to contact the Office of the Inspector General hotline at 800-233-3497. Anyone can report suspicious activities anonymously.

David Lochbaum of UCS said the NRC “made outstanding catches of impairments” that could have triggered major accidents at at least three nuclear power plants last year. The federal agency’s record of enforcement, however, was inconsistent.

“Even if the NRC consistently enforced its regulations, that wouldn’t prevent all accidents or disasters,” he said. But when the NRC permits known hazards and pre-existing conditions, accidents are more likely to happen.”

That’s not the worst of it. Potentially more dangerous is the inevitable link between nuclear power and weapons (in Iran and elsewhere); terrorist threats to attack nuclear reactors; and the lack of safe storage for spent nuclear fuel that remains highly radioactive for an incomprehensible several thousand years or longer! Presently, our best option for the long-term storage of nuclear waste involves underground containers likely to corrode over time or to crack from seismic activity and leak radioactive waste into our groundwater.

No Level of Radiation Is Healthy

On a map, I noticed that Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I have lived for more than a year, is well within the 50-mile radius around Peach Bottom, home to 5.5 million residents and a number of Pennsylvania’s 63,200 farms. I thought about the livelihood of the farmers here and the food we eat.

What if Virginia’s 5.8 earthquake had been centered here, in New York, or in an area equally vulnerable? Would we have weathered it as safely as the people in and around the North Anna reactor, built to withstand only a 5.9 to 6.1 earthquake? What if our earthquake had been 6.2 or stronger, or Hurricane Irene had walloped us with the full force of its 100-mile-per-hour winds? Or our ensuing torrential rainfall and ravaging floods had crested a few inches higher?

Even without a disaster, deregulation and deferred maintenance have contributed to routine leaks caused by both mechanical and human errors. That is not surprising. What is surprising is that US federal regulations permit nuclear power plants to release an unverified amount of radiation into our air, water, and soil.

“Some contaminated water is intentionally removed from the reactor vessel to reduce the amount of the radioactive and corrosive chemicals that damage valves and pipes, filtered, and then either recycled back into the cooling system, or released into the environment,” says the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) based in Maryland. A permissible level of unfiltered contaminated water is released, too.

According to NIRS, the NRC relies on reactor operators to monitor their own radioactive releases and their projected dispersion largely through computer models. “A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated–virtual, not real,” NIRS reports.

No full and accurate accounting of all radioactive wastes released into our air, water, and soil exists. Even though “it has been scientifically established that low-level radiation can damage tissues, cells, DNA and other vital molecules, causing cell death (apoptosis), genetic mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine system disorders,” NIRS notes.

You don’t have to live next to a nuclear power plant to absorb radiation. Faint traces of radiation from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear complex had reached Sacramento, California within ten days. Just as radiation from the Chernobyl accident had reached California within ten days in 1986.

“The effects of nuclear accidents respect no borders,” noted Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations during the opening session of this month’s meeting on nuclear safety and security… “We cannot accept business as usual–we all have a stake in getting it right.” If not for ourselves, we need to get this right for our children and their children.

Expediting our Conversion to Safe, Clean Energy
On the bright side, David Lochbaum said the rapid rise of the nuclear industry proves just how quickly and effectively we could convert to safe, clean, sustainable energies if we truly desired. “We advanced from no nuclear power to 400 reactors worldwide within two generations,” he said. “We could advance renewable energies just as rapidly if we put the appropriate infrastructure in place.”

Among the countries to build that infrastructure is Germany, which is committed to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Impressively, almost 18 percent of Germany’s electricity is already being generated from renewable energy sources, including wind, biomass, biowaste, hydropower, and photovoltage solar power. Germany intends to increase that percentage to 35 by 2020.

Among the companies to take advantage of Germany’s clean energy infrastructure is the electronics giant Siemens, which announced it would stop building nuclear power plants and invest in its rapidly growing renewable energy market.

Germany’s leadership in clean energy has created other employment opportunities as well. In 2010, according to Wikipedia, 370,000 people in Germany were employed in the renewable energy industry, especially in small and medium-sized companies. Up from 339,500 jobs in 2009, and 160,500 in 2004.

Here in the US, in 2010, only 11.14 percent of domestically produced electricity came from renewable energies. Although in 2009, the US was the world’s second largest producer of renewable energy from hydroelectricity, wind, wood, biomass waste, geothermal, and solar–led by China in the total production of renewable energy.

Lochbaum envisions a shift from centralized power stations to sustainable community systems like the wind-hydrogen plant in Norway’s Utsira Island. A 2.3-square-mile island in the North Sea, Utsira has lived off the grid for two years. One of the world’s first communities to achieve energy self-sufficiency, Utsira uses a combination of wind power and hydrogen fuel not only to produce renewable energy, but to store enough excess to export to the mainland.

