Home

Crowdfunding Countercurrents

CC Archive

Submission Policy

Join News Letter

Defend Indian Constitution

#SaveVizhinjam

CounterSolutions

CounterImages

CounterVideos

CC Youtube Channel

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Iraq

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Climate Change

US Imperialism

Palestine

Communalism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

Arts/Culture

Archives

About Us

Popularise CC

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name


E-mail:



Search Our Archive



Our Site

Web

 

 

 

 

Extremely Cautionary Catastrophes: Fukushima And Chernobyl

By Robert Snefjella

28 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org

With phenomenal ingenuity and extreme folly, technically-advanced humanity has managed to conceive and implement a technology that has done much harm to life, and will do much greater harm to life, and that even threatens our extinction. Whether suddenly through nuclear war, or through a pernicious slow motion assault on life's wondrous, intricate, amazing inner workings and accurate reproductive capabilities, nuclear technology is inherently, inescapably, anti-life. Given that the rest of the marvels of creation – that which has so far survived us – is also along for the ride, it's not just about us. One might wonder, if the rest of creation were capable of hope, if it would be clinging to the fading hope that humanity at this late hour would transform itself into a species characterized by a decisively dominant strain of sane, careful, sensible behavior, or, if it would be hoping for our demise, the sooner the better, come what may. If we are to extricate ourselves from the trap into which we have placed ourselves, it will take much more ingenuity, and much reduced folly.

This piece is an incomplete overview of our situation, intended to boost general understanding of these subjects. Some reflections on essential reforms close out the piece.

“[In 1936] ... [Fatu Hiva's ocean pools and shorelines] literally teemed with life.”

From the book Fatu-Hiva, By Thor Heyerdahl. (He lived on the Polynesian Island of Fatu-Hiva in 1936)

“[In 2015] … everything [flora and fauna] is missing!” [along the shorelines and in the tidal pools of British Columbia]

Dana Durnford's words, after his 15000 mile odyssey along the west coast of Canada in 2014 and 2015

The unprecedented mass mortality of much life in the North Pacific Ocean in recent years has been given inadequate coverage by corporate mass media, and has not gained widespread public awareness.

In local media close to the 'situation', there have been many reports of unusual numbers of deaths, of strange diseases, of mass disappearances of life forms. And sometimes these reports appear in national and international media. But such reports are typically brief, sporadic, disconnected from each other, and often narrowly focused.

Poorly represented has been the scale and breadth of the devastation: But then, no one knows just how many whales and sea lions and walrus and sardines and sea stars and mussels and sea urchins and sea birds, and countless other creatures large and small, have in recent years died, starved, disappeared, ‘melted away’ in the water, rotted on the shores. And we mustn't forget humans' industrial scale ocean 'harvest'.

But when one puts together the many reports, the scale of the disaster over recent years is pretty mind-boggling. Kelly Ann Thomas has compiled one such list. [1]

A few examples from my own notes:

From National Geographic online, 2015: “...a die off of sea stars...largest marine disease outbreak ever recorded....”; “... no one is sure what is causing it ….” “... we think there's [also] a wasting event going on with [sea] urchins.” [2]

California Senator Mike McGuire in 2015: “We are facing a fishery disaster ….” “... historic crisis [in] the salmon and crab fisheries.” [3]

On March 15, 2015, New Mexico State U. Online, asked what was killing Baja's marine animals, and reported decomposing gray whales, sea lions, dolphins, turtles, and birds on the beaches of Baja. [4]

Feb. 26, 2016 “Sardines off the West Coast [are forecast to be in 2016] 93% lower than in 2007.” [5]

National Geographic from Jan. 24, 2015 offers the headline: “Mass Death of Seabirds in Western U.S. is Unprecedented” [6]

From Alaska Dispatch news, January 29, 2016: “Scientists Think Gulf of Alaska's seabird die- off is biggest ever recorded”; “...staggering die-off … something is awry in the Gulf of Alaska ....” [7]

In August of 2014 large numbers of whales and common murres [ seabirds] were reported as dying along the Alaska coast. [8]

Alaska Dispatch News published an article on August 20, 2015, about the unusual number of dead whales being encountered. [9]

From the Toronto Globe and Mail, Aug. 12, 2013: “...sockeye salmon returns [to British Columbia] plunge to historic lows.” “... scientists don't know why the return numbers are so low.” [10]

