Believe This - The Japanese Survivors of Radiation Speak

The Japanese People Speak!

Nov 15, 2001 Foreign Correspondents' Club in Japan
No More Hibakusya! No More Nuke Power!

A Truly Historical Press Conference made by Hibakushas (radiation exposed people) from Hiroshima to Fukushima


Speakers
Shuntaro Hida, Physician & Hiroshima A bomb Hibakusha
Matashichi Oishi, Hibakusha, Former Lucky Dragon Crew
Sachiko Sato, Representative, Fukushima Network for Saving Children
from Radiation
Mari Takenouchi, Co-director, Society of Hibakusha
Ryusuke Umeda, Former Power Plant Worker
 
 

竹野内真理、ジャーナリスト、翻訳者  Email:  mariscontact@gmail.com

 

Mari Takenouchi,  Journalist, Translator  Email: mariscontact@gmail.com

 

99年に電源喪失事故のシナリオを米国人科学者から聞いてから、以来反原発の活動をしてきました。特に地震と原発の問題では、２００２年にIAEAにも直訴に行きましたが、その時知り合いの上司であったIAEA職員が、「この問題はあまりに問題が大きすぎて、誰も手がつけられない。仮に日本で５００万人が死んでもあきらめるしかない。原発を止める唯一つの道は国民全員が声を上げることだ」と言われました。その後もいろいろ活動しましたが、事故が実際に起きてしまい、無念で悲しくてなりません。

 

I became anti-nuclear when I heard a simulation of a station black out accident scenario from a US scientist in 1999.  To highlight the issue of nuclear power and earthquakes, I went to IAEA in 2002 to directly plea for halting nuclear power in Japan.  I remember a superior of my acquaintance in IAEA telling me, “Ms. Takenouchi, this issue is too big for anyone to tackle.  5 million Japanese people’s deaths may not be able to be avoided.  The only way to avert such a situation is that every Japanese raise his/her voice to stop nuclear power.” Since then, I have been trying to disseminate information about this issue, but in the end the accident still took place.  I feel so regretful and sad.
今日は私は以下の三つのことを言いたいです。

I would like to tell you three things today.

1.      福島やその他の汚染地帯から人々を、特に子供たちを直ちに避難させてほしいです。二日前に福島をたずねましたが、そこで行われていた体制側の学者によるシンポジウムで、福島はもうほとんど安全であるという発言を聞いて驚きました。同時に彼らは子供たちの線量を測り、健康調査をしているのです。なぜ避難をさせてから健康調査を出来ないのでしょうか？福島の子供たちをモルモットにしようとしているのでしょうか？米国と日本の政府が、悲しいことに、広島や長崎の被爆者にたいしてやってきたことを思えば、その可能性は大いにあります。福島の子供たちをどうか研究材料にしないでください。私も１歳児の母親として切に訴えます。

People, especially children in Fukushima and other contaminated areas should be evacuated immediately.  I visited Fukushima 2 days ago and I was speechless when I attended a symposium held by government-sided scholars.  They keep saying that Fukushima is almost safe.  Meanwhile, they are getting the data of children’s radiation dose and are conducting health check-ups.  Why can’t they let these children evacuate first and conduct medical check-ups afterwards?  Are they trying to use Fukushima children as their guinea pigs? Regretfully, this is probable considering what the US and Japanese scholars did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki hibakusyas.  Please do not use Fukushima children for studies.  As a mother of a one year old, I would like to make a strong appeal about this to the world.

2.      日本の基準値５００ベクレルは高すぎます。この部屋のどこかにゴメリ医科大学の創設者で元学長であったユーリ・バンダジェフスキーの論文をご覧になった方はいらっしゃいますでしょうか？彼の研究によれば、セシウムが体内に20Bq/kgの濃度で取り込まれますと、心臓に異変が起きやすくなるというのです。そしてICRPのpublication 111（2009）にあるグラフによると、1日たった10ベクレル、大人はだいたい1日2kgの食物を摂取しますから、基準値のたった100分の1のレベルであっても、70kgの大人であっても心臓に異変が2年以内に起こる可能性を示唆しているのです。さらに30kgの子供の場合は、100日以内です。ベルラド放射能安全研究所副所長のウラジーミル・バベンコ 氏の、子供の食べ物はゼロベクレルにしなければならないという発言が決しておおげさなものでないことがわかるデータであると思います。同時に汚染がれきが全国に流通するのは防がなければなりません。特にそれが燃やされた時、沸点が641度と低いセシウムは大気中の微粒子となり、容易に人に吸い込まれ、深刻な内部被ばくを引き起こします。

2.      The limit of 500 Bq/kg is way too high.  Has anybody in this room read the study conducted by Yuri Bandazhevsky, the founder and the former director of the Gomel Medical Institute?  According to his study, when the cesium is incorporated into the body at 20Bq/kg level, functional abnormality in the heart is likely to take place.  Also, according to a graph in ICRP publication 111 (2009), intake of 10 Bq/day cesium, only one 100th of the Japanese reference level  would likely lead to heart abnormality within 2 years! (Considering that an average adults eats nearly 2kg of foods daily, if they eat upper limit of 500Bq/kg food, daily intake is 500Bq/kg ×2kg=1000Bq/day.  10Bq/day =1/100 of 1000Bq/day) From this graph, we can tell that the statement saying children’s cesium food intake should be zero Bq by Dr. Uladimir Babenka, Deputy-Director of BELRAD Institute is not an exaggeration at all.  At the same time, contaminated debris should not be distributed all over Japan.  Especially if it is burned, cesium, with a very low boiling point of 641 degrees Celsius, will become fine particles in the air which can be easily inhaled by people, causing serious internal exposure.

