September 11th marked the 6th month anniversary of the Japanese Fukushima Nuclear power plant disaster. For a few days the world’s media had gone wild in Japan with reports and films of overwhelming proportion being shown, as we learned that over 20,000 people were either killed or missing. The country had been devastated by 3 massive disasters, 9.0 earthquake, a Tsunami that engulfed anything in its path along 375 mile coast and then the most horrific Fukushima nuclear disaster.
At first I was glued to the tv watching in horror but not for long, the faces of those beautiful people filled me with a sense of complete helplessness. Those near the nuclear disaster now had a future of unknown torment. Their crops would have been contaminated, their water source destroyed and their homes were no longer safe. It really was a colossal tragedy.
To add insult to injury Japan’s new trade minister, of only 8 days, Yoshio Hachiro made a series of remarks regarding contamination of his clothes, last week, as he visited the area, and which, needless to say, resulted in his immediate resignation.
But despite Fukushima disaster there are still plans to build more power plants along the insubstantial coastline of Japan. Many Japanese communities are in uproar over this decision and will fight, as best they can, to prevent it going ahead.
Today in Foreign Policy I read that Iran’s Nuclear power plant is ready to go online, the Middle East's only commercial nuclear power plant. The US aren’t happy, Israel isn’t happy and neither are most of the Middle East. But Iran doesn’t care about them, they have the power (now nuclear) to turn themselves into a very commanding and controlling force to be reckoned with, and if neighbouring countries ever thought they had concerns about Iran, well they certainly have a whole lot of worrying to do now.
In a TV interview former Vice President Dick Cheney tells Newsmax TV that Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if necessary to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Now I am beginning to wonder if the USA will also take a stand alongside Israel to help prevent the production of nuclear weapons, many would hope they would. And the Middle Eastern countries, like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Kuwait sit and wait patiently for the first atomic bomb to land on their doorsteps.
The debate on whether nuclear power is safe or not is ever ongoing. World Nuclear Association and IAEA say that the power is sustainable and reduces carbon emissions, but parties like Greenpeace International and NIRS believe it poses a threat to people and the environment, and unfortunately we have seen examples of the latter too many times. In 1979 The Three Mile Island nuclear disaster of Pennsylvania USA, 1986 Chernobyl of Ukraine, 2011 in Fukushima, Japan and today an explosion at the Southern France plant which treats nuclear waste. They say no leaks were evident, but they could tell you anything and besides I believe they said the same thing about Fukushima.
The evidence of human turmoil after a nuclear disaster is overwhelming and Germany, who ironically was contracted to build two 1,200-megawatt reactors in Bushehr, with a contract of $4.3 billion, has now decided to close all of its reactors by 2022. Italy too has now banned all nuclear power on the strength of the recent Fukushima humanitarian tragedy.
40 years ago this week a phone call about dead sea otters washing up on the shores of Alaska after US nuclear tests lead to the birth of environmental organization Greenpeace. Irving Stowe and his wife, Dorothy, were so outraged by the news that they launched a petition from their home in Vancouver, on the Canadian west coast, and set up a group called "Don't Make A Wave” now known as Greenpeace. Today its international headquarters is in Amsterdam, it has offices in dozens of countries, and even its Canadian headquarters is now in Toronto. It plays a vital role in our awareness of our environment and the fact that tests, of all sorts, take place all the time without the public’s knowledge. Governments don’t particularly like Greenpeace, which tells me they are doing a fantastic job of highlighting their sordid governmental secrets.
With all this Nuclear power comes the seldom talked about problem of containing all the waste. It derives from the use of uranium which is mined from the ground, but once put into production releases chemicals which can remain toxic to living organisms for thousands sometimes even millions of years. So you have to ask yourself is it morally acceptable to be producing poisons that will keep intoxicating the environment or that can be used in a more threatening form like bombs and also is it ethically correct to have already witnessed the Fukushima disaster and the nuclear waste station catastrophe of today in France, and others, and yet still continue to build and use Nuclear power plants. I know where I stand on this subject, do you? And to be honest it seems also that the UN knows its answer too as an “action plan” in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster and growing suspicions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, will dominate a meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog this week.
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