In the 1970s a collection of faulty nuclear reactors were built on a Japanese coast known for its long history of subjugation to earthquakes and tsunamis. Huge numbers of spent nuclear fuel rods were also stored in pools of water above these nuclear time bombs, as no financially viable means were found to store the rods elsewhere. To make nuclear enterprise profitable future costs and enormous risks were (and continue to be) passed onto people and the planet. The hard rain days have now arrived. "The lessons of Fukushima for Japan are not that politicians need to be smarter or even more candid with the public, rather they point to more fundamental weaknesses in the system of government: the existence of a bureaucracy that believes it is beholden only to itself, not the elected government of the day; the incestuous relationships between corporations and corporate regulators that result in nil regulation, nil risk management, nil preparedness; and the mindless, herd-like behaviour of a news media that is resistant to any independent thinking and deductive analysis but contents itself with pursuing scapegoats and covering up more deep-seated and persistent weaknesses in civil society." Walter Hamilton Sydney, Australia
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:11:33 +0000
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