It seems to me that if more people knew exactly how bad the
Fukushima crisis really is, and just how high is the likelihood that it will
affect all of us -
rich, poor, young and old - that maybe they'd do something about it. Maybe
they'd lobby their governments to force the Japanese into doing the right thing
- letting international experts come in and actually determine how significant
the radiation leakage problem is, and what they can do about it. It's clear to
me and others
that Tepco and Japan are unable to handle the problem by themselves, and that's
not some admonishment of their capabilities - this is truly an unprecedented problem
of potentially global proportions. This is why so many in the world lobby
against nuclear power – because of its disadvantages.
When things go bad, they go reeeaaallly bad.
World-renowned
environmentalist David Suzuki recently implied that
if another magnitude 7 or higher quake hits the coast of Japan (and he believes
that it’s a virtual certainty that one will in the next few years) the
radiation that will leak into the ocean would render the entire west coast of
North American uninhabitable.
Uninhabitable. Let that
sink in for a second.
That would mean that people living in cities like Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Vancouver, and San Diego would be exposed to such sufficiently high
levels of radiation that they would be wise to find somewhere new to live
unless they want to expose themselves and their children to decades of
radiation. (Unfortunately, nuclear isotopes don't just naturally
dissipate. Caesium-137, for instance, has a half-life of 28
years, meaning that it would take over a century for it to be reduced to about 10%
of its original levels in a person. And that’s only assuming more radiation exposure
doesn’t occur.)
What's really surprised me about this is the tepid response from
the mainstream media. I can't understand why the world isn't taking Japan and
Tepco to task about a total lack of transparency on a crisis that truly has the
power to affect all of us. The Japanese need help but they're not asking for
it. This is a real problem.
I come across more articles every day questioning whether Fukushima radiation is already hitting California,
which this
interesting-but-scary simulation model seems
to support. Scores of dead birds are washing
up on the west coast of North America, Blue Fin tuna caught off the US are
exhibiting high levels of radiation, and there are reports of seals
and polar bears exhibiting unnatural hair loss. And this could be just
the beginning as with every passing day more radiation leaks into the ocean and
ultimately ends up in our bodies by virtue of our consumption of contaminated
food.
This is honestly scary stuff because there’s no miracle cure. They’re
so out of ideals that they’re freezing the ground!
I mean, come on. Would you resort to that if everything was ‘under
control’? I suspect the real extent of this problem is being concealed.
So what do we do? For starters I think it’s absolutely critical
that we don’t consume any seafood from the Pacific, and ideally any vegetation
or meat from the west coast. But with free trade being what it is, we don’t get
a chance to consume much of what we grow here, anyway, so we’re kind of
screwed.
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If you want to learn more, I recommend watching this.
