Our Nuclear Heritage: The Fukushima Catastrophe, Too Clever By A Half-Life
By Robert Snefjella
14 July, 2015
Countercurrents.org
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking and we thus drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.”- Albert Einstein
Has the Fukushima nuclear disaster, beginning in March 2011, been extremely harmful and is it extremely ominous? Or will the Fukushima 'problem' have negligible health impact, as offered by various 'experts' and 'prominent' institutions and commentators.
On the one hand, massive numbers and large varieties of lifeforms in the North Pacific Ocean, in the post-Fukushima period, are already extensively destroyed, dead or dying, or deformed. [1] Several large nuclear reactors blew up with, among many other nasty elements, plutonium [2] on board, and have now for four years been melting down and emitting massive amounts of radiation into the global environment. [3] This ensures more mutations, more deformities, more cancers, more health problems. In 2015 the situation at Fukushima is described by Japanese engineers as still out of control. “The chief of the Fukushima nuclear power plant has admitted that the technology needed to decommission three melted down reactors does not exists....” [4]
On the other hand, in support of the contention contained in the second question, we select first a “spokesperson for the Nuclear Energy Institute, who declared three months after the accident 'no health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima.'” [5] And Gerry Thomas, head of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank at Imperial College. London, in 2013, offered this: “Fukushima is nothing compared to Chernobyl.” [6] And here is George Monbiot at the Guardian in 2011 explaining how the accident has converted him to be pro nuclear: “Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small.” [7]
So what's going on here? It's not easy to find out. Let's take a stroll down explanation lane:
We now live in a geopolitical and cultural environment of global reach where the art and science of 'public perception management' has achieved impressive capabilities. Duplicitous and diversionary 'news' and 'information' via mass media, and censorship of critical information, are now indispensable bulwarks of the dominant global system. [8]
The layman's definition of insanity is 'being out of touch with reality': The crazy person fears a monster that doesn't exist, or embraces or ignores the monster that does.
'Public perception management' via censorship and lies, when 'successful', achieves the embedding of a highly influential multifaceted false reality in the public, and is thus in effect control via manufactured public insanity.
In the nuclear age, this is a fatal step, beyond the mere sovereignty of tyranny, and even beyond the sovereignty of the irrational, which reason has at least the potential to dethrone. Again, given the context of nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, a system based on dishonesty, dependent on make believe and public ignorance, is about as dysfunctional as it gets: that is, terminally dysfunctional.
An enveloping environment of control via duplicity means that humanity's unlimited potential for creative, sensible, beneficent and ethical personal and public interest policy is at least greatly hindered. The potential for evil acts and disastrous consequence is greatly enhanced. Which is where we are at.
In this environment it is difficult to to gain widespread solid understanding of just about any larger political or public issue. This is especially so when it comes to nuclear issues.
Lies and censorship have from the very beginning been entwined with all manner of nuclear issues. These rather tepid quotes from the prologue of the book The Nuclear Barons are suggestive of the obstructions to public understanding of nuclear issues since WW2: “…nuclear decision making has been a closed one, often hiding under the cover of national security.” “…experts differ widely on what precautions are necessary.” “Many of these decisions were taken without public debate…” “…the nuclear system showed an extraordinary capacity to create or manipulate its own needs”. [9]
That is, expert disagreements and self-interest and narrow specialist perspectives conjoin with endemic and ordained secrecy and censorship. Nuclear electricity was at birth intertwined with nuclear weapons, and provides material for and cover for nuclear weapons production: thus, nuclear energy became subject to the hallowed deceptions ‘mandated’ by 'military considerations', ‘national insecurity’ and so on.
Consistent with the above, near total mass media censorship and disinformation about Fukushima, beginning in March 2011, was implemented. This prevented necessary immediate global brainstorming over possible mitigation tactics, and prevented the possibility of mobilizing all-out implementation of conceivable mitigation and salvage operations.
The censorship and disinformation have also prevented people from learning about and taking actions to reduce personal and familial and community exposure to harm.
The longstanding censorship and dishonesty about nuclear issues has been buttressed in recent years by much concern pertaining to the ‘end of oil’, oil related pollution, and global warming. This has led many to conclude that though problematic, nuclear electricity was necessary in order to reduce reliance on fossil fuels: thus let us not speak truth or ill of the monstrosity.
