Ventana case

The case Ventanas is a typical case in that the economic power was imposed over that public health and the environment safe. Since 13 years ago, that was known about the pollution generated for the Codelco refinery of cupper.

There are previous studies and reported that alerted to the authorities about the pollution in the area of Puchicaví and village Vantanas. In this time was too far, children of La Greda school had to be evacuated for the air was stifling by cloud emanating from the chimney of the refinery.

The main problems is the type of fuel used for the refinery, the petcoke, fuel that is cheaper than other alternatives like coals or gas, but it is more polluted. The petcoke is made up of solid waste resulting from oil refining process concentrates so highly carcinogenic heavy metals such as nickel and vanadium, elements identified by the World Health Organization to cause lung cancer and nasal and to facilitate the development of more than ten types of respiratory diseases mainly.

The use of this fuel is mainly for economic reasons, a ton of petcoke cost between 1 and 40 dollars (according to their quality), while that price of coal is ten times less and 20 % cheaper than gas. This is the reason for the generating companies to pressure the authorities to approve the use of petcoke as fuel, enabling them to remain on the market. No doubt, big business for the company, but at the cost of the lungs of people.

About Japan nuclear emergency

The problem was that they (Japanese Authority), never gave the complete information about the real scope of the tragedy and then I stopped watching the news. We will never know what really happened.

I always thought that the safest and cheapest energy produced was the atomic or nuclear one, and that was a possibility  according to the Chilean reality, always with problems with it energetic matrix. But I was wrong maybe.
That tragedy showed that it is too difficult to build a nuclear center in a seismic country like ours.

The consequences are terrible for the people and the environment, and we see it now and we will see it in many years after. The expert say that Japan is now fighting against its worst ever crisis after the Second World War. It is hoped that the Japan nuclear disaster should be a warning for all the countries that have this type of energy like also for the countries that are developing it.

The website that I visit currently

The website that I visit currently is one relative to plant protection, specifically related with integrated pest management and biocontrol pest and disease management: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/crops-agriculture.html
The website belongs to University of California and have a lot of sections that include how to manage pest of agriculture, floriculture and turf; how to manage pests in home, garden and landscape; in natural enviroments, also a section about how to identify naturals enemies; a section of how to identify weeds through photo gallery; provides information about pesticides; training programs, workshops and events to farm advisor, specialist and research of area, and have resources like publications and another educational material, CD-Roms, DVDs, videos, books, that it sold.
In the section of agricultural include a guidelines for monitoring pests and using pesticides and nonpesticide alternatives for managing insect, mite, nematode, weed, and disease pests of crops and fruit trees.

I visited this website often, maybe two times a week, because is a good reference to my speciality, and have a good description of the phythopathologicals problems of the cultivated plants and to inform about the last notice of area.

The last movie that I saw

The last movies that I saw was "Biutiful", of the mexican director Alejandro González Iñarritu, the same that made "Amores perros", "21 gramos" and "Babel". The movie is the story of a man in free fall, is a drama of human misery, is a darkness film. The film occurs in Barcelona, a city that lives all the problems of immigration, unemployment, police corruption, and the protagonist “Uxbal” (Javier Bardem) and all the characters, always are living at limits of the law, selling false articles or selling people, like cheap hand of job.
Uxbal is father of two children, that fight to survivor in a cosmopolitan city, like Barcelona, fight against a terminal cancer and a bipolar wife. His main problems is not knows how to leave his children, who care for them, that they don’t forget him.

Rodrigo´s Blog

My name is Rodrigo Herrera, I'm an agronomist, phytopathologist. I work at the Facultad de Agronomía of Universidad de Chile. My main line of research is the Integrated Management (IM) in fruit trees and crops and Biological Control of plant diseases.
I'm currently starting a doctorate in forestry, agriculture and veterinary sciences.
In this blog I'll try to keep me informed about news and developments of the English class. Also communicate with my classmates.