3．原発は稼働している場合ではないと思います。福島事故の後でも原発を日本で稼働させ、またさらに海外に輸出しようとしている日本政府の行動はまったく狂気の沙汰です。現在でも日本国中で地震は発生しており、近い将来第二の福島原発事故が起こる可能性はおおいにあります。さらに福島の4号炉は、稼働中でないにも関わらず、爆発しました。したがいまして、使用済み燃料プール周りの構造物は耐震設計を強化する必要があります。どうかこれら三つのことを行い、子供たちの命、将来の命そしてみなさんの命を守ってください。ありがとうございました。

３Nuclear power plants are not supposed to be operating.  It is totally insane for  the Japanese government to continue the operation of nuclear power plants in Japan even after the Fukushima accident. It is even still trying to export nuclear plants to overseas.  There have been earthquakes quite frequently now all over Japan and there could be the 2^nd Fukushima accident anywhere in Japan in the near future.  On top of that, Fukushima No 4 exploded even though it was not operating.  Hence, structures of and around spent fuel pools should be enhanced against coming earthquakes all over Japan.　By doing these three things, please save children’s lives, lives of the future generations and lives of your own.  Thank you very much.

肥田舜太郎（広島原爆被爆医師）

　Dr. Shuntaro Hida, Hiroshima A-bomb survivor, Physician

1945年8月、私は広島陸軍病院に勤務していました。６日朝は６キロ離れた村に深夜往診をして幸い原爆の直爆死を免れました。

In August 1945, I was working as a doctor at Hiroshima Military Hospital. On the morning of the 6th, I happened to be 6km away from the hospital as there had been an emergency house-call on a child patient late at night and luckily, I was not killed by the direct hit of the A-bomb.

それから６５年間、私は多くの被爆者を診療してきました。直爆を受けた人々の死は壮絶でした。火傷や外傷とともに、発熱、紫斑、目、鼻、口、陰部を含む体中からの出血の急性原爆病で死んでいったのです。

Ever since, I have been looking after thousands of hibakusyas for 65 years. I saw some of the horrendous deaths of those directly hit by the A-bomb. Besides terrible burns and wounds, they developed highfever, purple spots, and finally died from massive bleeding from their bodies including mouth, nose, eyes, and genitals etc.

しかし、医師である私にさらに強烈なショックをもたらしたのは、あとから入市した人々が似たような症状を呈して死んでいった姿でした。

But what was even more shocking to me was that people who came to Hiroshima afterwards also developed similar symptoms and died.

以来私は、生涯、不明の病気で苦しんだ、放射性物質を体内に取り込んだ内部被曝者を数多く診察しており、彼らこそを核の時代の最大の被害者だと感じてきました。

I have continued to see patients who have suffered unknown diseases throughout their lives due to the internal radiation exposure caused by the intake or inhalation of radioactive materials into their body. I believe they are the most prominent victims of this nuclear age.

ところがマッカーサー将軍が、原爆被害を米軍の軍事機密に指定し、被爆者には「喋るな、書き残すな」と命じ、医師、学者には被害の研究を禁止して、違反者は重罪に処すと宣言したため、占領下の７年間、被爆者は放置されたままにされました。

However, under occupation after the war, General MacArthur made hibakusyas a military secret and issued the official order not to talk and write about them. They also prohibited physicians and scholars to study hibakusyas and proclaimed that those who violated the order should be severely punished. Thus all hibakusyas were totally ignored for 7 following the war.

さらに、1949年に廣島と長崎に設立されたＡＢＣＣ（後の放射線影響協会）が、「内部被曝は放射線が微量で、人体には全く無害」と強力に宣伝したため、「だるさ」を訴える内部被曝者の慢性症状「ブラブラ病」は神経症状とされ、中には仮病とまで言われて、被爆者の苦しみをさらに広げました。

Moreover, the Atomic Bomb Casualties Commission (later known as the Radiation Effects Association) strongly disseminated the phrase,“Internal exposure is harmless to the human body because the radiation

level is so low.” So, hibakyusa suffering from so called A-bomb burabura disease (extreme and persistent chronicle sluggishness) were told neurosis or fake, which added more suffering to lives of the hibakusya.

私は原発労働者の中にも、ぶらぶら病の症状を呈した患者を診たことがあります。電力会社は今までたびたび放射能の放出を伴った原発事故の直後に「健康には影響がない」と発表してきました。医師でもない電力会社の責任者がなぜそのようなことが言えるのか。真面目に言っているとしたら茶番です。

I have also seen burabura disease patients among nuclear power plant workers. Electric companies have often announced that there was no damage to human health right after a nuclear accident. But how can a

person from an electricity company, who is not even a doctor, assume that there is no health damage immediately after the accident? To my eyes, these announcements are like lines from a self-produced stage

production.

今回の福島原発事故でも、労働者が三人が亡くなっていますが、電力会社は放射能との因果関係を否定しています。どのような根拠で否定できるのでしょうか。

After the Fukushima accident, three nuclear power plant workers have died and Tokyo Electric Company have denied any causality from radiation. How can they prove that there is no relationship with radiation?

実際私の元には、数百人の相談者が既に来ており、鼻血、下痢、発熱、甲状腺の腫れ、紫斑の出ている子どもも出ています。福島や東北地方はもちろん、東京を含む関東、遠くは山梨県や静岡県からの相談もあります。

In fact, hundreds of people consulted me after Fukushima accident, whose children are suffering nose bleeding, diarrhea, fever, swollen thyroid, purple spots not only from Fukushima and North Eastern Japan,

but also from Tokyo metropolitan area and as far as Yamanashi and Shizuoka.

子供さんに放射線被害の初期症状がでた福島や関東平野の母親は、これから、どう生きたらよいのか深刻に悩んでいます。放射線は自分の家族だけの安全を許しません。

What can mothers do when their children develop these symptoms? I am seriously worried myself as I don't know exactly what they can do. Nobody or no family can now be totally safe from radiation in Japan.

人類にとって唯一の生き延びる道は原爆、原発を全廃することだけです。ありがとうございました。

The only way for us all to survive is to abolish both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants in the world. Thank you very much.