The automatic institutional default position when it comes to the specter of potential liability also doesn’t help matters: Stonewall, deny responsibility, lie, admit no mistakes, avoid honest confession at all costs.
In the case of Fukushima we encounter many additional impediments to understanding the situation.
The government of Japan has in effect made it a criminal offense to tell the truth about the Fukushima disaster. [10]
The Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (TEPCO), the owner of the Fukushima reactors, has egregiously covered up and lied about what has been and is happening. [11]
The political leadership of countries other than Japan have participated in silence, ignorant assurances, or lies, pertaining to Fukushima. [12]
The global mass media have remained almost entirely true to their despicable selves and avoided like the plague integrity and quality journalism regarding Fukushima [13]
The World Health Organization (WHO) once again repudiates their ‘mythological’ role of protecting public health and giving sound health information [14] by shamelessly understating the danger that Fukushima presents. [15] In keeping the public in the dark, they are joined by a global network of prominent agencies that have the resources, should they so choose, to shine a light; yet that mislead or remain silent about Fukushima. [16]
Furthermore, there is no precedent for the events at, or the results of, Fukushima. Never have nuclear specialists encountered anything like the Fukushima explosions or melt downs and extreme levels of radioactivity and lack of knowledge about what is actually happening within and below the destroyed reactors, and ongoing probable fissioning.
Thus ‘experts’ - even if they can overcome the epidemic of cowardice which infects with craven silence so many of them, or the compulsion to regurgitate officially sanctioned falsehoods - can offer nothing more than opinions and guesses, with bits and pieces of 'specialized' knowledge injected, mediated in some cases by common sense, about what has happened and is happening and will happen: there is no Fukushima disaster expertise.
The challenge in sensibly assessing the implications of Fukushima is compounded by the dynamic interplay of many elements of the global environment. The radioactive materials released by and after the destruction of the Fukushima reactors not only effect life directly, by attacking life's wondrous blueprints and accurate-replicating capacity. They ,may also effect critical parts of life’s context: atmosphere, air, water, radiation from the sun and space. An example is the impact that the Fukushima disaster might have on the ozone layer, thus on the amount of harmful radiation striking the earth; which will effect say the viability of ultra-violet sensitive ocean microorganisms thus effecting oxygen production and oxygen levels in the ocean and over land, thus effecting both sea life and terrestrial creatures.
An additional problem is posed by the existence of very high, evacuation level radiation readings in many locations prior to Fukushima. [17] What are the sources; why weren't we told??
Many countries , including Canada and the United States, have grossly inadequate radiation monitoring systems, which helps keep the public in the dark. [18] (Some private individuals are contributing interesting research. [19])
Another complication, in the post-Fukushima context, is in separating out the effects of so-called geo-engineering, perhaps more appropriately termed geo-experimentation. Vast quantities of aluminum and other deleterious or mysterious particulates have been sprayed - ‘secretly’ in full view over our heads - over large parts of the planet for the last generation. [20]
Furthermore, again pre and post Fukushima, there is the question of the biological implications of a massive increase in human generated electromagnetic fields over the last decades. [21]
And there is the question of the contribution to global radioactive contamination of thousands of tonnes of nano-particles of illegal weapons material DU, concentrated locally and dispersed by weather globally through massive military use [22].
Another complication is the existence of hundreds of nuclear power plants, many aging poorly, many caught leaking or discharging surreptitiously [23], and there were all those nuclear ‘tests’ [24], and then there are those nuclear weapons related facilities with their sordid history of contamination: [25] So there is now an unprecedented man-made radioactive contamination enveloping the globe: the atmosphere, land, water and life have been increasingly contaminated: this global radioactive toxic load prior to Fukushima was consistently lied about: its harmfulness consistently underestimated and censored. [26]
There is also potential for harmful unexpected synergies and multiplier effects: unpleasant surprises. An example from the antique before-nuclear world is the magnified toxic effect of combining lead with mercury, where the toxicity of the two as a dynamic duo is much greater than each alone [27].
