compendium of ailments: a malevolently designed
global slavery and depopulation agenda implemented by the powers-that-be
to shear the sheeple on their way to the slaughterhouse. Whether by
stupidity or malevolence in the end the result is bad news.
I’m mad as hell so allow me to interject a bit of personal vitriol
here. In Tokyo where I live, I recently had a conversation with a
reputable Canadian university professor who questioned whether further
research into the Fukushima disaster wasn’t beating a dead horse. If
only that were true. A year earlier at that same university (where I
work as a moderately paid but insecure contracted teacher– and
gratefully subsidize the full time professors who enjoy the benefits of
an academic apartheid) a different and particularly snooty British
professor chastised me for writing articles about Fukushima. Apparently
criticizing Japan is not good for the university image! At another
university where I work most professors are mum on the topic– their
policy is simply to ban articles on Fukushima from their in-house
journal: blatant censorship. What a bunch of incredible hypocrites and
cowards.
Enter Majia H. Nadesan, communications professor in the area of
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, an
exception to the rule of bought and paid for academicians, a person of
honesty, wisdom, no little amount of courage and a holistic
understanding of nature.
Her newest book, “Fukushima And The Privatization Of Risk,” is a
strong reminder that the Pandora’s Box of nuclear gremlins released into
the world during the past two centuries is damaging the genomic
integrity of homo sapiens and other species. Though you and I might
survive Fukushima’s radiation (or die younger than we should have),
future generations of humans and earthy organisms may suffer
transgenerational mutations that could ultimately lead to extinction. Of
course, humanity has already triggered the Earth’s sixth great
extinction episode due to habitat destruction, poaching, pollution, war,
etc.
Nuclear Winter In The Heartland
When I was a curious and curly haired boy I vividly recall the day
when our teacher informed us about the danger of nuclear war with the
Soviets. I was emotionally upset by what I learned. Walking home in the
blustery weather, dark clouds on the horizon formed a cold front and
puddles covered in thin sheets of ice were broken beneath my feet, and
my heart turned hard. What was the point of all the niceties and rituals
of life if we were going to die in a nuclear war?
Eventually I learned to repress and forget those thoughts in order to survive, and life went on without a big bang.
On March 11, 2011 during the afternoon while I was at home in Tokyo, I
felt a larger than normal tremor, which kept building in intensity, and
went on for four or five minutes. Today the flood of bad news emanating
from the Fukushima nuclear disaster flows unrelentingly from the
magnitude 9 earthquake that occurred on that day. The numerical
measurements and scale of radiation released from the accident are
unprecedented and catastrophic (3).
-
Fukushima nuclear power plant no. 1 (FNPP#1) (in Japanese “dai-ichi”
meaning “no. 1”) is leaking upwards of 160 billion becquerels of
radiation into the ocean every day (4);
-
Not including the initial releases, nearly 45 trillion becquerels of
radiation were released into the air and water just during a recent two
year period (5);
-
There is much debate about what effect the huge amount of radiation
released is having on the health of the Pacific Ocean and its biota. The
radioactive plume of doom has already reached the North American
western shores (6) and will likely reach the Atlantic Ocean (7). Some
scientists say the radiation is diluting and in general not a dire
threat to biota or humans who consume seafood (8; 9), although these
reports should be greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism (10; 11).
Some medical researchers say that the above ground nuclear tests alone
have resulted in millions of deaths (as will be discussed);
-
There is a growing amount of data that indicate the ongoing radiation
releases are bioaccumulating up the food chain. In conjunction with
other forms of pollution that threaten oceanic and terrestrial health
this could be contributing to disease and death of various ocean biota
(12);
-
Although US officials downplay radiation traveling from Japan along
currents toward the US west coast, levels of cesium in seawater may
range from 30 to 100 becquerels per cubic meter, not a trivial amount
considering bioaccumulation and magnification rates in sealife and that
it may be ongoing for a practically unlimited period of time (13);
-
In Japan fish are contaminated with radiation (14) while US west
coast seaweed has shown signs of Fukushima contamination (15). Tokyo
drinking water has detectable amounts of radiation and recently it was
found that half of children tested there had cesium in their urine (16);
-
While Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) slowly removes the fuel
rods from the Unit 4 fuel pool (we wish them luck in a very risky
operation), everyone agrees that getting to units 1, 2, and 3 is
currently impossible with human workers given that the fuel (corium) is
melted below the reactor containers and continues to be intensely
radioactive. As far as I know, no one has come up with a plan to deal
with the corium, and the idea of creating a concrete sarcophagus over
the plant as was built in Chernobyl has been dismissed by many experts.
