A Matter of No Small Consequence

With millions of other Americans, I tuned into the PBS’s documentary “Nuclear Aftershocks” Tuesday night on Frontline, hoping for a dose of plain truth from the lagging media; but after Nature’s “Radioactive Wolves of Chernobyl”  betrayed the heavy thumb of the nuclear industry working damage control, I kind of knew what to expect.

Shrewdly avoiding a total gloss on Fukushima, “Nuclear Aftershocks” does raise a number of issues concerning the catastrophic experience in Japan and its implications for U.S. and worldwide nuclear energy, but emphasis falls on doubt that there is any real threat of disaster elsewhere; or even any increased probability of cancers in the region as a result of radiation from Fukushima.  

Anxious Japanese and Germans, now choosing to step away from nuclear energy, were clearly set-up in the editing process to look like irrational hysterics, over-reacting to an imagined threat.  

Every passage that examines a “concern” has been rounded out with an economic argument that seems to satisfy the narrator.  No question is raised about the environmental implications of dirty nuclear fuel production and virtually perpetual storage of radioactive waste.   No question is raised as to how those economic arguments can be valid when even Wall Street won’t buy them:

We believe these risks, combined with the higher capital costs and longer construction schedules of nuclear plants as compared to other generation facilities, will make lenders unwilling at present to extend long-term credit.

Was it purely coincidental that nearly all of the American scientists invited to express their views in the “Frontline” feature are connected with a single institution (M.I.T.) that is heavily invested in the future of nuclear energy?  

Choosing to ignore entirely the body of theoretical evidence to the contrary, this vehicle maintains the industry position that there is no real danger to human health from radiation that entered the atmosphere and the environment from releases at Fukushima.

In their latest video release Fairewinds Associates invites us to hear a very different and truly alarming perspective on the effects of radiation on human health…particularly that of women and little girls.

Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

About Sue Prent

Artist/Writer/Activist living in St. Albans, Vermont with my husband since 1983. I was born in Chicago; moved to Montreal in 1969; lived there and in Berlin, W. Germany until we finally settled in St. Albans.

2 thoughts on “A Matter of No Small Consequence

  1. Over fifty years of commercial nuclear power- if a credible,well managed safely run nuclear power industry is possible why hasn’t it arrived yet?

    The government has held it’s hand financially for fifty plus years and they still can’t stand alone.Wall Street, the gang that bet on credit default swaps won’t even bet on it without huge government(taxpayer) backed liability guarantees. Al Gore correctly called it “an energy source in crisis for the last 30 years”.

    Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N

  2. One out of twenty young girls will get cancer from the dose the Japanese propose, with women not far behind.  The risk is being carried by children and women.

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