Furthermore, the public has been offered 'expert' puzzlement about the many reports of dead and dying lifeforms in the Pacific; musings about strange new diseases and viruses and ocean water temperature changes and acidification: all sorts of head scratching comments by 'scientists' and 'prestigious entities' about the mystery of it all: everything's dying. What has been virtually invisible in all this puzzlement are the words radiation and Fukushima: I guess when you're a high IQ entity, paid to peer as a career into the contaminated well of convention, and extract nothing too controversial, it's easy to miss exploded and melted down plutonium-containing nuclear reactors on the Japanese shore of the Pacific, emitting massive amounts of radiation into the air and ocean, the global environment, for four years [28].
And last for this abbreviated list, but not necessarily least, there is the question of hemispheric-scale harmful biological effect by HAARP like technology. [29]
Okay. So where are we? We have located some truth extinction zones when it comes to trying to understand Fukushima. We’ve also touched upon some of the complications, possible considerations and variables involved.
So, again, how damaging is Fukushima?
To repeat: much life in the northern parts of the vast, naively or hopefully named Pacific Ocean has been annihilated over the last four years.
That is, coincident with and following the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, much of the plant and animal life, microscopic and small and medium and large, in the Pacific Ocean east of Japan, over to and including the west coast of North America, has to a great extent been destroyed or harmed.
How do we know this? Well, it's certainly not via 'official' organs and 'prestigious' institutions. Most impressively, Dana Durnford for 160 days during 2014 and 2015 traveled thousands of kilometers on the water and along the shorelines of the West Coast of Canada voluminously documenting ecocide via film and photograph: the post Fukushima vast destruction of plant and animal large and small. [30]
Via his photographic record, and in his numerous video presentations, and radio interviews at Rense.com, Durnford has explained in no uncertain terms many aspects of the Fukushima disaster. In brief, again, just about everything in the water, and along the Canadian Pacific shores, is dead and missing or harmed: Thousands of species.
Rough hewn real, Durnford faces up to the grim facts of the matter with much incisive observation and information, outrage, and gallows humor.
Furthermore, in addition to Durnford, and confirming him, as noted, hundreds of reports have streamed in about a very wide variety of ‘unprecedented’ disease and death in the Pacific Ocean since Fukushima. ENE news has archived much material in this regard. [31]
Furthermore, even some Japanese, operating at the borders of the confines of officially mandated make believe, have offered that the situation 4 years after the initial disaster at Fukushima the situation remains completely out of control. [32]
A few thoughts on 'decommissioning', 'mitigation' and related subjects.
'Decommissioning' is a pretense word suggesting we will be able to take care of a highly radioactive nuclear power plant after its useful life is over. Easier said than done, given a best case scenario. [33] In the case of Fukushima, several nuclear plants exploded and melted down and have disgorged a great variety of dangerous radioactive materials into the global environment. Four years later parts of these wrecked plants are still a mysterious, extremely dangerous no-man's land.
So-called 'spent' fuel is yet another deception: the 'daughters' – siblings- that are produced by the radioactivity in power plant fuel are more radioactive than their 'parent'. Fission creates elements with shorter half lives – more active – and more of them than the 'parent': Plutonium, the offspring of uranium.
We dug out the uranium, radioactive material, from its burial in the earth, and brought it to the surface, into direct contact with the land and the waters and life, and then transformed it into instant mass murder, atomic bombs. We placed many of these weapons on a hair trigger basis, and have had many close calls [34], threatening more or less terminal catastrophe. We gave birth to boundless evil, plutonium and its diabolical siblings, shredding DNA, scrambling, mutating life's wondrous precise blueprints. In short, our nuclear heritage has bequeathed, prominently, the ongoing threat of nuclear war, as well as an assault on all life ensuring an increase in inherited malformations. For mutation and deformity illustrated, search “chernobyl + Iraq DU weapon cancers, deformities and mutations”
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” [35] Crime is being punished.
Fetal development and children are more at risk from radioactivity than adults.
Time now, very late, to atone, to salvage what decency and sanity we can.
Some brief notes towards necessary reforms: I will expand on these and others in later articles, but I'm not holding my breathe....
We must have the release of suppressed, beneficent inventions, especially as related to energy and health.