Fukushima is built on soft, artificial “fill” ground which would allow
the radiation to leak from beneath the reactors to the ocean. Radiation
continues to leak with no end in sight;
-
In Japan the passage of the ambiguous and vaguely worded “Secrets”
law threatens freedom of press, thereby criminalizing honest reporting
of the ongoing nuclear crisis (17; 18; 19; 20). This resurrects phantoms
of Japan’s past militarism, Orwell’s 1984 and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag
Archipelago of Interogators now stalking Japan’s archipelago of iPhones
and teen idol dimbots. What seems like a harsh and desperate measure
from the atavistic cronies in the majority Liberal Democratic Party may
actually succeed given the lack of organized political or public
opposition.
Privatizing Risk: Internalizing Profits, Externalizing Costs
Nadesan’s slim volume is written in a scholarly but readable style
and offers an authoritative interpretation for the academic,
environmental and nuclear politics specialist, and the keenly interested
general reader. Although under 150 pages the book has an admirable 512
citations, which render it well argued, if not rock solid, in analysis
and conclusion. The book is precise in use and introduction of difficult
scientific concepts and vocabulary yet cuts to the bone of the subject.
Nadesan sorts through the mass of data now available from scientific
and media sources in order to guide the reader to the most relevant and
significant information. Wrestling with an inherently complicated topic
that is prone to misunderstanding, Nadesan fulfills a badly needed
service to offer clarity and scholarly precision to the subject.
The book unfolds in three stages:
-
A concise history of the nuclear weapons and energy project which
exposes the fatal link between the two ventures and how Japan’s nuclear
power program emerged from that context;
-
A coherent time line of the chaotic and complex events that occurred during the March, 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster;
-
Radiation risks from Fukushima and other sources and how they will
affect human, wildlife and environmental health and integrity.
Forgive Us Our Criminal Transgressions As We Have Committed Criminal
Transgressions Unto The Earth: Lead Us Not Into Denial, But Deliver Us
From Extinction
I wrote to Dr. Nadesan and asked what compelled her to face the
Fukushima Hydra. Obviously she would have been concerned with the health
impacts from the nuclear disaster as Fukushima radiation continues to
contaminate the western US (where she lives) as it is transported by
wind and water.
“I was working on a book titled Dispossession that examines the
financial crisis and the BP oil spill when the Daiichi disaster
occurred. What struck me is that all three disasters were managed using
the same propaganda techniques, which were designed to minimize public
perceptions of risk and criminal transgression.
In all three cases, the disasters’ risks escalated because of a
failure of leadership. The BP oil disaster risks were escalated by the
unprecedented use of Corexit. The financial crisis still has not been
resolved because of the failure to address the derivatives and fraud at
the heart of the crisis. The American economy still suffers from the
decision to bailout the banks, while leaving citizens to fend as best
they can. The Fukushima Daiichi crisis risks continue to escalate
because of a failure to acknowledge the scale of disaster and
evacuate/mitigate appropriately. Across these cases, risks have been
shifted to the general populace because of a prioritization of the
interests of those responsible for the crises.
I added a chapter on Fukushima to the Dispossession project, but soon
realized the story demanded a full book. Fukushima and the
Privatization of Risk evolved as a focused look at how risks during the
ongoing disaster have been denied, trivialized, and externalized. I
emphasized the genetic effects of radiation because I’ve considerable
background writing about environmental health and genomics. My three
previous books on autism and biopolitics (the politics of life) offer
detailed accounts of the fundamental openness and vulnerability of the
human genome. Ionizing radiation, I soon learned, is among the most
genotoxic substances known, but the biological effects have historically
been highly contested by the global nuclear-military-industry complex.