From ENE news, citing a document from the Alaska Marine Science Symposium of Jan. 20-24, 2014: “During summer of 2011 it became evident to [Alaskan] coastal communities and wildlife management agencies that there was a novel disease outbreak occurring in several species of Arctic ice-associated seals. Gross symptoms included lethargy, no new hair growth, and skin lesions....” The paper mentioned concerns that the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in March of 2011 might be implicated. The pdf document that ENE cited appears to be no longer available on line. [11]

National Geographic in 2013 reported that the quantity of dead stuff on the Pacific Ocean floor had 'mysteriously exploded' recently in many locations. [12]

California Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham in 2015: “Something's going on in the oceans [that] doesn't fit our historical understandings .... numerous anomalies ….” [13]

From a May 24, 2015 Talk Radio Europe interview with experienced small-boat sailor Ivan Macfadyen, commenting on his voyage across the Pacific from Australia to Japan in 2013: “Ten years ago [on an identical route and at the same time of year] I could catch fish every day.” Macfadyen noted that in 2003 there were lots of birds, dolphins, turtles, whales, sharks; [But in 2013] “The ocean is broken.” “... quite literally there isn't any fish. … [fish and other lifeforms] are just all gone.” [14]

And Macfadyen again, commenting on his 2013 voyage: “We [saw] a whale, … 1000 miles south of Japan … with like a big tumor on the side of its head ….” [15]

Japanese scientists in 2013 reported finding radioactive cesium, from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, in plankton [a basic part of the food chain of the ocean] at all ten places tested in the Pacific. [16]

Nature.com on Feb. 4, 2016, published a report by Japanese scientists that they had found on the Pacific coast of Japan a “decline in inter-tidal biota after … the Fukushima nuclear disaster.” “... the number of species and population densities in the inter-tidal zones were much lower at sites near … Fukushima.” [17]

The most revealing description of the situation on the Pacific coast of North America has been compiled by intrepid Canadian sailor and former diver Dana Durnford. In 2014 and 2015 he journeyed over 15000 miles by small boat to document the decimation of life in the tidal pools and along the shorelines of British Columbia. Durnford took many thousands of photographs and filmed underwater, proving, in his own words, “just about everything [flora and fauna] is missing.”

Durnford also noted a very great decline in bird numbers, and in insects. Until recent years, the tidal pools and shorelines were home to diverse abundance: thousands of species of flora and fauna. [18]

Note that it has been two experienced sailors, Durnford and Macfadyen, independent human beings who love the ocean and who have witnessed the disaster in the Pacific at close quarters, who have given us especially compelling descriptions of the situation.

One might think that Durnford would have been lauded, especially in Canada, for his amazing determination to document, and to tell the world about, the situation along the Pacific shores. He has been largely ignored, when he isn't being vilified. Latterly, he has had criminal charges brought against him in Canada, for criminal harassment. Here is one journalist's defense of Durnford. [19]

Marine scientists have seemed stumped to explain unprecedented mass mortality and disease in and around the North Pacific. The scientists typically vary from distraught perplexity to stabs in the dark: musings range from we don't know what's going on, to climate change, fungi, bacteria, viruses, over fishing, cyclical ups and downs, acidic water, domoic acid, warm water and cold water.

In fumbling for explanations for unprecedented recent death in the Pacific, there has been an obvious reluctance by scientists to assign significant suspicion to the unprecedented industrial/technological catastrophe which began in Japan at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor complex on the shores of the Pacific on March 11th of 2011. Four large nuclear reactors were destroyed, melting down and blowing up, and have for over five years released massive amounts of dangerous radioactive elements into the biosphere.

A typical example of the marginal status given to Fukushima radiation: The Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Feb. 2016: “... Fukushima-derived radionuclides [have been detected] in a variety of marine products harvested off the western coast of North America....” The abstract opined that the level of radioactivity found was not a health problem. [20]

Significant for what is happening now in the Pacific,a study published in 1971, authored by E. J. Sternglass, titled 'Fallout and Reproduction of Ocean Fish Populations', showed the huge impact that nuclear fallout from atomic bomb testing had on life in the oceans. From the study's summary statement: “...very large declines of fish-populations after low-altitude nuclear tests … have been observed in the Atlantic and Pacific, strongly suggesting that the eggs of fish and the developing young are far more sensitive to internal radiation … than had been anticipated, very much as is the case of the human-embryo and fetus.” [21]

So what about Fukushima?

