Carrie Dickerson's Birthday Memorial Party!

Please join us as we remember our very own grassroots
hero and sustainable energy advocate extraordinaire!
Tuesday (tomorrow), May 24, at The Blue Dome Diner!

Come to hear live local fantastic music from
Brian Haas and friends!
Other local musicians and activists will also be
there working for a
safer, greener future.
Everyone is welcome!

Where:Blue Dome Diner, 313 E. 2nd,
Tulsa OK

When: Tuesday, May 24, 5:00-11:00 PM

Why: To celebrate the life, work, and legacy
of the woman who knew Oklahoma was safer without nuclear power generation and who believed in the power of the wind, the sun and people!!!

The Carrie Dickerson Foundation exists to inform the public about and to promote clean, safe, renewable and economically responsible alternative energy resources.

The Carrie Dickerson Foundation PO Box 52343 Tulsa, OK 74152 EIN: 01-0765811 501(c)(3)

Happy Earth Day, Friends of Carrie and the Earth!

One of the best things we can do to help preserve and protect the planet on a large scale is to take action when there is an opportunity to make our voices heard.
I am posting a couple of links in this blog where there are important petitions that we can sign to help raise a unified voice against nuclear power generating plants. Please join me and these organizations, and remember to check back with the groups I mentioned in my previous post about reliable organizations we can trust for accurate information, like NIRS and Beyond Nuclear, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Union of Concerned Scientists. Friends of the Earth, The Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council are all taking stands against nuclear.

Here is the link to a petition from Friends of The Earth who are trying to prevent the NRC from licensing the new design of reactor that is being proposed for Georgia and other southern states and has never been tested, and has several safety concerns while still on the drawing board!

http://action.foe.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6584&tag=Tomtaf

This petition comes from a group in Japan who is working fervently to stop nuclear power and has been fighting the good fight since long before the Fukushima tragedy occurred.

http://www.tanpoposya.net/form/jform.php

Please help the people of Japan and stand together with people of conscience worldwide with this petition to call for an end to nuclear power generation. The Japanese people have seen firsthand what most of us have thankfully never had to witness. Let's make sure this never happens again! Solidarity now. ♥

Please remember the simple but mighty daily actions that add up and so make a difference collectively - recycle everything you can, reuse everything you can, plant trees and flowers and veggies and fruit, conserve water and electricity, and just try in every way to be the best earthling you can be! ♥ Our Mother will thank us for it! ♥

Lots of news today to share with you!

Hi everyone,
I have seen so many news stories recently that I would like to be sure folks get a chance to see, so I am going to post the links here for you to check out. Please take a look as your time permits. There are so many things to keep up with and there is some good news too!
Thanks and we love you all!

"Thank You Carrie Dickerson!"
http://roundtree7.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/1023/
"Green Energy - Because the Only Safe Reactor is 93 Million Miles Away!"
http://roundtree7.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/green-energy-because-the-only-safe-reactor-is-93-million-miles-away/

I would like to thank the folks at Roundtree 7 blog on Wordpress for these great articles.
I will be watching them for more good info! Check them out and leave a comment to tell them we appreciate their work.

"Battle of the Grids" A free report from Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/Publications/policy-papers-briefings/battle-of-the-grids/

Nuclear industry unraveling?
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/german-prosecutors-raid-areva-np-in-bribery-probe/

Great solar news!
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/blogs/the-solar-industrys-apple-sized-ambitions

The People stand up together!!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-11/anti-nuclear-protesters-block-entry-to-edf-s-london-offices-1-.html

and one more - blowing the tops off the mountains is NOT OK!!!
(and there's no such thing as clean coal, anyhow!)
"Mountaintop Removal - An American Tragedy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyzwCKoLhDo&feature=player_embedded

These are probably just a drop in the bucket - there are a lot of news stories streaming out of Japan - the evacuation area is growing larger, the disaster may be upgraded to a "7" which is the worst possible nuclear disaster we have encountered (created)...but please keep telling people about solar and wind, about efficiency and conservation, and about how the health of the people and the health of the planet is more important than any other consideration! We cannot give up and we are all in this together!! Thank you!