The interests of this complex continue to be prioritized over human
health and welfare” (personal communication, December, 2013).
The Fukushima Disaster
Nothing epitomizes the notion of privatization of risk better than
the Japanese government’s failure to evacuate residents who were in
harm’s way when the Fukushima nuclear reactors exploded and melted down
on and after March 11, 2011. Nadesan writes that the government
prioritized “managing panic” rather than decisively acting on a
“data-driven evacuation of citizens.” Giving that
wa (harmony)
is a social virtue in Japanese society, it was figured that long term
effects from cancer would be preferable over the embarrassment of
admitting that a terrible mistake had been made. “[T]he true risks for
Fukushima residents and others exposed to Fukushima fallout will only be
realized in the future.” Ah, there’s the rub, “no immediate danger” as
government spokesman Edano loved to repeat at the time.
The process of bioaccumulation of radiation from the food and water
supply can take up to several decades to kill a person, and by then the
accident will have been long forgotten with the epidemiological data
hidden in a morass of scientific fraud and bureaucratic
unaccountability. Even in the best cases of medical science it is nearly
impossible to prove cause and effect until it is too late. By the time
all data is collected the cohorts are already dead. Such data could be
valuable to build a case against nuclear energy, but even with Chernobyl
there is still a huge amount of denial by the nuclear establishment of
the ill effects on populations.
What happened at Fukushima was nothing new. Limited liability
corporations in conjunction with crony politicos have been poisoning the
planet and its people for a long, long time. We homo sapiens (the wise
species) put up with a heck of a lot of abuse. Nadesan writes that:
“The privatization of risk is a global social trend occurring in
myriad ways as risk is shifted from organized entities– such as
government and corporations– to private citizens.”
With Fukushima, we have an industrial accident of unprecedented
scale, which the powers-that-be cannot sweep under the rug. The issue is
plagued with uncertainty and fear, due to the great “scale of
emissions” “extent of fallout and deposition patterns” as well as
uncertainty about the continued amount of radioactive releases from the
FNPP#1.
The reactor buildings themselves are unapproachable by human workers.
Bring in the reptilian robot workers from Mars! In fact, Tepco is
desperate for workers and hiring old men and foreigners.
The key debate is about the health effects of radiation with
authorities in Japan and the US assuring us that the amounts most people
are exposed to is nothing to get riled up about. After all, you could
slip on ice and bump your head, get run over by a truck or be struck
down by a lightening bolt as well.
Nadesan cites an important report from a Tokyo University MD who
notes that Fukushima released the equivalent of 29.6 Hiroshima atomic
bombs. That is a statistic you would think garner some attention. Yet
the internet trolls at the Japan Times comment section love to point out
that radiation is in bananas, and bananas are safe and delicious. The
same paid disinformation agents who are employed by the CIA, the US
government, corporations and the nuclear industry would not want to live
in Fukushima, work at the FNPP or move back into the evacuation zone,
themselves. Hypocrites, cowards, liars and frauds.
Nadesan asks “[w]hat health risks face citizens of Japan and
elsewhere impacted by the dispersion of fallout through weather patterns
and ocean current?” Yet even the critical minded Asahi Newspaper was
informing readers that “eating more cesium” than usual was not
dangerous. Well, that was in early 2012 and since then such ridiculous
claims are less commonly heard, and most people are more skeptical of
the authorities’ claims of food safety. I live in Tokyo and can say that
shoppers will tend to buy foods from outside the Tohoku (northeastern)
region, especially if it says “Fukushima” on the label. This is obvious
given the low prices of produce sold from that region, and the higher
prices of products from the more distant Kyushu island of Japan (where
demand but also transport costs drive up prices). Although the
government does not clearly explain the risks of consuming radioactive
food and water, most people have a vague sense about the danger.
Nadesan points out, and I concur from people I have talked to in
Japan, that most are only vaguely aware of the effects from
bio-accumulation to themselves and the intergenerational damage to the
human genome, which damages the health and viability of descendants. I
did not understand the nuances of genomic disruptions and dangers until I
read this book. Still, the nuclear agenda has come under attack from a
wide variety of conscientious sources, including journalists, scientists
and doctors. When the World Health Organization tried to downplay the
effects of radiation from Fukushima not everyone bought the toxic goods
they were selling (21).
