Today we receive a new intelligence report from, let’s see here…the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which includes something new and different than past intelligence reports: climate change issues.

The report, seductively called “Global Trends 2025,” warns that as climate change wrecks havoc all over, it will decrease the influence the United States has across the globe, thus creating (for this country, at least) a destabilizing influence.

Within two decades, the report predicts, already sensitive areas from northern China to sub-Saharan Africa will have to deal with more droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water. At a briefing Tuesday ahead of the report’s release, [chairman of the NIC and deputy director of national intelligence Thomas] Fingar stressed that limited water and agricultural land could ‘add a kind of competition to the international system that we haven’t seen for a very long time.’[msnbc]

These reports (this is the fourth one) are designed to look at long-term about future global politics, but have never included climate change as a factor.  However Fingar has been adamantchange that this is an issue that is going to be extremely important.

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Remember Yucca Mountain?  The place in Nevada where the government decided it would be a good place to put all our nuclear waste, and then seal it up forever and ever?  And how it was going to cost $58 billion?  Well, you may not remember that last one, specifically, but that’s the part that’s moot anyway.   A new estimate released Tuesday by the administration now has costs pegged at over $90 billion to get the site open and operational.   The Associated Press reports,

Ward Sproat, the Energy Department official in charge of managing the controversial Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada, disclosed the new number to reporters after a congressional hearing Tuesday.   The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is sealed up forever.   Some of the increase is due to inflation, Sproat said. Also Energy Department officials now expect the dump will hold more radioactive waste than the 77,000 tons initially approved by Congress.

$90 billion of money, my sources tell me.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is now here to give you the very best of Katie, Nicole, Giulia, Gina and Kerry! If you worry about missing your favorite bloggers’ posts as they push their way down the page each and every week - Never Fear! Check out our most popular posts of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Woody Guthrie: This Grammy Is Your Grammy / This Grammy Is My Grammy

Rambo Fights for Burma’s Freedom + 5 Steps You Can Take To Help Burma In 5 Minutes

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Nicole:

“Yes We Can” Obama Music Video a Unique Celebrity Endorsement

Top 10 US Grant, Scholarship and Fellowship Awarding Foundations

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Giulia:

Ba-Da-Bling Commercials Pulled in New York

“Safe Sex or No Sex” Shirts Get Teens Suspended

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Gina:

10 Internet Videos Featuring Celebrities Advocating For A Cause

Close Up: An Introduction to Iranian Cinema and Cinematic Rainbows

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Kerry:

Sheryl Crow’s Apocalyptic Peak-Oil Song

Solar Powered Soldiers Wear Uniforms with Built-In Batteries

When folks speak of Iran, they mostly speak of terrorism or nuclear power/weapons and this is quite sad, as despite controversial headlines, Iran stands at the forefront of world cinema. The films that have been coming from Iranian filmmakers for the past 20 years are the films that are inspiring the folks who are determining the future of cinema. There is a passage in Hamid Dabashi’s “Close-Up : Iranian Cinema, Past Present and Future” that says it all:

“Iranian cinema took the world by surprise simply because the world got a glimpse of our cinema only after it had decided the character of our culture through the prism of the Islamic revolution. These disabling circumstances and our liberating vision did not quite add up.

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The British government’s given the green light to a new generation of nuclear power plants, the BBC reports. Business Secretary John Hutton told members of Parliament that nuclear reactors offer a “tried and tested” source of energy which “provides one of the cheapest electricity options available to reduce our carbon emissions”.

Hutton insisted that the problem of where to bury the nuclear waste doesn’t need to be solved before the new reactors are built, saying that the plants could rely on existing “interim” storage facilities until a permanent underground site is chosen.

Steve Webb, a member of the Liberal Democrat party, objected to the decision to go nuclear at a time “when other technologies like carbon capture and storage, like renewables, are evolving practically every day”.

Hutton’s response? “I’m all in favour of reducing emissions. I think we can start with what comes out of your mouth.”

A classic case of life imitating art—security guards who were supposed to be keeping an eye on things in the “ready room” of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant were caught on tape sleeping on the job à la Homer Simpson, according to today’s Washington Post.

The company providing the security guards, Wackenhut Corp., has “a long history of alleged flaws in its nuclear security operations,” the Post reports, as well as “a history of bad relations with its workers, which some experts say could undermine security procedures.”

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which has been organizing Wackenhut workers, told the Post, “Wackenhut’s track record shows no regard for the welfare of their workforce or for public safety.” And the Union of Concerned Scientists claims that “unhappy Wackenhut security guards” at one plant had “sabotaged their own equipment.”

This is why nobody ever wants a nuclear power plant built in their neck of the woods. It doesn’t really matter how “safe” nuclear power is purported to be, as long as proper precautions are taken. This story shows that all too often, they’re not, whether it’s due to incompetence, indifference or something worse. How scary that the animated satire of The Simpsons is really a kind of cartoon reality tv.