The urgency was driven home to me yesterday while listening to a violent clash on French radio (France Culture) between anthropologist Paul Jorion and journalist Brice Couturier.

Jorion is big on complexity theory and systems thinking, and during the interview he tried to explain that the financial system was already defunct, and that it is beyond salvation, so we should stop dreaming about a miracle bailout or solution that will stop the train wreck. Couturier seemed a bit peeved, and started calling Jorion a “prophet”, and badgered him repeatedly by interrupting him mid-sentence and demanding to know “what’s the solution, then”? Jorion got upset, and became repetitive and defensive. He told Couturier that he was a part of a system that was being routed, and that his anger was a reflection of that.

I think most people listening to this would have experienced the discomfort I felt, probably for two main reasons. The first is of course that Jorion warns that we are within weeks of a break-up of the euro zone (not the first time someone has said this, Jacques Attali and others have forecast the same but somehow Jorion delivers the gloomy news with more force) and that anyone who lives here is going feel some degree of fear and unease at the prospect of violent change. The second, however, is much more important – the complete disconnect between Jorion and his journalist interlocuteurs. They were unable to understand eachother at the most basic level, and I find this very worrying.

We’ve already seen how the media has reacted to Occupy Wall Street, and its European counterpart, the “Indignados”. They accuse them of having no agenda, and then hope that they will go away. Governance expert and blogger Guy Janssen writes intelligently about this here. Who needs an agenda when you have a vision?

Journalists are trained to extract sound bites from their interviewees. They are programmed to corral an interview towards closure, in the same way that their own stories have to have a beginning, middle and end. The end can often be a “good quote”, a nice ringer of some kind that sounds a closing note. You get the idea. So an interviewee who does not obeys those laws is, invariably, punished in some way, or at least never invited back. Public relations firms train their clients to perform for the media in this way with their messages and sound bites. The whole system is the antithesis of authentic. And I believe that it’s now getting in the way of our ability to adapt to what’s happening.

We need to start learning from movements like the Art of Hosting, which seek to bring authentic heartfelt connectedness to the way we communicate with eachother, emphasizing things like intention ,presence and the importance of posing open-ended questions.

Good questions should invite curiosity and inquiry. They do not need to promote action or problem solving immediately. Connecting to ourselves in order to better connect with others can transform the way we engage and help to build better solutions for the future.

An open-ended question is one that does not have a simple yes/no answer. It’s one that invites inquiry and curiosity. If trust is present, the question will surface good ideas and possibilities. It’s what we need more of in all our relationships, but especially in the nexus of politics and media.

It only takes one person to start a movement – which journalist is going to be the first one to start asking open-ended questions and not be afraid of what will happen next?

The ban nevertheless leaves the door open to several firms which had already been granted shale gas exploration licenses. If they are able to prove within two months that their mining technique is not fracking, they can go ahead. Otherwise, the permits will be revoked. Affected companies are:

Toreador Energy France (whose share price has fallen 70% from its highs since the ban), Schuepbach Energy LLC, Total EDF and Devon. Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has confirmed that France could face legal action over the ban.

Socialists voted against the text because they felt it was too vague: it bans fracking, but not exploration for shale gas and oil using other techniques.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, uses a high-pressure blast of millions of litres of water, sand and hundreds of chemicals to create a shockwave to break open cracks deep in the earth and force the gas out. These chemicals and the gas have been found to leak into water supplies.

Local politicians and environmentalists have been campaigning against the technique since March 2010 after a number of drilling licences were awarded in the south of France and around Paris.

Former Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, under whose watch the permits were granted, admitted in a television interview in April this year that he had shown “a lack of vigilance” on the issue.

Anyone who hasn’t seen Josh Fox’s documentary on shale gas fracking in the US, Gasland, should watch it here. It exposes the chronic health problems, contamination of air, water wells and surface water suffered by communities in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah during the last decade’s gas fracking boom. The most spectacular sequences involve residents setting their tap water on fire with a match.

In 2007, a book called “The Coming Insurrection” came out, authored by “The Invisisble Committee”. This book was rumoured to be linked to a group which carried out synchronized and sophisticated attacks on high-speed rail lines between Paris, London, Brussels and the French regions in 2008 by jamming steel rods across overhead power cables, halting trains and damaging power lines. No one was hurt.  The book was translated into Spanish and English (MIT press) in 2009. Sales in France estimated at over 40,000 copies.

Last year’s unexpected success of a pamphlet written by a 93-year-old man called Stephane Hessel who issued the call “Indignez-vous” (roughly translated as “get outraged”) to protest their exasperation at income inquality, poor treatment of immigrants etc.