There have been various attempts to quantify the amount and types of radioactive elements that have been released from Fukushima into the biosphere, but these are all guesswork handicapped by an official and corporate policy dedicated to lying and censoring. [22] Three reactors were destroyed by powerful explosions. [23] The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear site contained in total over 4000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel. [24] Reactor 3 at Fukushima Dai-ichi contained especially dangerous fuel rods, combining plutonium with uranium. Much material from the exploding reactors, including reactor 3, was ejected into the biosphere, some circling the planet. [25]

The total amount of radioactive cesium-137 alone, contained in the spent fuel assemblies at Fukushima, is estimated by Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser at the US Department of Energy, as reported by Washingtonsblog.com, and referred to by the author of Allegedly Apparent Blog, Michael Van Broekhoven, to be roughly 85 times the amount released by Chernobyl. [26]

In desperation, a large amount of sea water was sprayed onto the wrecked reactors. It is questionable whether this did more harm than good. The creation of durable spherical radioactive clusters of materials – buckeyballs – has been reported to be among the fruits of this labor. Some highly radioactive water has been collected in many hundreds of steel tanks of dubious quality. Much water sprayed went wherever water was able to go.

But there is also a large natural flow of water under the destroyed reactors. Extremely radioactive material from the reactors has likely burned its way into the ground below the reactors, to a depth which is either unknown or if known we are not being told, adding to the radioactive contamination of guesstimated hundreds of tonnes of water daily discharging into the Pacific Ocean for near five years now. [26] In Nov. 2014, for example, TEPCO admitted that 400 tons of radioactivity-contaminated water was reaching the Pacific daily, and that measures to prevent the discharge had been unsuccessful. [28] It should be emphasized that TEPCO has earned a reputation for hiding and minimizing and distorting the actual situation. And the Japanese government has attempted quite successfully to suppress honest reporting of the situation at Fukushima.

The destroyed reactors continue, and will continue, far into the future, to contaminate the environment with dangerous radionuclides. There remain unapproachable areas, and horrific problems defying solution. Desperately, millions of large plastic bags of questionable durability have been filled with radioactive material, and this massive effort has managed to temporarily confine a tiny fraction of the radioactive contamination emitted over the five-plus years since the catastrophe. Robots sent in to inspect areas of high radioactivity have been destroyed by the radioactivity. The Japanese, five years into the catastrophe, are still trying to determine how to proceed. [29]

Arnie Gundersen in 2012 collected 5 random soil samples from Tokyo and all five were radioactive enough to be classified as nuclear waste, under United States standards. [30]

“... 70 percent of [Japan is contaminated by Fukushima radioactivity] … 20 percent [of Japan] including Tokyo, is contaminated with highly toxic radiation.” [31] [32]

But the worst may yet be to come. A German study has predicted that Strontium-90 levels would rise and remain at high levels for many years after a meltdown such as Fukushima, And there is evidence for ongoing out of control fission at the destroyed reactors: long after the initial melt down and explosions, short-lived radioactive iodine-131 has been found both in Japan and on the other side of the planet. [33]

Over the last months of 2015 and in 2016, Michael van Broekhoven's Allegedly Apparent Blog has shone a near solitary public light on evidence indicating that some globally significant nuclear catastrophe has occurred recently. He also offers evidence that radiation monitors around the world are routinely used to hide, not reveal, high radiation readings, as well as evidence that the situation at, and radiation from, the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, far from winding down, may be worsening. His work deserves serious attention. [34]

The Fukushima catastrophe obviously merited, and now perhaps more than ever, merits extreme political, scientific, engineering, mass media and public attention, reflection, and concern, and our utmost intelligence in brainstorming; and, to what extent possible, an all out mitigation response.

But this has not happened. So, not surprisingly, countless people are not even aware of the Fukushima disaster. And of those who do know about it, many think that the problem has been resolved, or is not all that serious.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It has not been easy, from the very beginning of the nuclear age, to find out what's actually going on with nuclear mishaps, generally, because dishonesty and censorship have been the default position for the nuclear military and nuclear industry since its inception. So, for example, the World Health Organization, which cheerfully announced immediately after the beginning of the Fukushima catastrophe that no increased cancer risk was to be expected, made a secret agreement in 1959 with the nuclear lobby and promoter IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to give the IAEA control over WHO pronouncements pertaining to radioactivity and human health. [35] Since the beginning of the atomic age, humanity has been the victim of both nuclear-related deception and radioactive contamination.

And what about the health impact from Fukushima on the Japanese people? In Sept. of 2015, the Asia-Pacific Journal published a study by Eiichiro Ochiai titled 'The Human Consequences of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plants Accidents'. [36] Ochiai's document includes the important point that damage from chronic exposure to radioactivity is strongly related to whether that exposure is through internal contamination. This critical difference between internal and external exposure to radioactivity has been largely ignored by 'official' bodies and pronouncements and standards regarding the health impact of radiation.

