I hate being a fear monger. And I just heard a new quote that applies: “Worry is a misuse of imagination.” That is brilliant. And in most cases I think we need to do whatever we can to avoid fear and worry. It is well documented that prolonged states of fear and worry lead to serious health problems.
However, very occasionally in the course of human affairs something comes along that we simply must pay attention to, even if it does raise the fear and worry levels.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster is such an event. As of this writing it is just a few days shy of 14 months since an earthquake crippled a major nuclear reactor plant in Japan. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant includes 6 nuclear steam electrical generating plants, designed by GE and operated by TEPCO of Japan.
There was at least basic coverage of the disaster and the initially-detected damage to the plant even in the mainstream media in the days and weeks that followed the initial event. So I will not rehash any of that here. And I wrote a umber of blog posts, covering what we needed to know immediately to protect ourselves against the ionizing radiation that was already spreading and detectable all around the world, particularly in all parts of the northern hemisphere.
But about 4 weeks or so after the initial event news of Fukushima dropped out of the mainstream media. And I think it safe to say that most of us not living near Fukushima, and certainly not living in Japan scarcely think about Fukushima anymore.
So why am I writing about it again? Simple, the extreme threat that Fukushima poses is not gone. Far from it. In fact, there are a number of world-renowned experts on the physics and engineering of reactors who have been trying to grab our attention since the Fukushima disaster first fell out of the attention of the mainstream media.
Why? Simply because the risks have not diminished one bit since the initial event. That’s right, the risk is at least as great as it ever was.
The assessment of the risk has dramatically increased since the initial event. Of course, the “authorities”, including most of the governments of the world’s industrial nations have done everything possible to downplay the dire threat that the crippled Fukushima plant continues to pose.
Of course, they fall back on the old excuse of not wanting to spread panic. There is some merit to that motivation, but not when it actually crosses over into outright lies, nor when it increases the risk and harm that people suffer. It is noteworthy that during the Chernobyl Disaster, the Soviet Government went to great lengths to downplay the disaster. Neighboring Poland, which was very near the stricken plant did not downplay the dangers.
Protective measures were not implemented at the level they should have been on the Soviet side, whereas the Polish government responded quickly, aggressively, warned its citizens of the full risk, and deployed sound protective measures. As a result, the number of deaths, injury and long-term disease on the Soviet side far exceeded those on the Polish side, even at comparable distances from the center of the disaster.
Today we face a similar problem, only the risks are very much higher. To this day, at the Fukushima plant the major danger now is from the spent fuel rod pools. These are essentially giant “swimming pools” where the spent fuel rods are stored. They MUST be kept submerged in cooling water that must be constantly circulated and re-cooled in order to keep the spent fuel rods from over-heating, leading to dangerous reactions, including fires, explosions and even total vaporization of the radioactive material.
There has already been a great of ionizing radiation released by the Fukushima disaster. As noted above, it has already spread to all parts of the world, and has been detected at levels many times higher than the pre-Fukushima background radiation levels.
Here’s what’s important to know now: At least one of the pools of spent fuel rods has suffered very significant structural damage, and is hovering on the edge of a major secondary disaster.
Depending on what happens next, estimates range from 10 times to 85 times the amount of radiation released that the Chernobyl disaster released. By any measure, that is a world disaster!
A release of 10 times the amount released by the Chernobyl disaster will render significant locations in various parts of the world, in addition to major areas of Japan, uninhabitable for decades. I don’t even want to think about what a release of 85 times Chernobyl would mean.
So, did I write this just to scare the dickens out of you? Not really.
Rather, this is a dual call to action. I highly recommend that y0u read my previous posts on protective measures and make appropriate preparations to protect yourself and your loved ones.
The sec0nd part of this call to action is to review and sign a petition to get several World organizations involved in cleaning up the mess and responding to this ongoing disaster. The scale is such that leaving it to GE and TEPCO, or even the Japanese government is totally impractical. And since it affects us all, it makes sense for all of us to respond.
Of course, it goes almost without saying that we all need to do everything in our power to prevent any new nuclear plants from being built, licensed or otherwise brought on-line. No matter how safe we may think the plant itself may be, we have never figured out a safe way to deal with the waste that these plants produce. And therefore, we have no business building new plants. I think that Fukushima should be an adequate demonstration that we simply cannot afford the risk.
Further, we should do all that we can to insist that all of the world’s existing nuclear power plants be taken off-line and decommissioned in as rapid but orderly fashion as possible.
If we care at all for our children, our grandchildren and their children we will do this.
Here are the links to my previous posts on protecting ourselves and the link to the petitions, as well as more articles written by various experts:
What To Know Right Now About Radiation Protection
A Few More Radiation Protection Measures
Am I Being Exposed To Dangerous Radiation Levels?
Radiation Detox – What You Need To Know
Radiation Health Updatate From Japan
From Natural News: Overview Of Ongoing Fukushima Dangers – A Call To Action For All Of Us!
Urgent Petition to make this the world survival issue that is should be: Fukushima Human Survival Petiton
Sincerely,
Jeff Bell
P.S. If you find yourself experiencing the fear and stress that honestly facing this threat understandably could cause, remember EFT, (Emotional Freedom Technique). It works wonders. We certainly need to know what is really going on. We need to take action. But it will not help for us to become paralyzed or sick with fear.