To focus our perspective, we must understand the difference between individuals and institutions. Institutions are increasingly oligarchies - slanted systems that afford power and benefit to "the few' over "the many'. And t he most dangerous system on Earth, by far, is that of nuclear experimentation.
Nuclear reactions have the potential to permanently endanger our Earth, just as they have already done, and to render it uninhabitable. So why does our society accept the risks inherent in nuclear industries? The answer is: oligarchical collectivism. Despite its dangers, it is profitable to "the few'.
Pro-nukers will be quick to note the different sub-sets of the nuclear experimentation industry, being power generation and weapon detonation, in an attempt to separate the concept of nuclear power from the dangers of nuclear weaponry. The immediate problem with this thinking is two-fold:
1) while a global industry has been built around nuclear power generation, the ongoing failings of the nuclear industry demonstrates it is still just experimentation. A nuclear reaction is uncontainable, so when things go wrong, the industry has no back up plan -- other than to squash public discussion of their failure and pass the financial cost of the clean up onto the public.
2) as currently evident in Iran, and elsewhere too, is that nuclear power generation experimentation can produce the radioactive elements required for dirty bombs and depleted uranium munition, as well as atomic and nuclear detonation devices.
Despite what pro-nukers might say, there are clear industrial/institutional links between the two supposedly different aspects of nuclear experimentation.
Furthermore, all life on Earth is poisoned by radioactivity, regardless of its intended use. Our physical being does not know the difference between radioactive elements that were spewed from an unplanned meltdown or from intentional detonation. With both sub-sets of the nuclear industry, the end result is the same; radioactive contamination and death.
Radioactive pollution is a direct cause of cancer in all living beings and causes disease and entropy on a level that is beyond the pale of our common collective understanding. The poisons of nuclear experimentation are invisible and yet are so entirely deadly that those elements could instantly cause the extinction of all life on Earth. There would be no great notification, no presidential announcement, no breaking news bulletin". the sun would still rise and set, we just wouldn't be alive to see it.
One of the "comforting' misnomers promoted by the nuclear experimentation industry -- aside from the direct lies -- are that no one died as a direct result of Fukushima radiation exposure. Let's put political and corporate formality aside for a moment".
Is the permanent evacuation of an entire region not akin to death? Has the nuclear industry followed the ongoing progress of the 36% of people in the Fukushima prefecture who were diagnosed with thyroid cancer following the 2011 meltdown? Does the thousand tons of radiation still leaking into the North Pacific each day not threaten the lives of countless marine animals? Of countless species? And the health of our food chain?
According to Ken Buesseler, senior scientist in marine chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, both short-lived radioactive elements, such as iodine-131, and longer-lived elements, such as cesium-137 can be absorbed by phytoplankton, zooplankton, kelp and other marine life, and then transmitted up the food chain to fish, marine mammals and humans. Other radioactive elements including plutonium, which has been detected outside the Fukushima plant, also pose a threat to marine life.
Another misunderstanding that is pushed by the nuclear industry is that the Pacific Ocean will dilute the radioactive poisons that are now endlessly emanating from the failed Fukushima plant, causing minimal damage to the marine environment. However, the Pacific Ocean will only distribute the carcinogenic elements that cause entropy and death for time immeasurable. There is no diluting radioactive particulate, it can only be dispersed. On this topic, Buesseler states:
"My biggest concern is the lack of information. We still don't know the whole range of radioactive compounds that have been released into the ocean, nor do we know their distribution. We have a few data points from the Japanese -- all close to the coast -- but to understand the full impact, including for fisheries, we need broader surveys and scientific study of the area."
Despite the cloud of corporate and political rhetoric, the disastrous impacts of the Fukushima disaster are clear. In April 2011, Japanese news outlet NHK World reported that:
" Tokyo Electric Power Company says it detected 300,000 bequerels of iodine-131 per 1 cubic centimeter, or 7.5 million times higher than the legal limit, in samples taken around the water intake of the No. 2 reactor.
" [a] sample also shows 1.1 million times higher than the national limit of cesium-137 whose half-life is 30 years.
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