Another key defect in the conventional depiction of the dangers of chronic radiation exposure is that genetic damage, reproductive problems, mutations, chromosomal abnormalities and the like – the entire spectrum of DNA damage, which may endure for generations – is largely ignored. [37] Cancer risk is highlighted, then minimized. Little mention is made of the hundreds of other serious ailments which increased exposure to artificial radionuclides is implicated as contributing to.

From Ochiai's document: [“... as a result of the Fukushima accident”] “All indications are that incidence of many diseases is increasing not only in Fukushima but also all over Japan.” Ochiai shows charts based on data from Japanese hospitals for incidents of various diseases for the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

At the Fukushima Prefectural Medical School, data is for the years 2010 to 2012. Here are the figures for 2010 (before Fukushima) compared to 2012 (two years after Fukushima) : cataracts up 227%; angina up 157%; bleeding in brain up 300%; lung cancer up 163%; esophagus cancer up 122%; stomach cancer up 129%; cancer in small intestine up 400%; colon cancer up 297%; prostate cancer up 300%.

Ochiai included data from fifteen Prefectures re thyroid cancer. Rates went up in all areas, with Japan as a whole having a 148% increase from 2010 to 2013. Incidents of myocardial infarction increased in all 13 prefectures listed; Japan as a whole 151%. Acute leukemia increased 142% overall. The author comments that his data represents only the “tip of the iceberg”.

On Oct. 15, 2015, Japanese Professor Toshihide Tsuda announced the results of an epidemiological study of thyroid cancer in Fukushima prefecture since the catastrophe, and described the increase as “drastic”. The increase was 20 to 50 times 'normal', depending on the specific area and amount of contamination, and this increase was far beyond what the WHO had predicted. And based on the Chernobyl experience, cited below, an estimated 1000 additional thyroid problems can be expected for every cancer, as a result of heavy radioactive contamination. Tsuda pointed out that preventative iodine had not been given to vulnerable people after the Fukushima disaster, which might have prevented many of the subsequent thyroid problems. [38]

In an interview published Mar. 18, 2016 Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds has disclosed that there has been “a huge spike in the death rates within Fukushima Prefecture for young children....” This information has been suppressed. [39]

One chronological retrospective on Fukushima is found at Modern Survival Blog. [40]

For extraordinary pertinent musical poetry from Japan, attend this video. [41]

Leaving Fukushima for the moment, what can we learn about the health repercussions from massive releases of artificial radioisotopes from the global nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl in 1986? An extremely disturbing and illuminating work on the effects of serious and chronic human-created radiation exposure is the detailed examination of the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the book: 'Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment'. [42]

The book has been largely ignored by corporate mass media, and when mentioned, attempts have been made to denigrate it, belittling its competence, methods, and conclusions. This denigration is due to the threat that the document poses to the nuclear delusion: The Chernobyl study is not a good news story.

The Chernobyl book above was based on approximately 5000 studies, but the authors point out that these were only a fraction of those available. Many of the studies were in the Russian language, and some have still not been translated. The document notes that Chernobyl radiation harmed all life forms studied. And the authors assert that at the time of writing the document, the problems were increasing on the whole, not decreasing.

Here are a few examples of what was found:

Thirteen European countries had over half of their area contaminated, and some European countries have areas that remain contaminated, nearly thirty years later. For example, 10,000 farms in the United Kingdom were contaminated. [43] Four hundred million people live within significantly contaminated areas, and 5 million still live in areas of high contamination in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

The quantity of deposition of dangerous radioactive material varied greatly from place to place, over the entire northern hemisphere. Many different types of conglomerations of radioactive elements were emitted.

Marked increases in a myriad of non-malignant and malignant health problems, including damage to reproductive health and the immune system, have been observed and recorded in the populations exposed to Chernobyl contamination. Over vast areas and in diverse populations and in all age groups that experienced contamination, there has been greatly increased morbidity. In many instances this increase has worsened steadily over time.

Prior to Chernobyl, healthy children were the norm in all countries in question. After Chernobyl, especially in places of heavy contamination, healthy children became fewer, with some areas now reporting virtually no healthy children. Contaminated areas of Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia have seen the percentage of ‘practically healthy’ children reduced from 80 or 90% of the child population prior to Chernobyl, to less than 20% more recently. Markedly higher death rates, reproductive disabilities, low birth weights, and a wide range of illnesses and diseases, and greatly increased numbers of invalid children, were documented in areas of serious contamination. There was a continuing deterioration in the health of children exposed to serious radiation, even from the late 1990s into the new millennium.