The Nuclear Weapons/Power Cartel: Destroying the World One Missile DU Munition And Dirty Bomb Nuclear Power Plant At A Time
Nadesan points out that “[n]uclear power has from its beginnings been
tied closely to nuclear weapons production…. despite engineering
challenges, prohibitive costs, and public discomfort about radiation,
the major industrial powers launched their nuclear energy programs.”
US President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech in 1953,
was “a masterpiece of inversion, transforming the horrors of nuclear
weapons into the productive, peaceful promise of nuclear energy” and was
the treacherous launch pad for the world’s most deadly technology.
Atoms for Peace lead to Japan’s adoption of the “Atomic Energy Basic
Law” two years later.
At the same time the official promoters and apologists for nuclear
energy, the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), was created
in association with the the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, a
part of the United Nations. How ironic that the IAEA’s work has
contaminated the world food supply with radiation spewed from the
nuclear power operators. Nadesan writes that the “IAEA endows research
at institutes through grants, a practice that began in 1960 and
continues today.” The IAEA sees no problems with a nuclear accident
here, a catastrophe there, and promotes the “peaceful uses of nuclear
energy” without any shame. We need nuclear energy like we need a hole in
the head.
I wonder what George Orwell would have said about nuclear power given
the cognitive dissonance (a favorite literary device of his) that is
required for its implementation. The hubris of the promoters of science
and technology often allows them to sacrifice safety and sanity in
exchange for material rewards. For example, for 1.4 trillion dollars,
just half the cost of the War in Iraq, a genocidal and completely
unwarranted attack that killed and displaced millions and destroyed an
entire country, enough wind turbines could be built to meet US
electricity demands (22). Renewable energy would be the ethical choice
in this case.
The double-think, hypocrisy and denial of the dangers of the nuclear
agenda were apparent during the Cold War, and it is purported by some
analysts that the entire Cold War itself was a conspiracy to oppress the
world’s peoples under two comparatively oppressive systems, communism
(Stalin’s mass murder regime) and capitalism (USA’s global military
empire). That issue aside, Nadesan states that it “was clear that the
spread of commercial nuclear energy would increase the risks of nuclear
weapons proliferation.” This is no small insight. The very technology
that was claimed to bring liberating energy and prosperity to the world
also enabled the nuclear arms race and brought the world to the brink of
nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.
Today, exporters of nuclear technology such the US, France and Japan
also claim to fight “terrorism.” War is Peace when the now totally
discredited beacons of peace and democracy are actually the true
promoters and supporters of terrorism. What could be more terroristic
than the US and France in tearing up the Middle East, or Japan damaging
one of the world most important ecosystems, the Pacific Ocean! “BRIC”
countries mistakenly to join the nuclear arms and energy bizarre so as
not lose geopolitical and economic advantage.
Nuclear power has never been only a form of “peaceful” energy
production. Nadesan notes that in Japan nuclear power is about
“promoting multiple forms of security.” This process began shortly after
the end of WWII when the CIA and a shrewd businessman named Matsutaro
Shoriki transformed the Yomiuri shimbun (newspaper) into a propaganda
rag in order to persuade the bombed out and shell shocked Japanese
public to adapt the very sinister technology that had laid waste to
their country.
Previous to Eisenhower’s reign, President Harry S. Truman carried out
a massive “soft power…. Campaign for Truth” in order combat communism.
This was a US “cultural offensive” that involved “Japanese
intellectuals” of which Shoriki was but one, albeit very important,
agent (23).
Nadesan outlines how it was not by coincidence that Japan’s first law
to legalize nuclear energy production and the LDP, Japan’s major
political party, were born the same year, spawned out of a CIA
incubator. Years later, the very reactors to meltdown at Fukushima were
also American made, the flawed Mark 1 reactor design produced by General
Electric (who in collusion with the US government, intentionally
carried out an engineering fraud when defects became known in the 1970s
but were papered over with duct tape and Elmer’s Glue!). Today GE is
integrated with the Japanese corporation, Hitachi.