In late May, around 1,000 people took to the streets of Paris one weekend to call for a popular uprising to mirror a Spanish campaign where demonstrators have denounced mainstream politics, corruption and unemployment for several weeks.

The French protestors unfurled banners reading “Real democracy now” and “Paris wake up”. Protestors in Bayonne and Toulouse also joined them, holding banners that read: “We all have reasons to be indignant…join us”.

In the latest issue of the magazine “Usbek & Rica”, former advisor to French Socialist President François Mitterrand said: “We are clearly in a pre-revolutionary period.”

“This populism is justified by a very simple fact: since 10 years, 80% of growth has benefitted 1 % of the world’s population.”

“Yesterday evening I was in a country which I won’t name…and the Prime Minister said ‘If a populist and seductive leader comes on the scene, he can take power in three months.”

Attali is hardly an anarchist or a revolutionary. In 2007, he was named to head a Commission known as ‘The Commission for the Liberation of French Economic Growth’

From Usbek & Rica – interview with Paul Jorion, a Belgian anthropologist who blogs about finance and economics.

On capitalism:

“Until now, the system was tolerated by the masses, who, without directly profiting, were beneficiaries of the social advantages. However, today, we are being told that the Welfare State was a luxury. But it wasn’t a luxury! Its existence was the thing that prevented people from revolting.”

Qu: You have often referred to the potential for rebellion among those who are living under austerity measures. Will they be tempted by violence?

PJ: The strength, and also the weakness of capitalism, is that those who possess capital lend with interest to those who need money. Consequently, the fortune of those who are already rich tends to increase. Then comes a moment when the concentration is too strong: money is blocked in one place and there is no more for others. Until it is redistributed, we converge towards a blockage which arises from concentration. After 1929, money was restributed in very big proportions throughout the 1930’s. Now in 2007, we took measures which went in the same direction: to protect those who have money. Three years later, the situation has deteriorated. All the measures taken were upside down. We came back very quickly to the starting point of the crisis. The people did not create the situation, they are its victims.

A Manifesto for a European Revolution from blogger Stanislas Jourdan.

“Protest movements in Spain and Greece and even Portugal are doomed because they don’t propose any alternative social project. The slogans simply reflect a deep desire for change, a return to certain non-commercial values, more social justice. However, as they are filtered through the prism of mass media and the obsolete political discourse, people are finding it hard to come up with anything fresh. Which means lack of imagination, lack of ambition, lack of solutions. Add to this that France hasn’t really felt the full brunt of the crisis. Thanks to the safety net – crumbling but still in existence – many people still think they have something “to lose” in the event of a revolution.

So right now we are – at best – in a pre-revolutionary stage where indigation is rising, but where there is no communal ideology which is strong enough to set forth.”

In an op-ed which ran in Le Monde on 8th June, 2011, two university professors (one from Paris, the other from Jaen in Spain) talk about the pauperization of the middle classes in their two countries. They note that real estate prices have increased 140% and 288% respectively for Paris and Madrid in the past decade. “For less than 800 euros you can’t find a studio in Paris or a one bedroom flat in Madrid, while the average after-tax salary is 1,500 euros here and 900 euros in Madrid!”

“Seven weeks after the tsumani of 11 March 2011, the situation of the reactors of the nuclear plant of Fukushima-Daiichi is deteriorating inexorably. On April 28, TEPCO announced that the ambient radioactivity was about 1220 milisievert/hour, which corresponds to practically 10 million times the dose of artificial radioactivity admissible in France (1 milisievert/year).

“In the US, plutonium 238 and plutonium 239 appeared from 18 March onwards: in California and Hawaii, and were respectively 43 times and 11 times higher than the maximum level recorded during the past 20 years. In March, drinking water in San Francisco contained 181 times the admissible dose of iodine 131. On April 4, rainwater in Boise, Idaho contained 80 times the admissible dose of iodine 131, as well as cesium 137.

“All these radioactive isotopes have been deposited in Europe, and if we are not finding them it is because we are not looking for them.

“Before the end of 2011, all the soil on the planet will be inexorably contaminated by daily and permanent radiation of the Fukushima reactors. The same goes for the oceans and the water tables. That is when the radioactive isotopes from Fukushima will begin the long process of bioaccumulation by moving up the various levels of the food chain. In 2012, the whole of the planetary food chain will be radioactive and therefore hyper-toxic for human health.”

“The safe limit of radioactivity is a huge scientific scam. Let’s recall that, according to experts in endocrinology, there is no such thing as a safe limit of radioactive contamination and furthermore, low levels of contamination can be the most dangerous for the human fetus than contaminations from large doses.”