 

 

ビキニ水爆実験被爆者　元第五福竜丸乗組員　大石又七

Matashichi Oishi, former crew of the Lucky 5th Dragon, Hibakusya from Bikini nuclear test

 

福島原発大事故は今から五七年前に起きたビキニ事件の原点にさかのぼって考えなければ正しい答えは出てこないと思っています。誰がなぜ、危険な原発を地震大国である日本に導入したか、そこが一番重要なところだと思います。

 

I believe we cannot have a correct understanding of Fukushima nuclear accident unless we look back the Bikini Incident 57 years ago.  The most important point is, who and why a dangerous nuclear power plant was introduced to Japan, a most earthquake prone country.

 

1954年、私は元第五福竜丸という漁船の乗組員で、アメリカが広島に投下した原爆の約一〇〇〇倍という巨大な水爆実験に遭遇した被爆者です。その爆発で起きた『死の灰』を日本に持ち帰ったことから太平洋や大気圏が強力な放射能で汚染されていることが分かり大事件に発展していった、これがビキニ事件です。

 

When I was a crew member of Lucky 5th Dragon fishermen’s boat in 1954, I encountered a US Pacific thermonuclear test, approximately 1000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima A-bomb.  I became a Hibakusya.  By the fallout brought back to Japan, people came to realize that the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere was strongly contaminated with radiation, which became a big news, later called as Bikini Incident.

 

後に残された資料からいろいろなことが分かってきました。一九四六年から一九五八年にかけてアメリカ軍だけでも、このビキニとエニウエトク環礁を使って六七回の大気圏核実験を行ない、合わせて一〇〇メガトンの核爆発を繰り返しました。この一〇〇メガトンの爆発は、なんと広島型原爆を毎日一個ずつ一八年間落とし続けた量というから驚きです。

 

  Various facts came to be revealed through archive materials.  From 1946 to 1958, the US military alone conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear testing at Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls, which was 100 megaton nuclear explosion in total.  Also, this 100 megaton explosion is equivalent to Hiroshima A-bomb dropped each single day for the duration of 18 years.  Isn’t this amazing?

 

水爆は巨大な爆発威力だけではありません。爆発と同時に恐ろしい放射能を撒き散らします。それらの放射能は半減期が何十年、何万年というもので人間の体内に入り込み、染色体を傷つけながら体の内側から攻撃するという内部被曝を起こしていました。染色体を傷つければ死産や奇形児の原因を作りだし、子孫へと繋がっていきます。

 

Thermonuclear bomb did not only give out enormous explosive power, but also scattered  deadly radioactive materials in the environment. The half lives of radioactive materials can range as long as dozens of years to even tens of thousands of years. These materials can be absorbed into various parts of human bodies, harming the chromosomes and body tissues internally-this is called internal exposure.  This kind of damage can cause still birth, congenital defects, which could be transferred from generation to generation.

 

半減期の長い放射能が食物連鎖や風などに乗って地球上を漂い、誰のどこに取り付くかは現在の科学や医学では計り知ることは出来ません。これが見えない放射能の恐ろしいところです。貴方もすでに被爆者になっているかもしれません。

 

Even the modern science and medicine cannot detect where such long-lived radioactive material can travel in the winds and food chain, or who and which part of the body such materials can finally come down to.  This is the horror of radiation.  Maybe some of you might have become hibakusya already.

 

私は言いたいです、当時、核、放射能の恐ろしさをあれほど教え警告したのに日米政府は事件を握りつぶし隠しました。その結果どうなりましたか。核兵器も広島型原爆よりずっと威力を持つようになり、二万三〇〇〇発の核弾頭が実弾となって出来上がり、人類を脅かしています。

 

I want to say this.  In spite of citizens’ voices of concern against nukes and radiation in those days, the governments of the US and Japan smothered the incident and hid the facts.  What happened then?  Nuclear weapons become much more powerful than Hiroshima A-bomb and more than 2００００ nuclear warheads are now threatening the entire humanity.

 

この重要な意味を持つビキニ事件を賠償もせず、わずかな見舞金、責任も核実験も容認してその見返りに水面下で原発を要求したのです。この人たちにこそ重大な責任があるのではないでしょうか。

 

The US government did not take any responsibility or compensate for the victims of this very important Bikini incident and instead, paid small amount of consolation money only.  Meanwhile, the Japanese government acknowledged the continuation of the nuclear testing and in return, demanded for nuclear power behind the scenes.  Don’t you think these people who made efforts to introduce nuclear power to Japan highly responsible?  I believe they are the responsible.

 

ビキニ事件は過去の終わった事件ではありません。あのときから始まった事件です。それなのに誰の口からもビキニ事件という言葉が出てきません。

 

Bikini Incident is not a past.  Contrary to it, that incident was the very start of the entire story. However, nobody talks about Bikini Incident any more.

 

当時アメリカは自由諸国にウランを提供し、軍事ブロックを築こうとしてＣＩＡの職員を読売という大きなメディアを目標に打診してきました。これを知った読売新聞社主の正力松太郎氏は、日本中が核実験反対で燃え盛っている矛先を変え、原子力の平和利用といって自分の持つメディアをフルに使って、原発導入の宣伝を大々的に行ないます。

 

In those days, the US tried to build a military block by providing uranium to western world and approached Japan through CIA targeting at a major media company Yomiuri Shimbun.  The then Yomiuri president, Mr. Matsutaro Shoriki conducted an all-out promotion of peaceful use of nuclear power using his own media company to shift the raging anti-nuke sentiment.

 

 政界では中曽根康弘代議士が青年将校などと言われながら危険を伴う原発をアメリカの意向に沿って先頭に立ち、ビキニ事件の三日後に二億三千五〇〇万円の原子力予算を国会で通過させます。  原発を日本に導入した経緯を知れば今起こっている大事故の責任、賠償の方向性も見えてくるはずです。ご静聴ありがとうございました。

 

In the political arena, so-called young-military-officer politician Yasuhiro Nakasone, who became a Prime Minister of Japan later days, took a lead to pass the nuclear power budget of 235 million yen at the Diet, only three days after the Bilini Incident, in line with the US government intention.  If we realize the background of this history, we could see where the responsibility of the current nuclear catastrophe lies and how the compensation should be made in the future.　　Thank you very much.

