We are often reminded of crucial moments of history when events cascade apparently with a force of their own - while people look on as deer in the headlights. Historians review those events later on and can pinpoint the missed opportunities when even a small nudge would have changed the course of events. But people waited for others to take the initiative, and finally hoped or prayed for the best outcome.
2013, as 2012 and even 2011 will be remembered as years of shameful failure to act in face of a momentous event: the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE
Originally blamed on an earthquake and tsunami, those immediately responsible for the nuclear catastrophe - Tepco and the Japanese government - have avoided responsibility. But there are other layers that extend from that center of responsibility. There is the nuclear industry, the scientific establishment, the media, environmental organizations and independent activists, other governments, nuclear watchdogs, and us, the public. We are all responsible for the way the Fukushima disaster has escalated due to mismanagement at the top.
To this day they are playing down the situation. No, they say, it's not as bad as it sounds. The moment they acknowledge the truth, they would have to do something about it. And it would cost money. It's better for all involved, it seems, to let events unfold until the moment when they can claim it's too late to do anything about it.
IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE
This reminds us of the Second World War. The Nazis and their allies were perpetrating all kinds of atrocities. They started small, with harassment, incarceration, confiscation of personal property. The West dismissed all that as rumors - or aberrations, at worst.
The Nazis moved on to rounding up entire communities and exterminating them. That too was played down by the western media. They West had its excuses. Governments - including the United States and British governments - kept silent and did nothing. Their motives were vile.
(If they helped Jews survive, they would have had to take them in, give them a home (Gasp!) maybe even in Britain and the United States. Or in Palestine, which they wanted very much to gift to the Arabs.
When the whole conflagration was over, they - governments, the media and the public - claimed they never knew the extent of the genocide. Millions of people died because good people refused to act when it was still time to prevent it.
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY.
The nuclear industry has enjoyed a smooth ride all these years, helped, curiously, by the environmentalists. The environmentalists have used and nurtured the threat of Global Warming, and have often portrayed nuclear reactors as a desirable alternative to the Big Bad Fossil Fuels.
There has been barely any questioning of the nuclear industry, in spite of several close calls where a major disaster was barely averted in the United States. Furthermore, there are official scientific records that attest to the dangerous and unpredictable nature of this industry. The very simple fact that there is no effective way to dispose of nuclear waste should give anybody with two brain cells to rub together, pause to reflect.
The Hanford nuclear waste facility in Washington state is leaking all over the place, with radioactive waste very close to (or already in) the Columbia river. The condition of radioactive waste tanks is so precarious that scientists fear that they could explode, contaminating a large area of the American and Canadian west.
AND NOW FUKUSHIMA.
There was a time at the start of this disaster when the most logical move would have been for the international community to organize and gather the most knowledgeable scientists and technicians to brainstorm and come up with possible solutions to mitigate the damage. Nothing was done. And nothing is being done, three years after the fact.
Scientists have remained mostly silent. The few who feel obligated to pay lip service to this tragedy, do it with measured words, lest they'll be shunned by their colleagues for being "alarmists". Being shunned by the scientific establishment means putting their jobs, grants and reputations at risk. Their moral duty to inform governments and the public is shunted aside.
The media, with their compromised loyalties, are also playing along with governments in keeping a lid on the most disturbing information. Only in the past year or so they have published a few reports here and there, to assuage their conscience.
2014 will go on, and Fukushima will continue to worsen. But not until the figures for the human and animal casualties are put together, will we know how we slept while this ecocide was going on.
How will we answer to future generations?
How will we answer our conscience?
More on Fukushima on this blog -
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Fukushima
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