Not all can be blamed on the USA, however. Nadesan points out “that
TEPCO’s nuclear power plants have been plagued with scandals” throughout
most of the time of their operation, especially in recent decades as
the reactors have aged. She delineates the pattern of criminal
negligence on the part of the company to put profits before people and
the environment. Even after the 2011 accident “[n]uclear energy was
prioritized over the myriad economic and social risks caused by the
Fukushima disaster.”
The Nuclear Ace Up The Sleeve Deception
According to the logic of nuclear warfare game theory, Japan’s
obsession, especially driven by the political philosophy of the LDP, is
to sacrifice, in “kamikaze” fashion, the ecological health and
sustainability of the physical nation in exchange for the “security” of
holding the barely concealed Ace-up-the-sleeve nuclear weapon capability
deterrent.
Japan is the only country to develop a stockpile of weapons grade
plutonium– sufficient to equip 5,000 nuclear warheads– which also is
technically considered to be a non-nuclear weapons country (similarly
Israel is presumed to have hundreds of nuclear weapons already built but
has never officially declared their existence or signed the non
proliferation treaty).
Nadesan writes that “Japan’s status as nuclear weapons-capable is
loudly broadcast through its uranium reprocessing and enrichment
capabilities, plutonium stockpiles, and advanced aeronautical
capabilities.” Indeed, Japan has “risked accident, terrorism, and
international criticism for pursuing plutonium stockpiles” in
conjunction with their nuclear fuel reprocessing allies in France and
Britain.
Given that it is impossible to provide reliable security for a
nuclear reactor in a cost efficient manner, it is clear that nuclear
power is the greatest threat to a nations’ security. In Japan’s case,
the earthquake that destroyed no less than four reactors and spewed
massive radiation into the environment was the “terrorist” at work. But
any sitting reactor acts as a ticking time bomb, a veritable doomsday
machine with a bull’s eye target painted on its side just waiting for a
super high-tech drone attack from an enemy. In this case the sane and
ethical option would be to adopt photo voltaic panels which are
infinitely safer and fast becoming cheaper.
Fukushima’s Deadly Legacy
Given the well financed campaign by the nuclear industry to downplay
nuclear disasters, Nadesan’s analysis of radiation risks is
indispensable.
The era of atmospheric testing of nuclear devices (A la Slim Pickens’
beloved mushroom cloud) which occurred mainly in the 1950s, totaled
over 500 above ground detonations. This became a cause for grave concern
among conscientious scientists and the public.
The 1956 U.S. Academy of Science report, “Biological Effects of
Atomic Radiation” (aka the “BEAR” report) is cited by Nadesan “to
demonstrate that geneticists warned decades ago of the potential for
significant intergenerational health and reproductive risk from nuclear
weapons and energy-sourced radiation exposure, but their warnings were
discounted” due to “perceived national security benefits” by the nuclear
priesthood of scientists and policy makers.
The BEAR report– which was written by highly credentialed scientists
that were nevertheless under attack from the nuclear-military proponent
sector– states after careful consideration that “even very small amounts
of radiation unquestionably have the power to injure hereditary
materials” in humans and other organisms. Nadesan summarizes some of the
main points of BEAR:
“Radiations cause mutations. Mutations affect those hereditary traits
which a person passes on to his children and subsequent generations….
Practically all radiation-induced mutations which have effects large
enough to be detected are harmful. A small but not negligible part of
this harm would appear in the first generation of the offspring of the
person who received the radiation. Most of the harm, however, would
remain unnoticed, for a shorter or longer time, in the genetic
constitution of the successive generations of offspring….
Any radiation dose, however small, can induce some mutations….
Like radiation-induced mutations, nearly all spontaneous mutations with detectable effects are harmful….
Additional radiation (i.e., radiation over and above the irreducible
minimum due to natural causes) produces additional mutations (over and
above spontaneous mutations)….
What counts, from the point of view of genetic damage, is not the
rate [of exposure to radiation]; it is the total accumulated dose to
reproductive cells of the individual from the beginning of his life up
to the time the child is conceived….”