“What to do? First of all, set up techniques for decontaminating soils. After Chernobyl, the sale of cheese was banned in Austria; however, we soon observed that cheese produced by organic farmers which had been using zeolites were exempt of radioactivity. All volcanic rocks from the family of zeolites have the reputation of being able to block heavy metals and radioactive particles. The first line of defense in the face of heavy metals and radioactivity is a microbial life in the soils and the presence of humus and minerals which are vital to the harmonius nutrition of soils. This first line of defense is absent from the majority of European soils which are dead, sterilized, oxidized and whose food products do nothing but generate in the human body free radicals which promote degeneration.

“There are also techniques for decontamination using mushrooms or plants to “fix” radioactivity. It is not easy to transform a garden or field into a mushroom plot. It is much easier to plant sunflowers or hemp/cannabis. Some studies have highlighted the fact that these two plants were used with success after the Chernobyl disaster.
The question remains how to recycle these plants after decontamination. We could suggest organizing pick-ups and sending them to the Elysee (presidential palace in France) or to the headquarters of EDF or Areva.”

Guillet also addresses the dearth of reliable information on Fukushima, and suggests that readers go to: Next-Up and Jean Pierre Petit.

Construction was to have begun on the Penly project in 2012. It would have been the first nuclear reactor not to be 100% controlled by the electricity company EDF. EDF was to have been a 50% stakeholder, with 8.33% for Total and the rest divided between Italy’s Enel and Germany’s Eon.

The two other EPR’s already under construction in Europe – at Flamanville in France and another in Finland – have been dogged by delays and vast budget over-runs.

Laure Noualhat‘s blog at Liberation contains an interesting piece of internal communication at EDF from last month. It’s a message from EDF’s CEO Henri Proglio to his employees, issued several days after Fukushima. Here are some highlights:

“As employees of a group whose nuclear activity is known and recognized, you will inevitably be questioned by your family, friends and neighbours. It is important that you are able to reassure them on the means that EDF has put in place to prevent risks at its plants.”

“Under such circumstances, humility and responsibility are de rigueur. When the time comes to do an audit, we will draw lessons from the Japanese tragedy to make our installations even safer.

“I know that I can count on your support during this delicate period for the nuclear industry.”

This all started back in the 1970s, when France – responding to the 1973 oil crisis – announced a huge nuclear program aimed at generating all of the country’s electricity from nuclear power, without any public or parliamentary consultation.

So, contrary to what may appear like public support for the nuclear lobby, what the Fukushima experience has revealed in fact is just how fragile public opinion is on this issue.

“Day after day, the Fukushima catastrophe becomes increasingly normal: the unacceptable has become part of daily life. Radioactivity is leaking, and will continue to leak. As the French Authority on Nuclear Safety – masters of the subtle art of understatement – said on March 28 “the prognostic of evaluation of reactors 1 to 3 should remain very uncertain during the coming weeks.” What is certain, is that the nearby waters and soil are being poisoned insidiously. Let’s try to establish a preliminary balance sheet, based on the optimistic assumption that Japan’s engineers and workers will succeed in stopping the emission of gases and cancerous particles.

Japan has lost four, perhaps six nuclear reactors, estimated at a value of 20 to 30 billion euros, not including decommissioning. More than one thousand square kilometers around the reactors are contaminated to different degrees, making normal life impossible. The Fukushima nuclear plant will become a nuclear cemetery, requiring surveillance during hundreds of years to come. The country’s energy policy will be upturned. There will be calls for political accountability.

In nuclear matters, Japan is France’s twin: same policy, same techniques, same opacity, same arrogance of the pro-nuclear lobby, same passivity in the political class. Fukushima will have consequences here.

No-one can accept the hypothesis of seeing Nogent-sur-Seine, just 100 kilometres from Paris, or Saint-Alban, at 50 kilometres from Lyons, going through the same thing as Fukushima. The requirements of nuclear safety will increase considerably, and so will the cost of electricity. Attention will also shift to the question of nuclear waste and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, and there are no real solutions.

Aside from the debate on an end to nuclear energy,  we will have to question the logic of privatization which has informed nuclear policy for the past decade. Will EDF have to be renationalized? Should GDF/Suez build reactors in France? Is the EPR of Penly useful? Is the liberalization of the electricity market a good thing?

…..What the disaster in Japan teaches us is that opacity, in a technological society, is intrinsically dangerous.”

Areva is commissioned by Japanese power companies to process uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide fuel, so-called MOX fuel. MOX fuel used at the No. 3 reactor unit at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was shipped from France in 1999.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is up for re-election in 2012 and faring badly at the polls, announced this week that he would visit Japan on Thursday, making him the first foreign leader to visit the country since the nuclear disaster began. The domestic context for Sarkozy is dire: his prime minister broke ranks with him recently on how to deal with a sudden surge in the far-right at the polls; pollsters forecast that he will not even make it to the second round of next year’s presidential elections in all but one of several scenarios. So he flies off to Japan to declare his solidarity with the Japanese, and to play the role of chief flak for France’s nuclear industry.

