Karl Grossman

On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, The Japan Times yesterday ran an editorial titled "The Titanic and the Nuclear Fiasco" which stated: "Presenting technology as completely safe, trustworthy or miraculous may seem to be a thing of the past, but the parallels between the...

The crash last week of a U.S. drone on the Seychelles Islands-- the second crash of a U.S. drone on Seychelles in four months -- underlines the deadly folly of a plan of U.S. national laboratory scientists and the Northrop Grumman Corp. for nuclear-powered drones.

The use of...

Last week's granting by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of combined construction and operating licenses for two nuclear plants to be built in Georgia -- both Westinghouse AP1000s -- is the culmination of a scheme developed by nuclear promoters 20 years ago.

There have been huge changes...

The disdain of much of the cruise ship industry for safety (as well as labor and environmental) laws is signaled by flags that fly on the stern of more than half of cruise ships. They are called "flags of convenience."

Some 60 percent of cruise ships are now registered in...

The U.S. press has become increasingly accepting of officials speaking anonymously. Having officials identified only as a "senior department official" or "veteran diplomat" or "high official" and the like is a way for top and lesser officials to say things without having to take any responsibility for what they say.

The just-announced decision by Siemens, a major player in the nuclear industry, to withdraw entirely from nuclear power is a significant declaration by a corporation about nuclear power and the world's potential energy future.

"The chapter is closed for us," Peter Loescher, chief executive of...

The scandal shaking Rupert Murdoch's media holdings in Britain could be expected of a global media empire intoxicated with power and lacking any ethical base.

What is unfolding--revelations of bribery and massive phone-hacking--could go down as the greatest press scandal in the English-speaking world. Overarching it is a media machine...

I went to a jewelry store last week with a watch of mine and a watch of my wife's to have new batteries put in. Do you remember when watches needed to be wound? Times change, watches change -- and culture changes. Indeed, a most important change was reflected...

Nuclear power requires "perfection" and "no acts of God," we were warned years ago. This has been brought home by the ongoing disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushimi Daiichi nuclear plant complex, the flooding along the Missouri River in Nebraska now threatening two nuclear plants,...

With the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, some people ask: can nuclear power be made safe? The answer is no. Nuclear power can never be made safe.

This was clearly explained by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the "father" of the U.S. nuclear navy and in charge of...

"Wind and solar are great but strictly supplemental," declared Al Velshi on CNN on March 26 in a report on the nuclear power disaster in Japan.

"You're wrong," environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a guest, shot back. Indeed, Velshi was wrong -- as have so many in media...

What Japan is now trying to avoid is a complete loss of power to the cooling systems at its Fukushima nuclear power plant. This would lead to a loss-of-coolant or meltdown accident -- a disaster which could have catastrophic impacts on Japan and much of the world.
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Today, February 2, marks the 14th annual celebration of World Wetlands Day. It is telling that the event is only in its 14th year -- an acknowledgment of how long it has taken for the critical importance of wetlands to be recognized globally.

Where I live, on Long...

As Thanksgiving 2010 arrives, thanks should be given for something that never happened decades ago: the use (as planned) of bases built all over the United States armed with BOMARC and Nike Hercules nuclear-tipped missiles.

It was the 1950s and 60s, and the U.S. feared Soviet bombers might strike major...

They would be floating Chernobyls. Russia has embarked on a scheme of building floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts and sold to nations around the world.

"Absolutely safe," Sergei Kiriyenko, director general of Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation, told Reuters as the barge...

It was supposed to happen off the U.S. Atlantic Coast and was scuttled because of skyrocketing costs, public opposition, and a lack of need. But the concept of floating nuclear power plants is back. Russia, copying the U.S. plan, recently launched the first of what it says will be many...

Actor Alan Alda has embarked on an initiative to help scientists in "communicating science." Alda and Howard Schneider, founder of the Center for Communicating Science at the new journalism school at the State University of New York's Stony Brook University, spent a day recently at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) working...

The World Health Organization projects that this year cancer will become the world's leading cause of death. Why the epidemic of cancer? Death certificates in the United States show cancer as being the eighth leading cause of death in 1900.

Why has it skyrocketed to now surpass heart disease as...

The wedding at T.J. Maxx featured last week on NBC's Today show has to make one wonder about values in the United States.

"Get Me To The T.J. Maxx On Time," was the title on the graphics for the segment.

National correspondent Amy Robach intoned that "conventional ceremonies...

There's a sitting duck for terrorists off eastern Long Island, NY between Boston and New York City. And al Qaeda knows about this. So does the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which, for security reasons primarily, wants this potential target, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, eliminated and its...