Contamination will last for generations

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(continued from page 6: “Fukushima nuclear disaster”) the other was cranked out to get the Japanese people to accept the “peaceful use of the atom” after expe­ riencing the devastation of the murderous atomic bomb blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Consequently, just as with Big Oil and Big Pharma in the U.S., the nuclear industry has been allowed to write its own rules. In Japan, TEPCO executives, with a wink and a nod from corrupt agencies, chose to ignore 2000 years of earthquake evidence in the re­ gion, and then claimed that the magnitude 9.0 tremor and tsunami were “unanticipated” events. Both in­ dustry and government are guilty of collusion, lying to the public, incompetence, and criminal negligence.

The capitalist media and pro-nuke academics have chimed in, repeating ad nauseum that the radiation to which millions are exposed is no cause for alarm— when, in fact, there are no safe levels. All radiation is mutagenic and carcinogenic, and we are all exposed to background and medical radiation as well as that from the nuclear fuel cycle and weapons production. They have habitually lied about the dangers of atomic bomb fallout and the routine emissions of radioactive gasses and tritiated water from the daily operation of nuclear reactors.

They have also done their best to cover up the im­ pacts of catastrophic accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima. We are told, “Don’t worry, be happy,” but more and more people are no longer accepting the Big Lie and are getting fed up. Their frustration and disgust are expressed in the words of one Fukushima resident, Kouta Mi­ yazaki, who said, “We’re being told to get radiated and drop dead.” This is no longer acceptable.

The Japanese archipelago is peppered with 54 nuclear reactors. All but two have been taken off line for various reasons. Ten were knocked out by the tsunami, six are on active faults, and some were shutdown for refueling at the time of the earthquake.

Towns must approve the restart of reac­ tors, so the utility has tried to scare people, claiming there will be a power shortage, es­ pecially in the summer months, if nuclear facilities remain shut down. They’ve even tried to pack town meetings to swing the vote in favor of restarting. As a result, there have been big clashes between townsfolk and company representatives. The anti-nu­ clear movement in Japan now constitutes 20 percent of the population, with swelling petitions and protests, saying, “Enough!” Another round of radioactive roulette Despite all kinds of rhetoric about safety, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has not learned one lesson from the Fukushima debacle. It has been extending licenses on aging and decrepit reactors left and right, allowing them to expand their power outputs without, for what it’s worth, implementing a single new safety measure beforehand. This is occurring while their spent-fuel pools are perilously overload­ ed and their dry-cask storage is filling up with no safe, long-term way to sequester the deadly rad-waste. Twenty-three reactors in 16 locations have the de­ fective GE Mark 1 design used at Fukushima Dai’ichi, and 27 are situated on active fault lines. The opera­ tors of Diablo Canyon in earthquake-prone California claim it will be safe from a tsunami because the plant stands 100 feet above sea level on the coast. But as nuclear engineer and whistleblower Arne Gundersen points out, this is part of the delusion of nuclear safe­ ty since the emergency cooling pumps—the ultimate heat sink—have to be at sea level to access the water, and it was the tsunami that destroyed the pumps at Fukushima.

Make no mistake, all reactors are vulnerable to seis­ mic activity and accidents, whether they are due to natural disasters, human error, equipment failure, or a combination of all three.

As part of the so-called nuclear renaissance—justi­ fied with greenwash about climate change—the NRC has recently approved two nuclear reactors (the first since 1978) to be built in Georgia and backed up with federal loan guarantees at taxpayers’ expense. The facility will consist of two AP 1000 pressurized-wa­ ter reactors built by Westinghouse-Toshiba, despite numerous objections from engineers and scientists over design flaws, including an easily corrodible con­ tainment vessel, and other major safety issues. April 26 marks the anniversary of the Chernobyl re­ actor explosion, which irradiated the entire Northern Hemisphere. According to a Russian study published by the New York Academy of Sciences, that terrible T mankind. We must stop listening to the Orwellian here is an alternative to this specter that haunts hu­ doublespeak and cooperating in our own destruction in a state of passive acceptance, either blissfully ignorant or gripped by constant uncertainty and fear.

We must free ourselves from dependence upon this insane form of electrical generation that the human ge­ nius is clearly unable to control. There is no need for it, not with clean, renewable energy that is genuinely car­ bon-neutral—unlike nukes, which produce greenhouse gases at every energy-intensive stage of the nuclear cycle.

Even the UN’s conservative IPCC issued a landmark study stating that “Renewable energy can power the world.” Locally generated and distributed wind, solar, and geothermal power can be achieved through a crash program funded by the war budget. Also, industry can be retooled and converted for the green production of the necessities of life, including organically grown food, which can also feed the world.

If we are to put and end to environmental devastation (Above) Philippine environmental activists protest at Japanese embassy in Manila, March 12. (Left) Fukushima Dai’ichi Unit 3 reactor, one year after earthquake and tsunami.

calamity caused 985,000 deaths between 1986 and 2004, with more to come. The fuel is still fissile and the temporary concrete-and-steel covering is leaking. Immediately following the accident, there were numerous stillbirths throughout Europe, and the people of Ukraine and Belarus have been plagued by male sterility, female infertility, and reproductive cancers, along with thyroid cancers and other health problems in their children. Biologists have observed dramatic declines in wildlife in the exclusion zone, with mutation rates and developmental abnormali­ ties up and fertility and survival rates down. West European livestock, because of irradiated pasture, as well as wild game, are still unfit to consume. Certain species of wild mushrooms, very effective at absorb­ ing radiation, are banned from being collected and sold in markets 26 years later.

For the sake of private profit, the big corporations are playing radioactive roulette with our lives. With 435 nuclear reactors worldwide, the industry claims that the risk of major accident is very low with the probability of a core meltdown being one in 250 years. Experience has shown that this is complete rubbish since a significant nuclear accident has oc­ curred approximately once every decade since the dawn of the nuclear age. We don’t like the odds, and we say, “No More Nukes!” n and allow the deep wounds inflicted upon the planet’s ecosystems by capitalist exploitation and greed to heal, we must live in harmony with Mother Nature. It takes decades to decommission nuclear power plants.

In addition, global heating, due to the profligate burn­ ing of fossil fuels, is racing toward irreversible tipping points—so this great enterprise must begin immedi­ ately. It has to be done for the sake of humanity, Earth’s climate, and the other species with whom we humbly share this world.

Keeping in mind that the human economy is a whollyowned subsidiary of Mother Nature, this will require a mode of production that puts ecological and human needs before private profits, one that is based on com­ munal decision making and cooperative action. There­ fore, an eco-socialist revolution is the only way for­ ward with the toilers of the world—in factories and on farms—in the lead. The future is in the hands of work­ ers and farmers, who have the collective power to grasp the reins of production and put an end to capitalist rape and plunder. — CHRISTINE FRANK SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2012 7

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Dave Siccardi / San Diego Union Tribune / AP