Fukushima Disaster : Will Humanity Learn ?

The Light can be Blinding

At times I cannot believe my eyes. The light from the west   is blinding.  I thought I misread the numbers.  
To report to readers of Incoming Bytes  that the  latest news from Fukushima  in Japan  is  good  or getting better  would be deceit,  dishonest and a lie.   To shout "the news is bad"  could be inflammatory, but would probably be a substantial understatement and closer to the truth.  The escaped nuclear dragon in Japan has become even more problematic and dangerous. 
    Levels of radioactive iodine  have been recorded at 3,355 times the legal limit in the sea water close to the failed  Fukushima nuclear reactors.  You know the story, the Magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the tsunami, the reactor system failures. The hydrogen explosions.   Lack of cooling, partial meltdowns,  fuel ponds catching on fire. Radiation. Brave men trying to stop it, reminiscent of Chernobyl 25 years ago.  Dead men walking.  Plutonium was also found. Four of the reactors will have to be scrapped.  The long-term environmental, potentially mutating and death-dealing damage caused by this event may actually be incalculable.  The core of at least one of the six reactors has  partially melted through the containment vessel,  and the reactor  continues to leak highly radioactive water.  The radiation will spread;  the 'engineer's solution to pollution is dilution",  and yes, ultimately it may  be "diluted"  giving lower  readings,  but the fact is, it will still spread far and wide, causing untold damage with  "See no evil" applied.
    Meantime, authorities seem to pretend not to know where the radiation "might be" coming from.   Perfect.  See  no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil.   Problem is, radiation from that source has already reached North American shores.  
  No gamesmanship  is offered here, let us not be gullible and foolish enough to pretend that masked, dignified and profuse  apologies from engineers, specialists,  nuclear facility owners, operators, global nuclear associations or the elected  will ever be enough to reverse the damage from  what is progressing to be one of the worst, if not THE worst  nuclear events in history.  The die is cast. The fat lady is singing horribly. 
    It goes without saying this unbelievable disaster could have been totally avoided by not building these reactors in the first place, let alone engineering and building them in one of the most unstable geological damage-prone areas on the globe. We'll undoubtedly hear about apologies for that, too.  --And about the engineers knowing that a Tsunami could overwhelm the plants.... and...and....ad nauseum.  
    Words are not enough to describe that  arrogant insanity,  but, "wink wink" will take care of it,  everyone politely agrees, it will be 'fine' , after all,   "What do average people know,  they're  just  people, the uninformed,  the 'workers',  the quintessential global citizen more interested in shopping than science,  and they and their opinions certainly don't belong up there in the elite nuclear echelon, --do they?     
 I imagine it is thought behind closed doors that ordinary folk  should clearly have no  say in what happens in their world, the reason being that the impoverished  homo sapiens,  the same  disenfranchised unfortunate once called a hunter-gatherer,  but now  "ordinary citizen "  -- is considered to  lack enough information, knowledge or any ability necessary to  question, interpret, validate,  condemn or criticize  ideas  fabricated and  revered  by nuclear "authorities" as they  brazenly  hold out  " PROOF of Nuclear Infallibility, PROOF of Knowledge", PROOF of Guaranteed Nuclear Safety,  --and thereby being not obligated,  dismiss  any genuine expressions of concern from the common masses. 

The nuclear "elite" further assign grandiose purpose to their treacherous, elitist  billion-dollar  projects as they present circular, incontrovertible justification for doing what they, the  " Elite-Deemed-Knowledgeable and Infallible " arbitrarily choose to do to the environment for profit,  without regard to the potential disasters they and their pet dragons inevitably create for all the world to see, --for all the world to fear--and for all the world to ultimately suffer from.  

That the elite themselves  and their progeny will eventually  become victims of their own greed seems to have been totally overlooked and irrelevant  in the pursuit of greed and technological misadventure.  "No matter". they say.  
    Let us resist the incredible desire to reduce ourselves to name-calling or the use of choppy, unacceptable four-letter invectives, although observing  the seemingly unstoppable,  arrogant stupidity always tempts one to revert to such phraseology, to  point fingers angrily, and to generally raise hell.
    Shall we instead, meekly look forward to the future, hope and pray,  and gently  observe  there is an
"unnecessary, inexplicable, inherent  tendency"  for us  "public know-nothings"  to  criticize  large corporations,  government authorities and their fine projects?   Is that our  Achille's heel, a weakness  in the model we must keep foremost in our minds?  Should we be ashamed of ourselves for condemning that which will destroy us?      
     Nuclear  shakers & movers suggest,  even  insist nothing can go wrong, nothing can go afoul, never a mistake shall be made with their "safe"  poison-bearing projects,  and  loquaciously offer their scientific  reassurance and reasoning, when all evidence glaringly proves  otherwise.  They similarly and simultaneously proffer indignity and wounded demeanor if criticized, however meekly, -even by one of their own, who may have fortuitously  "seen the Light" and realized one can indeed  become blinded by staring into the sun,--the largest nuclear reactor close at hand.  The parallel should not be overlooked.   Never fly too close  to the sun with waxed feathers either. 
     Are the meek and "uninformed"  ever  right? It doesn't matter. They are this time,a  fact clearly demonstrated loudly  yet AGAIN, that in the nuclear industry,if cold, bitter fact is faced, disasters can happen, another incredibly horrific nuclear disaster has happened, and more  nuclear accidents, leaks,  and incidents, both minor and those major "improbable events " will continue to happen.
   Who is listening?  Who shall learn? Will humanity learn? 
  Not to allow ourselves to raise the collective blood pressure of humanity too high,  but current events are bound to be "the PROOF of the Pudding"  when human arrogance becomes a dominant, persistent and uncontrollable factor.  It seems some segments of humanity  must learn everything  the hard way. Apparently Human beings   are not that clever ,  highly educated in nuclear physics and the "art of other nuclear stuff" or   not .   It becomes ever more obvious  that if there is  any way possible to engineer idiocy,  accident and mayhem, environmental catastrophe and hypocrisy,  those seeking profit at the expense of humanity and the environment -- inevitably will do a fine job of screwing things up-without fail. 
    That's enough of that.  The pointed question must  be: 
"Will North Americans  learn from this catastrophe?  Apparently not.
     It is already clear that  Ontario has not learned, and has no intention of halting the nuclear agenda,   for they are still actively holding  the foolish, yet oh-so-classic  'public  pseudo-hearings" on expansion of Darlington. 
  The agenda?   " We're so generously listening to all of you uninformed people  here today who know nothing ..oops,,,,well, it's time for lunch,  this  hearing  is closed now, that should keep all of you environmentalist  idiots quiet now,  --and for the record, we intend to build anything we want, no matter what you said anyway, and no accidents will happen, we guarantee it..."  
Having  met  their social obligation and "justified" their existence with such finesse,   they will then proceed to hatch more death-dealing nuclear reactors at Darlington merely  because they can get away with doing so.   
To wit: Demonstrators objecting to the hearings were  arrested.  Not surprising, and totally predictable.
The radiation contaminating Japan is unacceptable .  Taking ANY chance on contaminating North America  is unacceptable.  Risking the lives of our children, our grandchildren and THEIR grandchildren and all generations to follow is unacceptable, and always HAS been. 

The fact IS, Nuclear reactors are now unacceptable under any term of reference .  

Take that to your "hearings".