nuclear-news

The use of words to trivialise the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe

Lies and censorship have from the very beginning been entwined with all manner of nuclear issues.

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.

The global mass media have remained almost entirely true to their despicable selves and avoided like the plague integrity and quality journalism regarding Fukushima

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 mitigationtactics, 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??……..http://www.countercurrents.org/snefjella140715.htm

July 18, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, spinbuster