Another Sleeping Giant Has Awakened

After Japan dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor 70 years ago, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, whose idea it had been to issue the suprise attack, exclaimed, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."   His words are especially chilling in light of  the way the "giant" ended the war almost 4 years later.  The atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima did untold damage to the people of Japan.  In fact, in all the wars the world has seen since then, no one has used such a weapon again.   Now, eerily, the Japanese people face another nuclear attack - this one from devices created by their own hands.  I believe that 30% of Japan's power is nuclear.  And, at this moment, several of the reactors are in danger of spewing their unwitting payload over its innocent populace.  This is coming at a time when most of those people who were exposed to the first nuclear onslaught are either dead or very old.  A report issued yesterday by the Associated Press on the subject said:

"Radiation is spewing from damaged reactors at a crippled nuclear power plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The prime minister has warned residents to stay inside or risk getting radiation sickness.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Tuesday that a fourth reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex was on fire and that more radiation was released

Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned that there are dangers of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex (to) stay indoors."    SOMA, Japan

Today's headline reads "Japan Braces for Potential Radiation Catastrophe" and halfway through the article one sentence stands alone:  "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON".  Buried in the text of the release is a reference to increased risk of thyroid and bone cancer...

How absolutely terrifying for people whose direct ancestors knew first-hand what radiation sickness is like to wait and wonder if they will be next.  Yes, another sleeping giant is waking.  And I find myself feeling angry.  Angry because, why are nuclear power plants built on lands that are known to be highly susceptible to earthquakes?  California has 2 of them and both are near fault lines - Diablo Canyon and San Onofre.  In a state that has sunshine over 300 days of the year, couldn't anyone think of a less threatening power source to supplement the shortage of electricity? 

We know the terrible effects of radiation poisoning - first from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and then from Chernobyl.  Yet we keep tempting the fates.  Nuclear devices are very sensitive and do not belong on unsteady ground.   We know that underneath the seemingly calm surface of this planet, there is an interior that is active and can often be quite violent.   Have we forgotten Indonesia - 2004?   Over 230,000 people died in that quake!  And places like Japan and California have had their share of earthquakes through the years.  Nuclear power is relatively cheap, but is it worth the cost of lives when something goes awry?  As will inevitably happen with anything that man creates, "if it can happen, it will".   

In a land that knows how damaging nuclear radiation is, and that has had more than its share of natural disasters related to its precarious geography, I am just so very frustrated and sad at what I see transpiring there now.  Do people never learn?  Or is saving money with cheap energy worth more than human lives?  When the death toll rolls in down the road, will people say, "Oh, nuclear power is safe!  Only ------ people died in Japan when their reactors leaked"?   When it comes to human lives, there should be no "only".  I have to think that the thought process behind building these plants in places like Japan and California is, "sure, something can potentially happen, but the benefits far outweigh the risks.  Maybe a couple hundred people will die if we have a leak - a thousand or so if we actually have a melt-down.  But that's not so bad in the scheme of things - not when you see how many homes and offices are powered by just one plant!".   I hate that kind of thinking.   What if those hundred people are your family and friends?  It's the same kind of thinking that leads people to abort babies because it would be inconvenient to go through with the pregnancies.

Sleeping giants.  I'm afraid they are everywhere.  When we have no respect for the precise and delicate balance of the elements that comprise this planet, and even less respect for the value of human life, when the bottom line matters more than the individual, there will be giants.  We will give aid to Japan and help dispose of its dead, feed its people, give them water, and rebuild their cities.  But we won't learn.  Our governments have lost the ability to care enough to learn....