 

 梅田隆亮、元原発労働者

 Ryuusuke Umeda, former nuclear power plant worker

 

 私は1979年に島根原発と敦賀原発で働きました。炉心のすぐ近くで働き、被曝しました。

 I worked for Shimane and Turuga nuclear power plants.  I worked very close to the reactor core and got exposed to radiation.

 

 きちんとした安全教育はなく、「被曝」という意識すらありませんでした。

 In my case, there was no safety education, and workers were not even aware of the concept of “exposure to radiation” .

 

 線量計は配布されましたが、ビービー音が鳴って仕事にならず、放射線の低い所にいる人にあずけて作業しました。現場監督は見て見ぬふりでした。島根原発では普通の作業着で、マスクもつけずに作業しました。

 Though we received dosimeters, since the alarm went off so frequently and distracted our works, we left them to the workers in the lower radiation level areas, and our supervisor deliberately overlooked this.  In Shimane, workers just wore regular work clothes and did not wear masks.

 

 放射能の怖さは、時間がたってから現われます。私は鼻血と全身倦怠に悩まされました。「ぶらぶら病」と呼ばれ、働くのが困難になります。診断が難しいため、周囲の人から理解されず「怠け者」扱いされます。

 The scariest thing about radiation is that its impact on human health takes a long time to appear, so at first it seems safe. In my case, I suffered from nose bleeding and general malaise (so called Burabura disease).  Burabura Disease makes it very hard for people to work, but as it is difficult to diagnose, many people do not understand and regard such Burabura patients merely as lazy people.

 

 私は2000年に心筋梗塞を発症し、働けなくなりました。私のように労災申請する作業員は少なく、病気になっても泣き寝入りがほとんどです。

 In 2000, I also got myocardial infarction and was unable to work. 　There are very few who apply for workers’ compensation and they are forced to bear the condition.

 

 かつては原発に対して「賛成」でも「反対」でもありませんでした。原発で働いて給料をもらったというためらいがあり、言いづらかったのです。

 In the past, I was neither “for” or “against” nuclear power.  I was hesitant to speak out seeing I received payment through working at nuclear plants.

 

 しかし、これ以上被曝者を出さないために、「原発反対」という考えに変わりました。福島原発事故が起き、多くの作業員が被曝しています。その多くは下請け労働者です。心筋梗塞で亡くなった方もおられると伺っています。原発はすべて廃炉にすべきだと思います。

 However, in order to prevent radiation exposure to more people, I became anti-nuclear.  Then the Fukushima accident took place and many workers, especially sub contractors have been exposed.  I heard there was one worker who died of myocardial infarction.  I believe all the nuclear power plants should be shut down.

 

 3つのことを提案します。

 Now, I want to raise three proposals.

 

 1  原発作業員の健康相談窓口をつくってほしい。これまで原発で働いて被曝した人は40万人以上と言われています。しかし、労災を申請した人はほんのわずかです。ですから、作業員の「いのちの電話」のような制度があったら良いと思います。

 1  A health consultation service should be established. There have been more than 400,000 nuclear power plant workers in total in Japan.   However, only very few people have applied for workers’ compensation.  It would be great if there was a so-called "life-line" or help-line for nuclear workers.

 

 2  安全教育や放射線管理が適切になされているか、できるかぎり第三者に見えるようにする。私の場合もそうですが、きちんとした安全教育をしていないのに、元請会社は適切におこなったと主張し、水掛け論になるのを防がねばなりません。

 

 2  Working conditions such as safety education and radiation control should be made as visible as possible to the third party.  Without adequate safety training, endless disputes will occur between workers and sub-contractors about whether safety education have been properly conducted or not - as was the case in my experience.  We need to avoid such situations.

 

 3  原発労災の対象疾患に、心筋梗塞を入れてほしい。原爆症では心筋梗塞が認定対象となっていますが、原発労災では対象になっていません。原爆も原発も本質的には同じなので、病気についても同じように認めるべきだと思います。また、内部被曝の影響を正しく評価することが大事だと思います。

 3  Myocardial infarction should be included in the symptoms subject to the nuclear workers’ compensation.  Myocardial infarction is included in the registered diseases of A-bomb victims, but not those of nuclear workers.  The radiation health problems caused by the A-bomb and nuclear power plant are basically the same.  It is also very important to evaluate the effects of internal exposure correctly.

 

 最後に、私の労災申請について申し上げます。11月2日に再審査請求「棄却」の裁決書が送られてきました。私は敦賀原発の現地調査を再三求めていたのですが、敦賀原発の現地調査を何もおこなわないまま、裁決が出されました。このことに強く抗議します。

 Lastly, let me report to you regarding my own application for workers’ compensation.  On November 2, I received a rejection letter to my re-examination request from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.  I

had repeatedly requested a site examination at Tsuruga nuclear reactor, but the decision was made without an inspection.  I strongly protest this.

 

 32年前に私が働いた敦賀原発1号機は、今回事故を起こした福島原発と同じタイプの原子炉です。当時から問題のある原子炉で、ボロボロの配管があちこちにありました。津波がなくても地震があれば、福島のような事故が起きてもおかしくありません。「なぜ敦賀原発の現地調査をしなかったのか」、きちんと説明してほしいです。ご静聴ありがとうございました。

 

 Tsuruga nuclear reactor 1, where I used to work is the same type of reactor as those at Fukushima.  It had many problems such as shabby pipes.  Even without a tsunami, if there is any major earthquake, an accident like Fukushima could occur at any moment.  Why didn’t they examine Tsuruga No. 1 reactor?  I would like to have a proper explanation from the government.　Thank you very much.