There were increases in stillbirths, miscarriages, infant mortality and congenital malformations in many countries following the Chernobyl disaster.

The hundreds of thousands of people – the ‘liquidators’ - who worked in close proximity to the reactor site in the attempt to mitigate the disaster; have experienced extreme decline of well being and greatly increased morbidity. For example, for the Ukraine among liquidators about one in twenty remained reasonably healthy by 2004, and those suffering chronic illness increased 600%.

Russian men, young and healthy prior to Chernobyl, and who participated in cleanup and mitigation efforts, suffered a severe decline in health, leaving only 2% healthy by 1992. By 2004 nearly two thirds of Russian liquidators were disabled.

Accelerated aging was documented in both children and adults living in heavily contaminated areas. Diseases of the blood, circulatory and lymphatic systems increased markedly in populations living in areas of radioactive contamination, as did increases of chromosomal aberrations, mutations, and Down syndrome. Thyroid problems increased greatly, with 1000 thyroid problems for every thyroid cancer. The damage by Chernobyl radiation to the endocrine system was far greater than previously expected, with millions seriously affected. Immune system impairment strongly correlated with exposure to radiation. Marked increases in respiratory system problems were documented. A wide range of reproductive system disorders increased greatly in heavily contaminated areas. Serious radiation exposure was strongly associated with impaired brain function and mental health problems.

There have been many surprises: for example, Cesium-137 has been far more persistent than predicted; hot particles are breaking down quickly into a surprising melange of radioactivity; Highly soluble Strontium-90 and Americium-241 are moving through the food chain much more rapidly than had been predicted.

Levels of contamination in plants vary widely, even within species. There was increased and widespread genetic damage, tumour-like growth, and mutation in many plant species in areas of high contamination as compared to areas of low contamination.

Since Chernobyl, in heavily contaminated areas, all resident animal species studied have exhibited increased genetic abnormalities and increased mortality, and generally, the same damage that humans have suffered. This will continue far into future.

In less than half a year after Chernobyl, in heavily contaminated areas, marine species had decreased by up to four fifths of their pre-catastrophe numbers. Bird populations in heavily contaminated areas were greatly reduced.

So where are we? Even without Chernobyl and Fukushima, we were not doing well, us talented, foolish, war-making humans. Neither to ourselves or the rest of life on the planet. The oceans would have been in trouble without Fukushima. And on land all the creatures that compete in any way with us, or whose death profits us – the lions and tigers and bears and elephants and giraffes and gorillas, etc – would have been in trouble at our hands had we never gone down the cursed nuclear path. The more fragile creatures, the butterflies and birds and bees and the rest, would be in trouble given a human globe-spanning culture that combines dirty technology and 'living better with chemistry' with a chronic inclination for war, greed, and a too general insensitivity to nature; even if we were without one nuclear bomb or reactor.

But the atomic bomb and the nuclear reactor have introduced a new deadly circumstance. We have been teetering on the edge of nuclear weapons being used in a cataclysmic war since shortly after the second world war. And nuclear technology, which creates, and spread around the planet, countless new alien atoms that are inherently inimical to life, is also a pernicious step too far, even if nuclear war were to be averted permanently.

As adjuncts to the bomb, many hundreds of nuclear power plants, civilian and military, have been built. There have been catastrophic accidents, with many accidents larger and smaller covered up, and lied about. Whether from sabotage, from negligence, from stupidity, from natural disasters, from engineering faults, from war, from major coronal ejections that periodically strike earth, more reactors will go badly wrong. And at the best of times, and chronically, as part of normal operating procedure, nuclear reactors contribute to increasing levels of artificial, inimical-to-life radionuclides in the biosphere. [44]

At the dawn of the possibility of a new benign-energy age, at that moment in history when we have created the basis of a transition to a relationship with the natural world that is predominantly respectful and careful, some countries are building new nuclear reactors. Those hundreds of nuclear power plants already built are aging, deteriorating, often leaking unannounced radioactivity, becoming more and more susceptible to breakdown, and are ever-present terrorist targets; and some are being re-licensed for financial gain in rickety old age, when it had been previously announced they would be 'decommissioned'. [45]

And we still don't really know what to safely do with the highly radioactive results of running nuclear reactors. Fukushima and Chernobyl have been and remain and will continue to be catastrophic problems. But apart from those two majorly lethal conundrums, massive amounts of highly radioactive waste in thousands of locations remain a permanent disposal problem and danger. Future generations has been given the unwelcome and unasked for task of guarding, paying for, dealing with, being injured by, and having their lives and prospects and social options lessened by this most hellish means by which water is boiled to make electricity for us, and by which nuclear weapons' essential needs are met.