Nadesan highlights radiation effects on children and cites the work
of Ernest Sternglass who in 1969 “publicized his research by
arguing…that radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing had caused the
death of 375,000 infants” and “countless fetal deaths” from 1951 to
1966.
In addition to data cited by Nadesan, Epstein reported that a “2002
U.S. Centers for Disease Control report calculated that fallout caused
15,000 U.S. cancer deaths, a figure some believed was a gross
underestimate. The following year, a blue ribbon European panel reported
61,600,000 cancer deaths worldwide from fallout” (24).
Bertell makes a bolder estimate that “[u]p to 1,300 million [1.3
billion!] people have been killed, maimed or diseased by nuclear power
since it’s inception. The industry’s figures massively underestimate the
real cost of nuclear power, in an attempt to hide its victims from the
world” (25).
Nadesan cites the former head of the UN, Kofi Annan who “calculated
that at least 7,000,000 people were adversely impacted by the
[Chernobyl] disaster.”
The Dangers Of Ionizing Radiation
One of the arguments often marshaled by nuclear apologists is that
natural background radiation is not bad for you, ergo radiation released
from nuclear fission processes is also safe.
However, Nadesan points out that “mitochondrial DNA is particularly
vulnerable to disruption by ionizing radiation, even among people
acculturated to relatively high levels of natural (not human produced)
background exposure.” She found that in one study “children exposed to
higher than ordinary gamma radiation…. found a 12 percent increase in
childhood leukemia for every millisievert of natural gamma-radiation
dose to bone marrow.” Iran is often mentioned by nuclear apologists as
evidence that high background radiation is totally safe, and yet a study
found that “higher rates of mitochondrial DNA mutations correlated with
higher background exposure” and affected the genomic integrity of
future generations of offspring.
In other words, neither natural background radiation nor manmade
forms are safe: “common forms of exposure to ionizing radiation can
cause cancer and leukemia and…genetic damage can be transmitted across
generations.”
There is mounting evidence that radioactive pollution in the global
environment plays “a causative role in childhood diseases such as autism
and congenital heart disease” and that novel genetic mutations caused
by radiation “may have significant transgenerational effects.” One
researcher cited by Nadesan notes that “[g]enomic instability is an
all-embracing term to describe the increased rate of acquisition of
alternations in the genome.” The cellular process of life is open to
“multiple pathways” for disruption and the perpetuation of “induced
instability” from radiation.
In an important report from 2006, Nadesan concludes of its findings
that “radiation exposure that overwhelms repair mechanisms can result in
a cascade of genomic events posing long-term adverse effects for
biological health and reproduction.”
Nadesan concludes her chapter on radiation effects with this disturbing indictment of the current health regime:
“[C]urrent risk models may under-predict the incidents and range of
diseases caused by radiation exposure, within the individuals live span
and across generations of their progeny. Bio-accumulation in organs,
bio-magnification in predators, synergy effects, and the vulnerabilities
produced by increased rates of transgenerational genetic mutations
present significant challenges to the ecological validity of
contemporary dose-effect models.”
This is a major scandal given that the establishment risk models
focus on immediate doses to the individual rather than their
descendants. That is what is called the Externalization Of Risk and what
I call the Futurization Of Murder as we are exposed to “increasingly
radiotoxic environments.”
Conclusion: Time To Loudly Ring The Warning Bell
Nadesan poses a question to thoughtful readers as well as to the
lackey politicians tied to the nuclear industry, who claim to care about
human and environmental welfare, and economic prosperity.
“A nuclear disaster such as Fukushima produces risks that are truly
cataclysmic, but also immeasurable. How does one measure the range of
diseases that will be caused and/or exacerbated by an increase of
exposure to radioisotopes in the air , drinking water, precipitation,
and food, especially across generations?”
But how can this be? By the very fact that radiation risks are
largely immeasurable, the powers-that-be can hide behind plausible
deniability, and go on their merry way even if their own children may
come to suffer from Fukushima induced diseases. The warning bell has
been rung loudly, but is there still time to save the planet? Nadesan
poignantly asks:
“How many more bells will ring before humanity has destroyed its ecosystem and genome beyond repair?”