　　　　　　　　　　

 

福島の母親のスピーチ

Speech by a Mother in Fukushima

子どもたちを放射能から守る福島ネットワーク世話人　　佐藤幸子

Sachiko Sato, Representative, Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation

私は、30年間自然に添った農業をしながら、子ども5人を育ててきました。チェルノブイリ事故後、石油や、食糧が輸入されなくなっても原発が止まっても、生きられるようにと、昔からの知恵や技を自分が受け継ぎ次の世代へと繋ぐ生き方をしてきました。その生活を、学びたいという人々が全国から集まり小さな共同体が出来ていました。

For the past 30 years, I have been practicing natural style of farming while rearing my 5 children.　After Chernobyl accident, I changed my life style using old day practices and wisdom handed down from generation to generation so that we could survive without oil, nuclear power, and imported foods. People who wanted to learn such kind of living gathered around me from all over Japan, so we were living in a sort of small community.

今回の原発事故が、それらの全てを奪いました。大切にしてきた農地は、空から降り注いだ放射能のせいで、これまで無農薬で作ってきた安全な野菜を、今年は作ることが出来なくなりました。農民としてこれ程悲しいことはありません。

Then, the Fukushima accident took away everything from us.　　This year, we cannot grow safe organic vegetables from our agricultural land which was taken great care of without any chemical.As a farmer, there is nothing that can make me more sad.

3月11日を境に、全ての福島県民の生活は一変してしまいました。地震、津波、原発事故三重苦のなか、それでも生きていかなければならない苦しさ。

After March 11, lives of all the people in Fukushima was changed.　　We had to manage to survive in the midst of the triple disasters-earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear accident.

とりわけ、原発による被害は目に見えないだけに、それを受け入れることができない苦しさがあります。去年と何も変わっていない美しい風景の中に確実に存在する放射能は、そこに住むことができないと判断した人と、そこに住み続けようと判断した人の間に、大きな溝を作ってしまいました。

Particularly, we suffered from nuclear disaster. Since the radiation is invisible, it is very difficult for us to accept the fact.　　The radiation that exists for sure in the beautiful scenery that has not changed a bit from last year put a tremendous gap between people who decided not to continue living that area and people who decided to continue living that area.

本来なら、同じ被害者であるはずの家族が、地域の人々が、思いを共有できないという悲しい現象、心がバラバラになることによって引き起こされた精神的被害、これが「直ちに出た健康被害」です。

The families and neighbors who are supposed to share their sufferings cannot share their feelings.Fukushima people’s mental damage caused by this disintegration of people’s minds can be called as“immediate health effects.” (After the accident, the government of Japan repeatedly said, “There will be no immediate health damage.”)

そして、今後ジワジワと出てくる低線量被曝による被害は、確率が低いからと何の手だてもしない。それどころか、これまで、100ミリシーベルト以下のデータが十分にないと言い、そのデータを集めるため福島県民200万人をモルモットにしようとしているのです。

The government does not take any action for the upcoming health damage caused by low level radiation saying that the probability of health damage is low enough.　　On the contrary, the government is trying to use 2 million Fukushima people as guinea pigs to collect data, saying that there is not enough data for radiation exposure below 100 milisieverts.

見えないはずの放射能で汚染された福島が、私には戦場に見えます。それはまさに、愚かにも人間が自然を征服出来るかのごとく振る舞ってきた人類と、自然を大切にしたいと考えている人類との戦いの場です。自然豊かな福島「うつくしま福島」だからこそ、見た目には何も変わらない、「美しい戦場」となりました。

To my eyes, the scenery of radiation contaminated Fukushima is just like a battle field, even though I cannot see the radiation itself.　　It is a battlefield between people who foolishly behaved as if they could conquer the nature and people who have cherished the nature.　　Since Fukushima is beautiful in nature, it does not look different at all. In sight, it is a “beautiful battle field.”

放射能と、国家権力で子どもの未来を奪ってしまう戦場です。戦場に子どもは居てはいけないのです。戦場の炎の中にいる子どもたちを置き去りにしてはいけないのです。

But it is a battlefield to take away the future of children by the state power. There should not be any children in the battlefield.　　We should not leave any child in a battlefield with fire.

これまでの、経済優先の考えでは、子どもたちを救えないのです。子どもたちを救うあらゆる手だてを今すぐ行わなければならないと思います。

We cannot save our children with the economy first ideology.　　We immediately need to take every measure to rescue children now.

原発事故の恐ろしさは日本中、世界中が感じたはずです。それでも尚、原発を止めないばかりか、原発を輸出すると言うこの国は、一体何を考えているのでしょうか。

People in Japan and in the world should have felt the horror of nuclear accident.　　What kind of nerve does this country have not only continuing nuclear power generation domestically but also trying to export more nuclear power to overseas?

今後、何世代先にも及ぶ影響が出ると言うことをどう考えているのでしょうか。８ヶ月も炎の中に放って置いた政府に期待はできません。

I wonder what the government is thinking in regard to the health effects that can continue for generations to come.　　In any case, we cannot expect much from the government who left children in the fires of battlefields as long as 8 months.

子どもの命を守るのは、政府でないことがはっきりしました。このままでは、「未来の子どもたちの命より、目先の経済のほうが大切だと21世紀の大人たちは判断しました」と、将来にわたり人類が滅びるまで、伝え続けて行かなければならないことになるのです。

Now we know that it is not our government who can protect our children.　With this trend continuing, we the adults in the 21st century will have to be told that we made the judgment with our priority on the short-sighted economy rather than childrens’ lives in the future. We will be told like this until human race would eventually be extinguished.

子どもの命を守れるのは、国民です。何が正しくてどうすることが命を守ることになるのか、心の目を見開き一人一人が自分で判断して行動する必要があります。

It is people who can save children’s lives.　　Each single person needs to open his or her eyes of mind and make a judgment to see what is correct and what should be done to save lives.

「子どもの命を守る」たったこの一つの願いを叶えるために、福島の親たちは立ち上がりました。全国の人々が福島の子どもたちを守るためにつながりました。あらゆる人々がつながり活動を進めなければならないですし、生き方をも変えなければならないほどの重要な決断をしなければならない時がきたのです。

Mothers and fathers in Fukushima stood up to make a single wish come true. That is to save lives of children.　People from all over the nation got connected to protect lives of children in Fukushima.　　Now the time has come for everybody to get connected and make actions and to alter their life styles, the moment for all of us to make a very important decision.