The use of direct democracy mechanisms could empower the public and cut through the Gordian knot of top-of-the-pyramid executive criminality, incompetence, corruption, cowardice, nefarious networking, and other ailments.
The transformation of the global money system from the current privately controlled pathological fiefdom into a rational and beneficent public utility could provide pain free financing for all necessary projects, as well as dis-empowering the pathology on top.
We should make a massive effort to create an in-harmony-with-nature energy, social and agricultural foundation.
We need a global maximum-effort brainstorming-effort pertaining to strategy and tactics to reduce the terminal danger posed by nuclear weapons and power plants, with immediate emphasis on Fukushima.
Here is the link to the ever pertinent Russell-Einstein Manifesto: http://www.umich.edu/~pugwash/Manifesto.html
Notes.
1. We will not live to see the long term planetary harm wrought by Fukushima and nuclear etc. After years of weekly in depth interviews of Yoichi Shimatsu and many interviews of Dana Durnford regarding Fukushima, Jeff Rense at Rense.com radio has described the situation in terms of greatest human disaster, and as an extinction event. The life in the Pacific Ocean East of Japan into North America has been vastly harmed or annihilated: post-Fukushima ecocide on Canada's west coast has been documented by Dana Durnford at http://www.thenuclearproctologist.org/ Much archived information on the destruction wrought and threat posed by Fukushima is available at http://enenews.com/ and http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/ 2. http://enenews.com/experts-plutonium-levels-10000000-times-normal-water-below-fukushima-reactors-plutonium-ocean-japan-hit-record-high-2014-pu-transported-relatively-long-distances-every-sample-rivers-flow-pacific Re toxicity of plutonium: A 1996 testing of 144 Beagles given inhaled Plutonium killed 141 of the dogs within 1.5 to 5.4 years. Bone tumors killed 93, Lung tumors killed 46, and liver tumors killed 2 (although liver tumors were found in 20 dogs, just that the Bone and Lung killed quicker).
3. For an illuminating discussion and description of the destruction of the reactors see Durnford's presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxbKYto-fd8
4. http://enenews.com/times-200-year-wait-problems-insurmountable#comments
5. http://sociology.yale.edu/sites/default/files/nuclear_denial.pdf
6. www.japantimes.co.jp/.../fukushima-health-disaster-or-pr-fail
7. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima
8. Paul Craig Roberts, who is unfortunately rare as an exemplar of succinct lucidity and integrity and excellence in journalism, describes the situation: “There is no other foundation... Just lies... This makes truth an enemy. Enemies have to be suppressed, and thus truth has to be suppressed.” http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/06/28/truth-crime-state/ Let us note that dishonesty and censorship are as old as humanity, and even during the newspaper era, manipulation of the public was pretty highly developed, but the contemporary situation, with a wide range of communication technology, and where prominent mass media and political and institutional spokespeople are habitual liars, and integrity is shunned, has no precedent. Concentrated ownership of media empires in conjunction with decades of CIA extremely ambitious efforts (Operation Mockingbird) to manipulate globally via lies and prevent forthright communication have been very successful in creating the situation described by Roberts above. Also note: http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/p/corporations-art-and-science-of.html
9. Authors Peter Pringle and James Spigelman
11. http://rt.com/op-edge/200107-fukushima-japan-
12. Both Canadian Prime Minister Harper (“Federal officials are also reassuring Canadians there's no risk of radiation travelling from Japan to the West Coast”) and US President Obama (“Any fallout from a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan won't affect Americans, President Obama said Tuesday”). have assured their citizens that Fukushima poses no danger. After Fukushima, the government of Canada passed Bill C-22, which places a one billion dollar limit on liability for harm damage done by the nuclear industry. https://openparliament.ca/bills/41-2/C-22/
13. Try a search on the Internet for Fox and CNN and BBC etc for references to Fukushima over the last years. It will reveal criminal negligence and deception. With life in the waters on the west coast of Canada decimated already, the broadcaster CBC cheerfully reports in 2015 on the absence of radiation from Japan. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fukushimanuclear-pollution-hasn-t-hit-b-c-shore-says-researcher-jay-cullen-1.2990947
Nuclear reactors blown up by massive explosions and melting down and involving among other things thousands of fuel rods containing plutonium would seem to be not considered a newsworthy item.