Carrie Was Right!!

Hi Friends of the Foundation,
There is so much news about the tragedy in Japan and the situation is so devastating, I feel that the best thing I can do here is to give you links to the groups we trust the most to keep you informed and updated in real time with honest information that is not trying to deceive the public about how grave the danger is - not only in Japan, but as the plumes of radioactivity continue to rise and blow around the world. Please visit these factual and honest organizations and people:

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service
www.nirs.org

Beyond Nuclear
www.beyondnuclear.org

The Union of Concerned Scientists
www.ucsusa.org

Physicians for Social Responsibility
www.psr.org

Ace Hoffman, journalist and analyst, as well as educational software developer
http://www.acehoffman.blogspot.com/
http://acehoffman.org/

"For the late Professor John Gofman, a senior figure in the US Atomic Energy Commission until he saw what was happening and resigned, famously said: "the nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity." This war has now entered an endgame which will decide the survival of the human race. Not from sudden nuclear war. But from the on-going and incremental nuclear war which began with the releases to the biosphere in the 60s of all the atmospheric test fallout, and which has continued inexorably since then through Windscale, Kyshtym, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Hanford, Sellafield, La Hague, Iraq and now Fukushima, accompanied by parallel increases in cancer rates and fertility loss to the human race." From one of Ace's latest newsletters, a quote from Chris Busby. Full article is here :
http://rense.com/general93/decon.htm

Let no one convince you otherwise, there is no solution, and there will never be a solution to the waste, nor to a disaster like this one. This is a sad and terrible lesson and if we don't learn it now, we are destined to see it happen again. I cannot fathom how anyone could even begin to consider risking such an eventuality. Please make your voices heard at every opportunity. We are the people and we must demand right action and right decisions from the governments and industries that would sacrifice even little children for the sake of profit and unsafe technologies. Thank you! Carrie would be leading the charge if she were here. We must remember her courage and bravery and do the same. Peace.

GREAT NEWS!!!

Governor Henry Vetoed SB 1668 today! Please send him an email to thank him for this act to prevent Oklahoma's energy door from opening to nuclear power! Thank you to all of you who did call and write the Governor! Happy Birthday Carrie indeed!!! We still have lots to do so join us and let's get busy! Hooray!

Happy Birthday Carrie! Thank you!!

Today - Monday, May 24, 2010 - would have been Carrie Dickerson's 93rd birthday!!!

Please join The Carrie Dickerson Foundation, Citizens' Action for Safe Energy, all her friends in the sustainability community, both in Oklahoma, across the U.S., perhaps around the world, and those in many other walks of life who were so positively touched by her gentle and magnificent spirit as we remember her. Help us to commemorate and celebrate her life and her work to protect Oklahoma's environment and to ensure that safe alternative energy sources are the ones we turn to as the future unfolds.

We are having an online birthday blast for Carrie! Here are some things you can do to join in the celebration and help to make sure that her courageous victory for life and a safe environment is never forgotten - and that Oklahoma remains a nuclear free state of alternative and renewable energy!

1) Please call Governor Brad Henry's office and make sure he knows we are asking him to veto SB 1668, which is supposed to be on his desk for action at this moment. SB 1668 would amend the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority Act to allow municipal power authorities to buy energy from nuclear facilities (either outside or inside the state) AND invest in nuclear facilities (also inside or outside the state), both of which are prohibited under current state law. SB 831 (the other pro-nuclear bill this session) has been thankfully defeated in committee. Let's make sure SB 1668 does not become law either. Call 405-521-2342 and let your voice be heard!

2) Please join The Carrie Dickerson Foundation if you have not already become a member. If you are on facebook we have a facebook cause page ~ Help The Carrie Dickerson Foundation Carry On! ~ and you can join us there at http://www.causes.com/causes/212926?recruiter_id=22165949
Let's see if we can really grow our numbers today as a birthday present for Carrie!! Please tell all your green facebook friends to join our cause! How many people can we gather?? Let's shoot for 500!!!
If you are not on facebook, please contact us through our website at www.carriedickersonfoundation.com and be sure to keep checking this blog at where we are working to keep up to date info posted.