もし、これで原発が止まらなかったら、人類は滅亡への道を進むことになるでしょう。 福島から発信された原発事故の恐ろしさが、世界中の人々に伝わり、全ての原発を止めることができるまで、活動を続けなければなりません。福島の子どもたちのような悲しみを、もう二度と起こしてはいけません。ご静聴ありがとうございました。

If the nuclear power does not stop even after this Fukushima accident, humankind would surely tread the path to destruction.　　The horror of nuclear accident coming from Fukushima should be disseminated to the people all over the world. We need to continue our actions until all the nuclear power plants in the world are stopped. We should never cause any more sorrow Fukushima children had to any other children on our planet.　Thank you very much.

This was posted on: http://savekidsjapan.blogspot.jp/2012_10_01_archive.html

 

Bye Bye San Onofre Nuclear Reactor…….and what it does for YOU

Eons ago I lived in Orange County not too far from the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. Visiting San Diego made you pass right by it when using the freeway. As a science teacher in high school, it always made me wonder if it were “safe”. The mechanics of an atomic bomb were well known – radioactive materials release “nuclear bullets” as they decay. An uncontrolled increasingly large chain reaction can be created – just as all the old science films showed- dropping one ping pong ball into thousands of mouse traps set with other ping pong balls. One ball hits a trap and now 2 balls hit 2 traps and 4 balls are loose , the 4 turning into 8 balls loose, etc. The heat and energy released in an atomic chain reaction results in an explosion.

But……the nuclear reactor in a power plant has control rods that drop into the chain reaction and absorb the excess “nuclear bullets” to slow the reaction down and there is a cooling system also. Therefore the reactor heats water which produces steam to turn turbines and make electricity safely.


But…. What if it somehow got out of control. What if the unthinkable happened? What if there were human error? What if what could go wrong, did go wrong? It kept flowing through my mind. And I lived nearby.


So in 1975 I sat down to put my fears into writing. This was before the internet, when communication was through books and magazines, newspapers, and television. With the confidence produced from having no knowledge of the book industry, I dedicated myself for several years to writing a fiction novel that expressed my ideas of what would happen if an earthquake hit a nuclear reactor facility and jammed the control rods so that the nuclear chain reaction could not be slowed down and an explosion would occur. In a moment of brilliance I entitled the fiction novel, “The Nuclear Catastrophe”.


Suprisingly, I had no trouble getting the novel published with a moderate advance, a few good reviews, sales to libraries across the United States. Then: nothing. Hard to make a living that way so I moved on in life. In fact I forgot all about that adventure until the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Strangely enough, 30+ years later, an earthquake had jammed the control rods of a nuclear plant and the plant had explosions and a meltdown, totally destroying the plant.


Out of curiosity, I googled the name of my novel. It was all over the internet being sold as a second hand used book. Since it had never been brought out as a paperback, nor the now the ever present EBook, I decided to re-enter the contentious fray over nuclear power. Is it safe? Is it sane? Is it cost effective? Does it increase cancer risk? And how else does it affect YOU.


While my critics abound, so do my supporters. (Reading the reviews on my Amazon page is like a nuclear war). But the bottom line is, Southern California has 20 MILLION people who would be affected by a Fukushima type nuclear disaster. With San Onofre mothballed and shut down, we are never going to have thousands of acres abandoned and uninhabitable, with buildings sitting vacant from contamination from a nuclear plant meltdown. We are never going to have to try and evacuate more people that the existing road structure can handle, enduring massive traffic jams that last for days as people and their vehicles are radiated. We are never going to have to face leaving all our possessions behind, to be looted, to be irradiated so that they are useless. We are never going to have to realize that our losses are not covered by insurance from our home policy or insurance from the nuclear plant company. We are never going to have to figure out where to evacuate (bearing in mind that states close their borders as may Mexico or Canada – who wants your radioactive car in their neighborhood?). We are never going to be faced with starting over after a nuclear catastrophe with no job, no home, no usable car, no possessions, and no prospects.


40% of the population of the United States lives within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. Shutting down San Onofre is certainly called for as it sits in earthquake country and is an old plant with previous problems. And YOU have the chance to keep this type solution moving forward for other nuclear plants. So YOU do not have to be subjected to starting over with nothing, email your local legislators and your friends with your thoughts that the risk is not acceptable. There is too much risk to YOU, for too little reward.

In 2013 I am donating 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the updated EBook, “The Nuclear

Catastrophe” a fiction novel of survival, to a charity that benefits the forgotten victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Towns are still sitting vacant with contaminated soil pushed into large piles. The victims have not been compensated. Your purchase of 99 cents will help them.

In this Monday, March 4, 2013 photo, a warning sign for drivers is seen beside a roadway, near a pile of radiation-contaminated soil at the Tsushima Junior High School in Namie, outside the the nuclear exclusion zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. Two years after a tsunami crippled the nuclear plant, towns surrounding it remain abandoned, too contaminated by radiation for residents to return for more than short visits. (AP Photo/Greg Baker

Kiwi TNT KIWI was an experimental nuclear-powered rocket engine. In this case "TNT" stands for "Transient Nuclear Test." This safety experiment was a deliberate burn-up of the reactor by a run-away chain reaction. The release of energy caused portions of the reactor to vaporize and the reactor to destroy itself.


Barbara Griffin Billig

Available for Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

Follow on twitter: @barbarabillig
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/barbarabillig/nuclearcatastrophes/
Web page: http://mysite.verizon.net/resrrmof/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
Also published as: as THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe in Paperback
Read an excerpt now:  http://bit.ly/pY8HxX

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop a Mobile Chernobyl. No Fukushima Freeways

This is an URGENT Email sent to me:  It deserves immediate attention.  There is a deadline of May 24, 2013, for the public to comment.  It is my personal opinion that experienced scientists must make a unified decision on the problem of nuclear waste storage - not let the Congress of the United States pass a LAW.

