Today is exactly 25 years since the nuclear disaster occurred at Chernobyl in what was then the Soviet Union. Today the surrounding town of Pripyat is a ghost town, as is a 15km (or thereabouts) 'exclusion zone' around the town, so toxic is the environment.
It was late April in 1986 and I remember so well hearing about it on the radio and all over the news. Everyone was talking about it. I remember how we were all glad, downright relieved, in fact, to be living on the southern tip of Africa, far from those clouds bearing toxic elements too awful to contemplate.
'Exclusion zone' - don't you just love the coy language of the psychotic nihilism that is nuclear speak?
'Exclusion' from what? Oh, yes, that's right - life itself.
Chernobyl is a vault of hellish memories, a scar on our collective conscience, a veritable Pandora's box of humanity's depths of possible hell on Earth. It is not the best of who we were, or who we should be.
It's all been said - all the stats, all the stories, all the endless what-ifs. Pity that we STILL haven't reached the never-agains.
After all, the next time some mindless (or bought out) prat tries to convince you of the 'positives' of nuclear power, do be sure to show them the following:
Do you get my point?
It's official: the nuclear plant disaster at Fukushima in Japan is being put on a par with Chernobyl, the nuclear disaster that horrified the world back in 1986.
To directly quote the Associated Press:
"Japan raised the severity level of the crisis at its crippled nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing cumulative radiation leaks that have contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater.
Japanese nuclear regulators said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 — the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency — after new assessments of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant since it was disabled by the March 11 tsunami.
The new ranking signifies a "major accident" that includes widespread effects on the environment and health, according to the Vienna-based IAEA."
Geez, this Fukushima power plant is becoming a real poster child for the nucear energy industry, is it not?
This is the best we can do?
Yet there will be people who will no doubt keep insisting that nuclear power is a viable alternative energy source
Yet there will be people who will no doubt keep insisting that nuclear power plants are fundamentally safe for the environment and to human health
Yet there will be people who will no doubt keep insisting that nuclear is a far better and more practical energy choice than are the likes of wind and solar and wave and other renewable energy sources
Uh huh. And in every single generation there are those that are devious or liars or self-interested or greedy or even simply delusional; those that will stand for anything, even if it is sheer madness to do so. Every. Single. Generation.
And they are damned by history; sadly, often when it is already too late.
Are you listening, George Monbiot and your fellow (demented, stupid, dangerous) nuclear apologists?
Do you get my point?
I, like millions of people around the world, had barely gotten over the news that Japan had been hit by a huge earthquake and devastating tsunamis, only to awake today to the news that one of their nuclear power stations, that at Fukushima, had suffered a huge explosion.
The repeated footage of the said explosion on all the major international TV stations only made it look even more real.
Already nuclear experts from around the world have been offering their various and varied opinions on what happened, what is still happening and what might happen at Fukushima.
I noticed that few of them were willing to be drawn into what the worst case scenario might be. No wonder - it would only serve to highlight for the BLOODY UMPTEENTH TIME just how unsafe nuclear power can be!
So far it's not looking 'that bad' - and hopefully Fukushima will not attain the same grim celebrity status as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. I can only hope that is really the case, both for surrounding communities and the (far wider) natural environment.
Unfortunately, it is at times like this that rabidly anti-nuclear people such as myself are not only vindicated but with that feeling that comes with being correct about something you take no pleasure in being correct about.
For all the advances in nuclear safety, for all the huge amounts of money spent on spin in making people believe that nuclear is a 'green' and 'clean' technology and a way to 'combat' climate change, I absolutely must ask:
- Would everyone be freaked out and countless experts be on international television stations had a giant wind farm been knocked out?
- Would everyone be freaked out and countless experts be on international television stations had a field of giant solar power panels been wiped out?
Would everyone be freaked out and countless experts be on international television stations had a giant geothermal facility been taken out?
Exactly. And that is why nuclear power should never, ever, EVER be considered a viable part of our energy future.Do you get my point?