3) If you would like to donate to the Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit educational foundation, you can do so through the facebook cause page, or by sending a donation to:
The Carrie Dickerson Foundation
PO Box 52343
Tulsa, OK 74152
Since facebook has set a minimum of $10, get together with a friend if $5 is better for you. Every bit will help us carry on with Carrie's work!
We are working on several projects, and once we get these nuclear bills off the legislative table again, we will be focusing again on getting Carrie's Windmill History book published, in a condensed form for children to be placed in schools and libraries across the state, as well as the comprehensive complete version for all of us to learn from. Fascinating stuff! We are also working to promote light rail passenger service for Tulsa and connecting locations, and working with other sustainable groups to promote awareness of alternative and renewable energy resources in this beautiful state of ours! Thank you, everyone - AND
THANK YOU CARRIE DICKERSON!!!!

Please forward this info to any and all friends of Carrie and friends of the Earth! We can make a difference together!

Marilyn McCulloch
Secretary of the Board of Directors
The Carrie Dickerson Foundation

Fact: Nuclear Reactors Leak All The Time

ROUTINE RADIOACTIVE RELEASES FROM NUCLEAR REACTORS - IT DOESN’T TAKE AN ACCIDENT

What the government and the nuclear industry do not want you to know:

1. It doesn’t take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil. All it takes is the plant’s everyday routine operation, and federal regulations permit these radioactive releases.
2. Radioactivity is measured in "curies." A large medical center, with as many as 1000 laboratories in which radioactive materials are used, may have a combined inventory of only about two curies. In contrast, an average operating nuclear power reactor will have approximately 16 billion curies in its reactor core. This is the equivalent long-lived radioactivity of at least 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.
3. A reactor’s fuel rods, pipes, tanks and valves can leak. Mechanical failure and human error can also cause leaks. As a nuclear plant ages, so does its equipment - and leaks generally increase.
4. 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. The water is filtered and then either recycled back into the cooling system or released into the environment
5. A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water--as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.
6. Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic "purges" and "ventings." These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.
7. Radioactive releases from a nuclear power reactor’s routine operation often are not fully detected or reported. Accidental releases may not be completely verified or documented.
8. Accurate, economically-feasible filtering and monitoring technologies do not exist for some of the major reactor by-products, such as radioactive hydrogen (tritium) and noble gases, such as krypton and xenon. Some liquids and gases are retained in tanks so that the shorter-lived radioactive materials can break down before the batch is released to the environment.
9. Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released to the environment containing "permissible" levels of contamination. Permissible does not mean safe. Detectors at reactors are set to allow contaminated water to be released, unfiltered, if below "permissible" legal levels.
10. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated – virtual, not real.
11. Accurate accounting of all radioactive wastes released to the air, water and soil from the entire reactor fuel production system is simply not available. The system includes uranium mines and mills, chemical conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication plants, nuclear power reactors, and radioactive waste storage pools, casks, and trenches.
12. Increasing economic pressures to reduce costs, due to the deregulation of the electric power industry, could further reduce the already unreliable monitoring and reporting of radioactive releases. Deferred maintenance can increase the radioactivity released - and the risks.
13. Many of the reactor’s radioactive by-products continue giving off radioactive particles and rays for enormously long periods – described in terms of "half-lives." A radioactive material gives off hazardous radiation for at least ten half-lives. One of the radioactive isotopes of iodine (iodine- 129) has a half-life of 16 million years; technetium-99 = 211,000 years; and plutonium-239 = 24,000 years. Xenon-135, a noble gas, decays into cesium-135, an isotope with a 2.3 million-year half-life.
14. It is scientifically established that low-level radiation damages tissues, cells, DNA and other vital molecules – causing programmed cell death (apoptosis), genetic mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine system disorders.