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/07/cover-up-mainstream-reporting-on.html
14. An example of WHO malfeasance is the H1N1 scam-pandemic, where the WHO played an important nefarious role. http://www.wodarg.de/english/3509880.html
The WHO made a secret agreement in 1959 with the International Atomic Energy Association to allow the nuclear industry to in effect control what the WHO revealed to the public relating to nuclear issues. http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/2014/05/who-is-iaea-what-does-iaea-do-who-funds.html And this: http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/05/iaea-who-and-others-web-of-deception.html
15. “A comprehensive assessment by international experts on the health risks associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) disaster in Japan has concluded that, for the general population inside and outside of Japan, the predicted risks are low and no observable increases in cancer rates above baseline rates are anticipated.” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_report_20130228/en/
16. Health Canada: “The damaged nuclear power reactors in Japan do not pose a health risk to residents of British Columbia or the rest of Canada”. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/ed-ud/respond/nuclea/2011-03-17-eng.php And the EPA: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2011/0411/How-do-we-know-Fukushima-isn-t-a-danger-to-US-Radnet-says-so
17. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/10/25/comment-on-radiation-2010-2014/
18. http://www.naturalnews.com/031963_radiation_exposure.html
http://enenews.com/watchdog-inexplicable-epa-shut-down-fukushima-radiation-monitoring-after-finding-high-levels-radiation-drinking-water http://www.vancouverobserver.com/world/canada/2011/04/01/doctors-express-
19. http://wp.me/puwO9-3N5 offers humble and insightful radiation detective work: = https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2015/07/06/gamma-spectroscopy-colorado-radioactive-rain-june-14-2015-fukushima/ And this: http://healfukushima.org/2015/07/02/hot-rain-over-ontario-canada-july-1-2015-4-93-mshr/
20. The films What In The World Are They Spraying and the sequel Why In The World Are They Spraying, are useful introductions. www.whyintheworldaretheyspraying.com
Much information is available at www.geoengineeringwatch.org
21. BioIntitiative 2012 perused 5000 studies since 2007 on EMF and biological impact and came away very concerned: “Bioeffects are clearly established to occur with very low exposure levels (non-thermal levels) to electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation exposures.” “...the situation is much worse than in 2007.” http://www.bioinitiative.org
22. Dr. Keith Baverstock, formerly of the WHO, re DU's threat to health: “A number of organisations, including the World Health Organisation … have, since 2001, published advice relating to the health consequences of exposure to DU. You may wonder, as I do, how such authoritative and independent organisations, making ostensibly "independent" assessments of the situation can all ignore the evidence that exists in the scientific literature”. http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/24.html
23. “Radioactive tritium has leaked from three quarters of U.S. Commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/radioactive-tritium-leaks-us-nuclear-plants_n_881090.html
24. http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/nuclear-atmospheric-bomb-testing-1945.html
25. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/america-s-atomic-time-bomb-hanford-nuclear-waste-still-poses-serious-risks-a-752944.html http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/fact-sheets/critical-issues/4734-environment-and-nuclear-weapons
27. http://www.flcv.com/hgsynerg.html
28. Among very many examples:
29. BioInitiative 2012 was surprised to find biological impact from over 4/5 of the Lower Ranges of Frequency of Electromagnetic Fields. http://www.bioinitiative.org/bioinitiative-working-group-announces-whats-new-link/ This is HAARP's potential range of impact.
30. Durnford has made many heartfelt and insightful live presentations pertaining to Fukushima as well as his post-Fukushima ocean journeys documenting the disastrous situation in the waters and shorelines of Canada's West Coast. These can be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE2rZOVPBHBY3mS0mBwwqZw One noteworthy among many is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6l2YxxQZz4 which shows some of the reactors at Fukushima as completely demolished.
33. http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/2012/03/fukushima-is-it-really-in-cold-shutdown.html
34. http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/05/13-close-calls-why-mad-total-nuclear.html
35. Martin Luther King
Robert Snefjella is an organic farmer living in Ontario Canada
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