So, wherein does our best chance lie of reducing the harm and risk of our nuclear folly? How do we provide the basis by which we could begin to dismantle our folly and reconstruct cultures that are viable.

Those iconic personages Albert Einstein and Dwight Eisenhower are among the many concerned people who have located hope for policy sanity in an informed public:

Einstein found our “only hope” [regarding nuclear technology] in “an informed citizenry” [that] “will act for life and not for death.”

Eisenhower offered that

“only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Note well: they did not base their hope on experts or oligarchs or generals or silly people who are enthralled by the illusion of their own extraordinary intelligence. They based hope on a well informed us.

Implied in Einstein and Eisenhower's hope is that the broad public, well informed, has a far greater potential repository of creativity and common sense and decency and such – beneficent functionality - than any cult, tribe, institution or faction thereof.

If indeed an informed public is essential, then modern mass media is largely a hope destroyer: the current use of mass media is largely as a 'public perception management' tool on behalf of demented control freaks and oligarchic wannabees; most mass media is used to brainwash, sell, propagandize, censor, mislead, confuse. Much of so-called journalism is a real-journalism-free zone. This is lethally dysfunctional and must be overcome. Significant steps in the right direction can be taken via intelligent political initiative, mandating and giving financial and legal aid to priority-sensitive free and full discourse and unfettered information in media.

The real world is challenging enough at the best of times. It requires all the realism and intelligence and heart we can muster. We cannot attain a cultural predominance of sensible public policy via lies and censorship. If we are to salvage any kind of reasonably benign and propitious human prospect, we must achieve a dominant public discourse which is integrity and forthrightness based. Such honesty is the nemesis of criminals and tyrants, but the indispensable basis for sound public and personal decisions. Again, a fully well informed public is our best chance.

And we might use direct democracy mechanisms – that is to say – a fully politically empowered public - to override the pernicious dysfunctions and corruptions of so many institutions. From Paul Craig Roberts' discerning perspective, every public and most private institutions in the United States are corrupt. [46] The same problem is commonplace in most other countries.

Often the basic source of dysfunction in institutions lies at the executive and managerial level, with political and corporate appointees serving agendas other than the broad public interest. Direct democracy procedures can be used to set primary policies, select real good leaders to executive positions, and to monitor them, and to replace the inadequate or corrupt people that have been appointed or have wormed their way into so many positions of power.

Local and national direct democracy, informed by honest and free and full public discourse, offers the possibility of achieving genuine public-interest and planetary-interest cultural reform.

We might also begin what has become a more and more desperate journey towards cultural sanity by recognizing the artificiality of all financial barriers for undertaking a full effort to fix deadly problems, especially the nuclear one: unlimited credit is just sane policy away. If trillions can be handed to criminal and dysfunctional banks, trillions can be endowed for beneficent and necessary public and earthly purposes. The current global financial system is in effect and in fact a criminal system which predominantly serves narrow private interests, and oligarchic agendas and enterprises; and is parasitic upon the people of the planet, and egregiously, tragically disabling of the human prospect. To transform the current global private-interest-enabling financial system into forms that function as in effect public utilities, serving broad human and earthly interests, is necessary and possible. [47]

Another essential reform is to place corporations under, not over, the public and earthly interest. It is self-destructive madness to allow the narrow interests of corporations to trump essential human needs, and the well being of the biosphere. And those individuals who guide corporations and may reap great financial gain and social and political influence through corporate power, are largely immune from paying an appropriate personal penalty for corporate crimes committed and harm done. This too can and must be corrected.

The over-riding need is to transition to a global diversity of cultures that have in common the attempt to function in harmony with each other and the biosphere: Good people, clean air, good nourishment, good water, respecting and caring about all life on the planet. [48]

If we can't achieve essential basic improvements, but cling to a culture of deception, criminality, brutality and dysfunction, then the horrors of the last generations, such as the first and second world wars, the horrors of the war of aggression inflicted upon the innocents of IndoChina, the 2011 destruction of beautiful Libya, Chernobyl's disabled children, the Fukushima catastrophe, a terribly harmed North Pacific, and many more already achieved large crimes and big sorrows, are prelude to even greater horror.

“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” JFK, in his inaugural address.