Dear Friends,

As we have been reporting to you for several months (for example, in our April 17 letter about National Radioactive Waste Action Day [ http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1244911 ]), the Senate Energy Committee has been working on new and comprehensive radioactive waste policy legislation.

The lead sponsors--Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN)--have now released a "discussion draft" of this legislation. You can read it and related documents on the Committee's website here [ http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/4/senators-release-discussion-draft-of-comprehensive-nuclear-waste-legislation ].

In a somewhat unusual move, the Committee is accepting public comments on the draft bill. This is probably our final opportunity before a bill is formally introduced to make it clear: We will not accept "interim" storage of high-level radioactive waste; we will not accept our roads and railways burdened with thousands of casks of lethal nuclear waste moving to a "temporary" unsuitable location for the convenience of the nuclear power industry.
*Add your voice now. Tell the Committee here that "interim" storage is unacceptable. Stop a Mobile Chernobyl. No Fukushima Freeways.* [ http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14113 ]

This discussion draft bill is modeled somewhat after the Department of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission recommendations and on legislation introduced last Congress by retired Energy Committee chair Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). But unlike that bill, which linked an "interim" storage site
 to siting of a permanent repository, this discussion draft greatly weakens that link. And a separate proposal offered for comment by Sens. Feinstein and Alexander would weaken that linkage further. Without such linkage, the odds that any progress would be made toward a permanent solution to our radioactive waste problem grow slim indeed. Just the opposite; the absence of linkage makes it far more likely that a consolidated "interim" storage site would be a de facto permanent dump, regardless of whether it is suited for that.

The bill addresses issues beyond "interim" storage of waste; for example, taking the waste issue out of the Department of Energy and creating a new agency to handle the problem. But four of the eight questions the Committee asks for comment on address the "interim" storage issue, and our sample comments are limited to that issue. But please feel free to edit and expand on the sample letter provided on our action page. The eight questions are part of the documents available on the Senate Energy Committee's website.

In April, we provided several talking points on the radioactive waste issue; they are reproduced below. Feel free to adapt these if you choose to provide more extended comments than our sample letter. You can also find much more information and background about the issue on the Mobile Chernobyl page of our website here [ http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/hlwtransport/mobilechernobyl.htm ].

*Comments to the Committee are due by Friday, May 24, so act now.
* [ http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14113 ]
Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
www.nirs.org [ http://www.nirs.org ]
nirsnet@nirs.org

NUCLEAR POLLUTION - April 22 is Earth Day

NUCLEAR POLLUTION

April 22 is Earth Day

Think you are worried about climate change? How about the earth warming with greenhouse gases and less water to share? Have you heard that Water Wars are being predicted as part of the future?

Well, how about a proliferation of nuclear weapons tests, spewing radioactive material into the air – the air we breathe, that comes out of the air when it rains, attaches to dust and blows with the winds. Then it falls over all our land where we grow crops and into the seas where fish ingest it - and we eat the fish.

And what about those older nuclear plants? The Fukushima nuclear disaster showed that a nuclear plant cannot invariably withstand an earthquake. Their nuclear rods became jammed and overheated to meltdown point. While many say the plant couldn't explode – look at the pictures. If that is not a total explosive disaster, then what is?

Fukushima after meltdown & explosion

                             CHERNOBYL (below)

 

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), which was under the jurisdiction of Moscow. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over Western USSR and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power accident in history

And the radioactive material went EVERYWHERE- to circulate around the earth, through winds and water.

40% of the population of the United States is said to reside within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. The world has now been exposed to 3 major nuclear disasters – 3 mile Island in the United States (that reactor never operated again), Chernobyl (it is contaminated, deserted, and a total disaster), and Fukushima (still not stabilized and could become worse). Then there are the minor disasters – Hanford, Washington has 240 square miles of contamination that will take billions of dollars and multi, multi years to clean up, if it even can be. The United States government had to be sued to admit there was even a problem – such as excessive deaths from cancer in the area.

Would you drive a 40 year old car 24 hours a day, non-stop? San Onofre, Ca. managed to get a new system put into its old plant. That system didn't go through a required change check, and now is closed down because it did not work properly, there was excessive vibration in the pipes, and finally was leaking radioactive materials. The owners are looking to the utility consumers to pay big bucks for all the mistakes and down time. If the reactor starts back up with the poorly designed system that was installed, it has been predicted that it could have a major accident while running.

One of the most contaminated towns in the world is challenging what we think we know about the dangers of radioactivity. No one has lived longer on contaminated terrain than people in the village of Muslumovo in the southern Russian Urals located downstream from the Maiak plutonium plant, built 1948 to produce soviet bomb cores.

The Techa River in Russia became a flowing radioactive reservoir in 1949 when engineers at the plutonium plant ran out of underground storage containers for high-level radioactive waste. A Dixie cup of this waste could kill everyone in a large ballroom. Compelled by the arms race, the plant director ordered it dumped in the Techa River. The men running the plant didn’t tell anyone about this decision. The 28,000 Russian, Bashkir, and Tatar farmers living on the river—drinking, cooking, and bathing with river water—had no idea. In the 1950s and ’60s special forces resettled most of the 16 contaminated villages on the Techa, but a few villages were too large and expensive to move, so they stayed. Muslumovo is one.

Plutonium plant doctors came up with a new disease, diagnosed, so far, only in the Russian Urals—chronic radiation syndrome (CRS), caused by extended exposure to low doses of radioactive isotopes. The first young plant workers diagnosed with the syndrome complained of headaches, sharp pains in bones and joints, and a constant weariness. One memoirist described the terrible ache of CRS as a pain that made him “want to crawl up the walls.” They lost weight. Their gait slowed. They suffered severe anemia, wheezed heavily, and started to show signs of heart disease.(1)

We have not found a place that is deemed safe to store the nuclear waste that is being produced.. And it is obvious that these few incidents discussed here are just a small smattering of what has happened in the past and what is going on today. Please visit my page of pictures to get a better idea of some of the past nuclear folly we have participated in: http://pinterest.com/barbarabillig/nuclear-catastrophes/ .

