Fukushima has also raised the specter of an airborne stream of radiation killing people all over the world. This includes the United States, where fallout was detected on the West Coast within days of the disaster in Japan, followed by reports of iodine 131 in milk and water from Maine to Florida. Cesium has been found on vegetables in Vermont, though it's unclear whether it came from Fukushima or the nearby Yankee reactor, a Fukushima clone that opponents in Vermont are desperately trying to shut.
On April 12, the Japanese government reclassified the Fukushima crisis to Level 7, in a general category with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, while reassuring the public that most of the airborne radiation has been blown "out to sea."
There was no sea at Chernobyl, where the heaviest radioactive contamination quickly settled on areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The public debate continues regarding the number of Chernobyl fatalities. Last year, three Russian scientists published a book based on a broad literature survey. They reported that by the early years of this century, 985,000 Chernobyl downwinders died as a result of the accident -- a number far higher than any previous estimates.
THE PEACEFUL ATOM--Commentator and author Ann Coulter might tell a national TV audience that radiation can actually be good for you, and that small doses can actually improve your health and that of your children. But scientists such as Dr. Karl Z. Morgan and Dr. John Gofman, highly regarded pioneers in the study of radiation health physics, long ago established that there is no identifiable safe dose of radiation. That there is no established threshold below which exposure to x-rays, gamma rays, and alpha or beta emissions is "safe" has been accepted in the radiation health physics field since its inception.
In an effort to deny this reality, the industry and its apologists have discounted health impacts from of the Fukushima fallout in the United States. Typical was Matthew Herper in a Forbes blog, who assured readers that there would be minimal health danger from Fukushima "even if things go horribly wrong." The line that no dangerous doses of radiation have reached the U.S. has become an article of faith among major media from CNN to NPR.
Yet difficult to ignore is the presence of four California reactors that sit near major earthquake faults, in tsunami zones. The two reactors on the beach at San Onofre are far closer to San Diego and Los Angeles than Fukushima is to Tokyo. Two more at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, are within a mile of a newly discovered fault line, and considerably less than that from the shore. Had the Fukushima quake hit either of those sites, southern and central California would be in evacuation mode, and our nation would be blanketed in lethal fallout.
With reactors like Indian Point and San Onofre hauntingly close to major population centers, with some two dozen U.S. plants identical in design to Fukushima, and with still more on or near earthquake faults, industry backers are working to convince the public that however dangerous their nukes might be, coal is worse. Global warming, they say, favors nuclear because it's "carbon free."
Both technologies are doomed by cost, supply, and their impact on the environment and human health.
Our survival ultimately depends on burying fossil fuels -- and more immediately, the "Peaceful Atom" that has given us Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and other accidents that will inevitably follow.
Thus far, Barack Obama has been the industry's best ally. Early into the Fukushima accident -- long before it was clear what would happen -- he assured the public that there was nothing to worry about here, and that he would continue to push for more reactors. The administration also has failed to establish a national monitoring network that could inform the public about where the radiation is and what individuals might do to protect themselves and their families.
Obama's non-response may date back to his early days as a state senator, when he allied himself with the Illinois-based Exelon, America's biggest private nuke owner. The president's career is rooted in the 11 reactors that ring Chicago. The consulting firm founded by his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, who would later become a senior White House advisor, represented Exelon. Obama's former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel (now mayor-elect of Chicago) put together investment packages for Exelon's Illinois plants when he worked as an investment banker. And Exelon CEO John Rowe has been a longtime financial backer of the president.
A critical moment is coming soon, when Obama goes to Congress to request an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees for new nukes in his 2012 budget.
With them, America's atomic industry has a chance to build a few more reactors. Without them, a green-powered Earth is within our grasp.
(As we go to press Entergy has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Vermont attempting to prevent the state from forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to cease operation on March 21, 2012.)
Harvey Wasserman edits the NukeFree.org website. His most recent book is Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth.
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