Robert Snefjella is a retired organic farmer

Notes

[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/no-one-mentions-the-f-word-fukushima-the-die-off-of-marine-and-animal-life-in-the-north-pacific-ocean-scientists-refuse-to-admit-it/5474170?print=1

[2] http:news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150401-urchins-sea-stars-monterey-bay-california-animals/

[3] http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5211805-181/scientists-and-lawmakers-foresee-grim?artslide=0

[4] http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/whats-killing-bajas-marine-animals/

[5] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/west-coast-sardine-populations-long-sinking-look-even-worse-in-forecast/

[6] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150123-seabirds-mass-die-off-auklet-california-animals-environment/

[7] http://www.adn.com/article/20160129/scientists-think-gulf-alaska-seabird-die-biggest-ever-recorded/

[8] http://www.aol.com/article/2015/08/21/dozens-of-whales-are-mysteriously-dying-off-the-coast-of-alaska/21225729/

[9] http://www.adn.com/article/20150820/mysterious-deaths-gulf-alaska-whales-trigger-stepped-investigation

[10] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/lake-babine-sockeye-fishery-at-risk-of-unprecedented-closure/article13715638/?service=print

[11] http://enenews.com/scientists-link-unusual-alaska-seal-deaths-fukushima-fallout-skin-lesions-hair-loss-lethargy-pulsed-release-built-radionuclides-set-free-ice-melted-discussion-wildlife-health-implications-due/

[12] http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/22/sea-snot-explosions-feed-deep-sea-creatures/

[13] http://obrag.org/?p=103962

[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQujxNTyO3Q&feature=youtu.be&t=855

[15] http://enenews.com/sailor-fukushima-impact-dead-thousands-miles-pacific-ocean-between-japan-talking-about-makes-feel-like-cry-birds-fish-sharks-dolphins-turtles-theyre-all-gone-audio

[16] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/05/22/national/researchers-find-high-cesium-in-some-pacific-plankton/#.VtmYl_krJAm

[17] http://www.nature.com/articles/srep20416

[18] Dana Durnford's website: http://www.thenuclearproctologist.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLzbO6l4bfw for one of many podcasts. Durnford has not been hesitant to place primary blame on Fukushima for the massive death in the North Pacific.

[19] http://rense.com/general96/fukupolitical.html

[20] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X15301405

[21] http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Fallout-Fish-Sternglass8oct71.html

[22] It is not known how much radioactivity was actually released in the first cataclysmic week at Fukushima Daiichi, and how much has been released since then over five years is again unknown. Official estimates are contaminated by secrecy and dishonesty. Independent estimates vary widely. Safe to say Fukushima has released far more radioactivity than Chernobyl, and hasn't stopped. For example, even early on, the unprecedented scale of the disaster was evident to many: http://enenews.com/experts-contamination-fukushima-worse-chernobyl-many-2051-goal-unrealistic-given-scale-catastrophe-will-be-alive-when-completed Here is agreenroad.blogspot's assessment, which includes more recent considerations: http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/2013/05/fukushima-radiation-measured-in-pacific.html It should be noted that other nuclear power plants in Japan also had problems in March of 2011. http://enenews.com/us-commission-14-nuclear-reactors-at-4-sites-in-eastern-japan-were-affected-on-311-according-to-nisa-fukushima-daiichi-had-the-most-serious-damage-daini-onagawa-and-tokai-were-others

[23] It has been repeatedly reported that all the explosions at Fukushima were hydrogen explosions. But this is at best extremely dubious: In the cases of reactors 3 and 4, especially, the explosions were powerful enough to cause massive structural damage, including to heavily reinforced concrete walls. Here are photographs of the results: http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm ; here is a link to a video of the explosion of reactor 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7naSc81WSqA Note the yellow flash near midpoint of video, and the enormous detonation force. Among many who consider the hydrogen explosion theory dubious, Japanese reactor designer Setsuo Fujiwara has been quoted as offering that the explosion at reactor 3 gives clear evidence of being a nuclear explosion: http://enenews.com/reactor-designer-it-was-a-nuclear-explosion-at-fukushima-unit-3-plutonium-was-scattered-after-blast-abc-theres-willful-denial-and-lying-going-on-here-even-at-the-highest-levels How Reactor 4, which was not running at the time, was destroyed by a massive explosion also remains unclear. So much has not been explained; so many lies told: The melt down of reactor cores has been blamed on the failure of back up generators, but that doesn't explain the failure of the emergency systems for circulating cooling water, which were steam driven and not dependent on electricity.