I’m following the evolution of public opinion with great interest and so far we don’t have much hard evidence that there’s an important shift underway. However, anecdotally I can report that the sentiment is not as rock solid as EDF, Areva, the nuclear lobby and the French government would like it to be. Stores of various types of “soft” remedies such as organic miso paste, seawater supplements and clay powder are moving quickly through the organic co-ops and stores in Paris, and Les Echos reported that geiga counters sold out in Paris earlier this week (source Les Echos on Twitter).

Don’t forget that France is a country:

* where over 75% of electricity comes from nuclear energy.
* which is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity (generates more than 3 billion euros/year in revenue)
•    for whom nuclear reactors and fuel products and services provide significant export revenue
* which is building its first Generation III reactor and planning a second.
* where 17% of electricity comes from recycled nuclear fuel.

A poll (March 15-16), commissioned by EDF and conducted by TNS Sofres, showed that only 42 percent of the French favoured an end to nuclear, but that 68% believed that a similar accident to Fukushima could happen in France.
Another poll (March 15-17) by IFOP for the Green Party Europe Ecologie Les Verts showed that 70% favoured an end to France’s nuclear program, with 19% in favour of an immediate halt, and 51% for a gradual phase-out over 25/30 years. Only 30 percent of those surveyed favoured continuing the nuclear program and building new power plants.

That was before the cloud arrived in France, before people started to worry about which vegetables they should stop eating (lettuce and mushrooms, for instance), and before reports suggesting that the nuclear reactor core may have breached at Fukushima.

Politicians have been conservative and relatively mealy-mouthed, no doubt keeping a close watch on the opinion polls as a presidential election is coming in 2012.  François Hollande, a Socialist presidentiable, has not said a word. Former PM Dominique de Villepin has called for a Grenelle on energy, and “possibly” a referendum (how brave!). Martin Aubry, head of the Socialist Party, said France should “move towards an exit from nuclear in the next 20-30 years.”

For objective information, the only source is the CRIRAD.

And everyone should read this post by Dmitry Orlov, and learn the difference between radiation and radioactivity.

Samsung Blue Earth - lowest radiation level

For those of you, who, like me, are faced with the prospect of purchasing a cellphone for a teenager this year, managing the potential risks are the best option, and aside from the obvious best practices such as favouring texting over voice calls, using an earpiece, not telephoning in the metro or on trains or other places where reception is weak, the SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) seems like a helpful metric.

It’s a measure of the amount of radio frequency (RF) energy absorbed by the body when using the phone, and there is considerable variability among models.

CNET publishes a chart where the SAR level given is the highest level measured with the phone next to the ear, and these figures refer to voice calls only, and not to data use.

According to the latest figures released in December 2010, the three phones with the lowest radiation levels are:

1.    Samsung Blue Earth (0.196) – boasts solar panel on back of handset, and is manufactured from used plastic bottles.
2.    Samsung Acclaim       (0.29)
3.    LG Quantum                  (0.35)

LG Quantum

Compare this with the Blackberry Curve (1.51).
For the Apple Iphone 3G rates vary among models. The 3GS (16GB) is 0.79, the Iphone 4 (1.17).

Among the top 20 highest radiation phones are:
Sony Ericsson Satio (1.56)

LG Rumor 2 (1.51)
HTC Desire (1.48)

Recommendations from the Environmental Working Group which will cheer introverts worldwide: Listen more and talk less – cellphones emit radiation when we talk or send an SMS but not when we are listening!!)

All those fashionable and distinctive phone protection cases – throw them away! the phones have to work harder to emit beyond the casing.

Goat rental at 10 euros/day in the French Alps for natural lawn care from E-loue

One step removed from barter (but getting closer every day), and a hot new trend documented by two new business books in 2010 – “What’s Mine is Yours” and “The Mesh” – the mode for sharing and renting our physical assets is being driven by the economic recession and a wider societal backlash against wasteful and mindless consumption. If you’re ready to jump in, here are some resources for France:

Zilok, the French version. Rent anything from a car to a lawnmower or power drill. A Citroen C1 rents for 40 euros a day.

E-loue Goat rentals for lawn mowing etc.

Ecojouet.fr for toys (4 toys for 6 months at a monthly rate of 15.9 euros)

Supermarmite – Buy and sell home-cooked food in your neighbourhood. They call themselves the first social network for sharing home-cooked meals.

Deways.fr Car sharing platform.

Louerunetudiant Outsource your business needs to a student: market research, telemarketing, design, animation, translation etc.