It’s long past time for the US to join Norway, Germany, and several other countries and phase out nuclear power. Especially now, when at least half of our nation’s reactors are more than 30 years old. Like Germany, we must shut down our oldest and most dangerous nuclear reactors without delay. We need to hold plant owners and the NRC accountable for all lingering safety and security issues, and tell our legislators we want an aggressive clean energy policy today.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

Recommended Reading

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/nrc-and-nuclear-power-2010.html

http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radiationhome.htm

Exactly one month ago, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. I was tickled by a New York Times article entitled “You’re Making Me the Bride? A Hiccup for Gay Unions.” Apparently, a couple from the East Village had tried to apply online for a marriage license early. The form from the city clerk’s office left each male partner only one of two options: “bride” or “groom.” When this was brought to the attention of city and state officials, they quickly scrambled to update their forms.

I was struck by the power of a few well chosen words to engage, unite, and transform the lives of hundreds of couples in New York alone.

Although I’ve been remarried for less than two years, I am certain Dolly Parton was joking when she said gay couples have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us. For all those who are enthusiastic about marriage, W.H. Murray said it best: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back.… Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Whatever words the city clerk has chosen to address all of New York’s marriage applicants, happy one-month anniversary to the newly betrothed!

What do you call your partner?

What We Know:

• Ahead of his time, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. In a speech on his proposed energy policy in 1977, Carter was remarkably prescient: “Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption…and to use permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power, we will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment.” He added: “The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime.”

• For the last few years, US Representative Rush Holt, a physicist from NJ, has been warning that energy derived from coal, oil, and nuclear power is unsustainable, and a growing health and safety threat. Worse than accidents, Rep. Holt cautions that Iran and others are using the technology to develop nuclear weapons. Safe, far-sighted energy policies Rep. Holt advocates include a cap on greenhouse gas emissions; a substantial investment in clean energies; tax credits for solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, fuel cell, and other sustainable energy technologies; and a Renewable Portfolio Standard to ensure 20 percent of US electricity is produced by renewable sources best suited to each locale’s climate and resources by 2027.

• Following the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station in Japan in March, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental and nuclear watchdog, reported on the safety of nuclear power plants in the United States in 2010. The Union reported 14 significant events or near-misses at nuclear reactors in 12 states last year! Many of the near-misses “could easily have been avoided,” the Union wrote, if reactor owners had corrected violations identified by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) months, if not years, ago. The Union holds both the NRC and reactor owners responsible for lingering safety and security issues that may be “accidents waiting to happen.”

• Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is among 45 groups and individuals nationwide to petition the NRC “to suspend all licensing and other activities at 21 proposed nuclear reactor projects in 15 states until NRC completes a thorough post-Fukushima reactor examination comparable to that after the serious, though less severe, 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.” Petitioners have also asked NRC to supplement its investigation with another from an independent commission.

• In March, German Chancellor Angela Merkel shut down seven of her country’s oldest nuclear reactors and decided to accelerate Germany’s conversion toward clean, renewable energy sources. Italy had already begun to phase out nuclear power after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, and closed its last reactor in 1990. The Italian government’s plan to reverse that decision was rejected by more than 94 percent of Italian voters this past June. Rather than resume the use of nuclear power, Italy is expected to expand its renewable energies such as hydropower, wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal technologies.

• Presently, Switzerland is also phasing out nuclear power. According to Wikipedia, Austria was the first country to begin a phase-out in 1978, followed by Sweden in 1980, Italy in 1987, Belgium in 1999, and Germany in 2000. Austria and Spain have actually enacted laws which prohibit the construction of new nuclear power plants. As of June 2011, countries completely opposed to nuclear energy include Australia, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, and Norway.

• Some proponents of coal, oil, and nuclear energy suggest it’s impossible to meet the needs of a growing economy without compromising national security or devastating our environment. Yet Norway’s Utsira Island has been living off the grid for two years. One of the world’s first communities to achieve energy self-sufficiency, Utsira uses a combination of wind power and hydrogen fuel not only to produce renewable energy, but to store enough excess to export to the mainland.

• “We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren,” Carter urged. It’s not too late to create a safer world and a thriving economy through the development of clean energy policies. As in Italy, it may be up to voters to take the lead. As we phase out coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power, and convert to clean energies, voters must hold NRC accountable for the strict enforcement of more comprehensive regulations than those we rely on today. Last year, the President’s Cancer Panel, which includes appointees of George W. Bush, warned that our apathetic approach to regulation is already having far-reaching consequences for our health—and particularly the health of our children.

Which Republican or Democratic candidate in your area is offering the most comprehensive, far-reaching clean energy policy?

Recommended Media

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fuel/

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/ucs-nuclear-safety-recommendations.html

http://www.hfcletter.com/issues/XIX_8/stories/169-1.html

http://www.psr.org/news-events/press-releases/psr-calls-for-improved-safety-at-nuclear-reactor-sites.html