[24] http://www.zerohedge.com/article/amount-radioactive-fuel-fukushima-dwarfs-chernobyl

[25] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/nuclear-fuel-fragment-fukushima-found-europe.html

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/27/plutonium-levels-california-43-times-hawaii-11-times-highest-levels-20-years-20549/

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.ca/p/uranium-aerosolized-into-atmosphere.html

[26] https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/one-year-ago-i-woke-up-in-fukushima-meanwhile-good-news-all-spent-fuel-removed-from-fukushima-daiichis-sfp-4/

[27] http://www.naturalnews.com/043464_Fukushima_nuclear_reactors_groundwater_contamination.html

[28] http://nuclear-news.net/category/2-world/asia/japan-asia/fukushima-2014/page/2/

[29] http://enenews.com/major-blow-fukushima-robot-loses-control-inside-reactor-moved-10-meters-before-failing-max-radiation-levels-doubled-2012-video

http://www.globalresearch.ca/containing-fukushima-is-beyond-current-technology-worldwide-radiation-is-the-unspoken-consequence/5441434?print=1 For a video of some of the millions of garbage bags see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZI9xrqTByY For a rough outline of the attempt to achieve some manner of 'decommissioning' see http://export.gov/japan/build/groups/public/@eg_jp/documents/webcontent/eg_jp_085467.pdf

[30] http://enenews.com/gundersen-tokyo-soil-hot-be-shipped-radioactive-dump

[31] http://enenews.com/professor-it-is-true-that-about-70-of-japans-territory-is-polluted-with-radioactive-materials-from-fukushima-tokyo-contaminated-with-highly-toxic-radiation-experts-worried-about-the

[32] http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Tokyo_contaminated_and_not_fit_for_habitation.php

[33] link to German study in reference to Strontium-90: http://www.irpa.net/irpa8/cdrom/VOL.1/M1_97.PDF link to iodine 131 detection: http://optimalprediction.com/wp/iodine-131-detections-in-finland-and-norway-preceded-by-detections-in-japan/

[34] https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/eurdep-radnet-nullschool-fukushima-hanford-radiation-graphs-red-alert-situation/ See Broekhoven's urgent late May 2016 missives to the planet https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/

[35] http://agreenroad.blogspot.ca/2014/05/who-is-iaea-what-does-iaea-do-who-funds.html For a lucid interview on WHO corruption re radioactive dangers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftU9BIclJrM To compound the difficulties of making sense of things nuclear, sudden high radioactivity readings around the planet often coincide with monitors being turned off and gaps in data, as independent sleuth Michael Van Broekhoven has repeatedly reported. https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/peculiar-radiation-spikes-in-europe-early-march-2016-suggest-mystery-radiological-emergency-is-ongoing/

[36] Eiichiro Ochiai also noted the consistent turning off of monitors in Japan to coincide with spikes in radioactivity. http://apjjf.org/-Eiichiro-Ochiai/4382

[37] http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/18/ts-not-just-cancer-radiation-genomic-instability-and-heritable-genetic-damage/

[38] http://japaneseperspective.com/pediatric-thyroid-cancer-after-fukushima-accident-press-conference-by-professor-toshihide-tsuda-at-foreign-correspondents-club-of-japan/

[39] http://www.fairewinds.org/podcast//put-on-a-happy-face-japan-speaking-tour-series-no-4-1

[40] http://modernsurvivalblog.com/nuclear/west-coast-usa-danger-if-japan-nuclear-reactor-meltdown/

[41] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5p283KZGa8&list=RDXk6Sy1cNgXo&index=4

[42] http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf

[43] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-17472698

[44] Dr. Dr. Gofman Professor Emeritus, and pioneer in nuclear physics, at the University of California, Berkley: "Licensing a nuclear power plant is in my view, licensing random premeditated murder.” http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwJWG.html

[45] http://commondreams.org/views/2016/03/10/7-top-nrc-experts-break-ranks-warn-critical-danger-aging-nuke-plants And let us note well the illusion, more like the mad, irresponsible delusion, of being able to safely and competently store the dangerous radioactive materials for vast periods of time. Ask Hanford how it's doing with its never-ending story of gonna fix it tomorrow. Ask anyone else in more or less the same situation.

[46] http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/08/27/americas-corrupt-institutions-paul-craig-roberts/

[47] http://www.globalresearch.ca/print-the-money-trumps-reckless-proposal-echoes-franklin-and-lincoln/5525191

[48] Radioactive hydrogen - tritium - does not good H2O/water make: https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+6467





 



 

Share on Tumblr

 

 


Comments are moderated