Thank you Professor Nadesan. We now return you to your regularly
scheduled programming: News at 11:00 followed by the late late show
starring Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Have a pleasant evening, and remember:
“yeeehaw.”
Richard Wilcox holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a
social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of
universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental
topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com/ and he can be contacted at wilcoxrb2013@gmail.com
References
1. Majia Holmer Nadesan, Fukushima And The Privatization Of Risk. 2013, 149 pp. (Palgrave/Pivot).
Fukushima is already an ELE. Three of the cores have melted through the containment vessels and into the Earth. TEPCO says it doesn’t know where it is (NASA can easily spot it, but refuses to show the pictures to the public), but not to worry because they have everything under control and they have achieved cold shutdown. Never mind that pesky little leak or two and the Photoshopped image of #4, and please take our word for it that we are not killing the Pacific Ocean by continuously pouring waste to sea 24/7. Oh, and let’s pretend that the yellow cloud from the explosion at #2 was hydrogen, even though hydrogen burns white and the explosion was obviously plutonium. How sad that I know such a thing and the NRC doesn’t. We are facing the worst environmental disaster of humankind, a disaster that IS DESTROYING THE PLANET every passing second and the NRC is pushing for MORE nuclear power plants!
Do you guys have a death wish? Do you believe that Armageddon is around the corner, so what the hell, why not build more nuclear power planters because the world is going to end in some Dalisque radioactive landscape? How can you possibly keep a straight face while putting forth such useless garbage touting Obama’s “Open Government” (the biggest oxymoron in the world)? Has the NRC been open about the effects of radiation? Of course not.
You guys compare the radiation from Fukushima to that of a banana or a plane ride. You ignore the contamination of the US food supply. Meanwhile in Japan, THE CORIUM HAS MELTED THROUGH THE CONTAINMENT VESSELS! There is nothing underneath. The reactors are on a major fault line. This is a freaking disaster!!! If I can figure this out, why can’t the NRC? It is what is referred to as “The China Syndrome” to the common folk.
The fourth building is near collapse and when – not if – it does, it is “Adios!” to life on this planet. It’s already happening. The entire Northern Hemisphere has been contaminated by radiation and almost all of the food supply has been affected. There has been a huge spike in stillbirths, miscarriages and mutant babies in the Pacific Northwest and California. Seals are dying. Insects are dying. Plants are changing. The United States is doused in radiation and Radnet is…I am not sure where it is. Last I heard it was checking quarterly instead of daily. We do not know what the true levels of radiation are because this government isn’t an open government, no matter what your PR rep wrote.
I do not now what the solution is, but I know that nuclear energy is not part of the equation. Your new platform must rebrand the agency as the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency – and do it soon before the US and Japanese economies and governments collapse, because then there is no one left to fund the decommissioning of these reactors. And god forbid solar activity takes out part of the grid and these plants do not have enough energy to maintain hot and/or cold shutdown. But you guys probably have a plan for this, some super secret plan that does not fall within the parameter’s of Obama’s “Open Government,” right?
If the agency, employees and the PR shills who work for them collectively believe that nuclear power is safe and Fukushima radiation is just bananas, then I propose you put your money where your mouth is and have a little field trip to Fukushima – without radiation gear or even Geiger counter (because nuclear energy is SAFE!) – and eat everything grown in the Fukushima prefecture. You can put it live on YouTube for all to see! Or you could even do Pay-per-view – I think that it would be a revenue maker for the federal government!
I would pay to watch every GS-13 and up (if they are still called that) and every manager have a picnic outside of Fukushima Daichi (but don’t sit too close to #4 in case it collapses). Until you are willing to expose yourself to Fukushima (not that you haven’t been for a year and a half), I think you need to adopt a new platform that better serves Americans and dismantles all nuclear facilities.
I know that signing my name to this will likely put me on some sort of enemy list, if I am not already on one. So be it. At least the person in charge of my dossier will be forced to confront the reality of the situation and to realize just who it is they are serving when they collect their paychecks. At least I cannot be accused of committing a crime against humanity.