THIS INFORMATION SHEET IS INTENDED FOR REPRINTING AND, THEREFORE, IS NOT COPYRIGHTED

Nuclear Information and Resource Service
6930 Carroll Avenue Suite 340, Takoma Park, MD 20912
301 270 6477; 301 270 4291
nirsnet@nirs.org; www.nirs.org

Please Call Governor Henry ASAP

Here is new information from our friends at the Sierra Club of Oklahoma. I want to thank Bud Scott and Jody Harlan for their hard work to help us stay apprised of the developments as the legislation moves swiftly in and out of house, senate and committee!

***Danger! The nuclear fight is still on! Your grassroots lobbying efforts helped kill Senate Bill 831 in conference committee, but Senate Bill 1668 is still alive! SB 1668 would amend the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority Act to allow municipal power authorities to buy energy from nuclear facilities AND invest in nuclear facilities, both of which are prohibited under current state law. SB 1668 passed both chambers, but was a very controversial vote in the Senate, where it passed 27-19, but has caused ripples amongst the Republican caucus.

Now, SB 1668 is being considered by Governor Brad Henry, where he has 5 days to sign the legislation into law! PLEASE call the Governor's office at 405-521-2342 and ask him TO VETO SB 1668!!!! Governor Henry may veto the bill, but needs to hear from you first! We know the bill has supposedly been sent to the governor's office, but we have not heard of any further action yet.

If you need talking points, check out Jody Harlan's revised letter below and the attached talking points against nuclear energy or go to
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_7ced5f7b-59c0-5e9d-ba9a-444a7742d155.html for more ammunition on what's wrong with nuclear.

Thanks for your help with grassroots, environmental activism at its best!

Robert "Bud" Scott, Esq.

Chapter Director

Oklahoma Sierra Club

P.O. Box 60644

Oklahoma City, OK 73146

405.445.9435

bud.scott@sierraclub.org

oklahoma.sierraclub.org

Jody's letter:

Dear Senator:

The Deepwater Horizon accident and the resulting oil spill prove that accidents happen. When nuclear accidents happen, however, the radioactive waste gives off hazardous radiation for thousands of years. Low-level radiation generated by routine operation damages tissues, cells, DNA and other vital molecules causing genetic mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine system disorders, according to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Takoma Park, MD. www.nirs.org

Senator Cliff Branan (R-OKC), who opposes nuclear power, requested a revote on SB 1668. (This request failed and the bill is on its way to the governor as stated above) This bad nuclear power bill, which would amend the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority Act to allow municipal power authorities to buy energy from nuclear facilities AND invest in nuclear facilities, both of which are prohibited under current state law for several good reasons:

1) The average cost of constructing and permitting for one new generation nuclear facility is estimated between $5 and $12 billion. These development costs would be paid by Oklahoma ratepayers in advance. This estimation does not take into consideration the cost to taxpayers of existing subsidies provided for the nuclear industry by the federal government.

2) Nuclear reactors generate approximately 20 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and additional low-level radioactive waste per year. No matter how safety conscious a facility claims to be, there is no permanent storage solution to housing this radioactive waste generated by producing nuclear energy. The waste can kill at high doses and cause cancer and birth
defects at low doses. Nuclear waste remains dangerous to humans for thousands of years.

3) The U.S. Department of Energy has failed to find storage sites for highly radioactive nuclear waste for more than 10 years. By 2020, taxpayers will have paid an estimated $12 billion in court judgments brought by nuclear utilities who have been forced to store the nuclear waste on their facility sites. They know it's dangerous! That's why they're suing! Yet in 2008, DOE signed agreements promising to permanently store nuclear waste from 21 reactors to be build in the future.

4) Since 9/11, nuclear energy facilities in the United States have been considered one of the most dangerous targets for domestic terrorist threats. The increased costs for security and waste management are not included in the estimate listed above.

Please say "no" to SB 1668 and "yes" to safe solar, wind and natural gas energy solutions. Our lives depend on it. Thank you.***