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Fukushima Crisis Is Humanity’s Crisis.

On By Jerry AlataloIn Commentary, Earth Matters, Environment, Fukushima, Fukushima, Videos2 Comments
English: Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Medi...
English: Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Medium crop showing reactors labeled 1 to 5 and site for reactor 6. North is up. 日本語: 福島第一原子力発電所。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Posted October 7, 2013

by Jerry Alatalo

Since the Fukushima disaster occurred in 2011, after external and backup power to the nuclear facility was cut off, resulting in overheating of fuel and explosions, many have forgotten about the situation. There is a false sense by people around the world that, because the mainstream media does not report on what is occurring at Fukushima, that the dangers have somehow been “taken care of”.

The dangers at Fukushima have not been “taken care of”, and the world’s greatest minds in the fields of engineering have to be gathered as quickly as possible to come up with solution(s). Since the reactors at Fukushima melted in 2011 tremendous amounts of water have flowed into the Pacific Ocean day after day after day up to the present. It has been an ongoing environmental disaster for over two years.

Men and women around the world are thinking that the small amounts of radioactive materials going into the Pacific are no real danger because the Pacific is so large that those highly dangerous materials will easily be diluted. This is false thinking and needs to be corrected in order for the people of the world to demand action from the leaders of every country to deal with the problems now.

I will be honest with you and say that I had no idea how dangerous the situation at Fukushima has remained to this day. Just as most people I thought the problems were more or less solved, that there was no reason for remaining concerned about the Japanese people, but for some radioactivity which escaped in the weeks after the disaster. After reading a few articles with titles like “World Action Needed At Fukushima” etc., I found out that there is indeed a continuing, unsolved emergency there.

The number of negative events that have threatened, and still threaten, all life forms including plant, animal and human are so many that it is difficult to decide which is worst. The amount of damage already done, and the potential damage which will occur if mankind does not come up with solutions, can safely be described as the most extensive damage in history. As mentioned a high volume, highly toxic soup has run into the Pacific Ocean every single day since the May 2011 initial event.

With this release of a variety of materials into the environment, algae, fish and other animals are having these materials deposited into their flesh, with a concentration of those materials as they move up the food chain to human consumption. Elements such as cesium 134 and cesium 137 have been measured in concentrations many thousands of times the “safe” environmental levels. The Food and Drug Administration has stopped testing fish long ago, pointing to an anti-scientific response to the extraordinary dangers.

There has been a public relations response to the ongoing crisis, more concerned with the nuclear industry’s reputation than the health of people and the environment. Public relations have become more important than real issues of life and death. The nuclear industry is self-regulated.

Another element, tritium, has been one of the dangerous materials in the waters from Fukushima flowing daily into the environment, mainly the Pacific. Tritium travels directly to the DNA of all living things, including human beings, where it does extraordinary damage. Bio-accumulation occurs when lower life forms become consumed by higher life forms until the greatest accumulation of highly dangerous radioactive materials becomes consumed by humans.

Many believe the lie that there was not a significant number of people who died as a result of the nuclear incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

The major danger at Fukushima is the spent fuel pool, five stories in the air, at reactor #4. The ground under the storage facility has become saturated with water used to keep the fuel cooled, and the risk of collapse of the structure is the overheating of that spent fuel, which would release radioactivity hundreds of times larger than that released by the bombs detonated on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  The release would be 20-30 times larger than the tremendous amounts which have already been, and continue to be, released every day.

The crisis at Fukushima, even after the finest engineers in the world work to find the least destructive solutions, will remain one requiring extensive maintenance for decades.

An international task force of the world’s smartest experts absolutely must be established as soon as possible to begin working on solutions for the emergency situation at Fukushima.

Fukushima is not only Japan’s problem. Fukushima is the world’s problem.

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