So why do we proceed with building and repairing of nuclear plants? Who benefits from all this? The big buck business players who are guaranteed a return on their invested dollars which is paid for by the consumers of electricity as approved by their government. Not many people that start up a business are guaranteed a return, but utility companies are. Current interest rates at the bank are about 1% (if that). Utility companies are guaranteed a certain return by their respective governments that allows them to bill the consumers something in the neighborhood of 5 to 10 percent return on their investment.

It is unkind that the consumers are paying exorbitant prices for their utilities, but to get nuclear pollution along with that is totally intolerable. And so are the nuclear tests that spread nuclear pollution, the nuclear submarines that now lie broken at the bottom of the oceans, the nuclear wastes that leak out of facilities, and on and on.

Some are calling it a War without a war.

April 22 is Earth Day.  Think what you can do to help the earth and its inhabitants to survive in a better world.  I have pledged to donate 50% of the proceeds from the sale of my EBook to charity in the year  2013 to benefit the victims of Fukushima, who are largely forgotten and ignored. The purchase of this fiction novel of survival, "The Nuclear Catastrophe" is only 99 cents.

 

This novel may be purchased  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

 

Please visit  my web page to vote for the charity http://mysite.verizon.net/resrrmof/

Thank you!  Barbara Billig

 


(1)http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/04/nuclear_contamination_in_former_ussr_radioactivity_in_muslomovo_on_techa.html (excerpt by Kate Brown)

WORSE THAN IMAGINABLE

Now that the two year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan has come and passed, I was shocked at the immensity of this disaster – and that's after writing a book 30 years ago predicting it was going to happen. When Fukushima occurred, I googled the name of my novel (The Nuclear Catastrophe, a fictional tale of survival), knowing it was out of print. But the original hardcover version was still being sold as a used book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and even survival sites on the web.

So, why am I so shocked? Because I always want to believe in the best. I talked to many scientists who assured me that the radiation release was “minimal”. I asked these scientists what they would do if they lived near a nuclear plant that had this kind of disaster and most said “nothing”. But now we are seeing printed statements & photographs in the news that there are cities in Japan that may not be inhabitable for five years, or 15 years, or a generation, or never. And the evacuated occupants sit waiting for help or compensation.

These people even abandoned possessions and their vehicles when they left – why? Because the metal objects became radioactive from the release of radioactive materials when the nuclear plants were destroyed. They probably had to leave their metal jewelry and coins behind also. And, there would not have been enough time to pack up and efficiently move out. It was grab and run. (When I was faced with a fire at my home I took the stupidest things). Funny what panic does to you. And there is no general insurance policy that covers loss from nuclear accidents or attacks. Nuclear is excluded.

Perhaps I shouldn't be shocked since Hanford, Washington is 240 square miles in the USA that is the most polluted site in the nation from radioactive materials. It will probably never the inhabitable in our lifetimes, or even the next. But I was in denial that it could have been this bad – everyone was assuring that the radioactive materials had blown out to sea and there was no cause to worry.

So the question is.....why would anyone in any nation want to expose themselves to this type of risk? Nuclear Power certainly is not the most cost effective way to generate electricity. Or perhaps it is because you don't live very close to a plant? N. Korea is getting ready (so they say) to attack the United States with nuclear warheads carried by their missiles. A nuclear strike would have the same effect as a nuclear plant catastrophe, or an atom bomb. So when you hear the slogan “No More Nuclear” it's like trying to institute gun control. Only this needed control is of something that can kill many more thousands of people and cause permanent destruction of our land.

I blog, I tweet, I have signed the Greenpeace Petition to raise the liability for the nuclear problems that are caused by the corporations that build the equipment. I have pledged to donate 50% of the proceeds on my Ebook, “The Nuclear Catastrophe”, a fiction novel of survival, to charity for 2013, for the benefit of the survivors of Fukushima. I hope you will help by purchasing this novel for 99 cents at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

FREE: "THE NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE" A FICTION NOVEL OF SURVIVAL

March 11, 2013 is the two year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. So that we not forget this horrendous lesson of man-made destruction, I am making my EBook, "The Nuclear Catastrophe", a fictional tale of survival, FREE for March 9, 10, 11. While it is set in Southern California rather than Japan, it eerily predicted the devastation that these plants could cause.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And I have had people say that this fictional novel could NEVER actually happen.  So please visit my pinterest site: 'Nuclear Catastrophes' and see pictures of actual melted down reactors, explosions, and the Fukushima area, still deserted and empty TWO YEARS LATER.

                               http://pinterest.com/barbarabillig/nuclear-catastrophes/

I hope you will share this free giveaway with your friends.  For the year 2013 I will donate 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the EBook to a charity that supports the survivors and families of the Fukushima catastrophe. Most of these people have not yet been compensated for the loss of their homes and jobs.  If you have a charity to propose, please visit my web page http://mysite.verizon.net/resrrmof/ and add your comment to my guest book.

To download your FREE COPY:     Go to: 

                               Amazon Page for "The Nuclear Catastrophe" a fiction tale of survival

"The Nuclear Catastrophe" can be  downloaded  to a kindle, pc, tablet, or smartphone.  Amazon will even provide free kindle software for the pc, tablet, and smartphones.

Nuclear is very much appearing in the news these days.  Not only are the nuclear reactors being debated, but North Korea is threatening  the United States with a nuclear strike.  Substitute 'nuclear strike by missile' for 'exploding nuclear reactor' and the results are the same.....a catastrophe as described in this novel.

Thanks, and I wish it were just fiction. 

March 11, 2013 - 2 Year Anniversary of Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe

From: Aslihan Tumer, Greenpeace International 

Dear  Barbara,

Today I'm writing to you about the Fukushima nuclear disaster because I need your support. First, try to imagine being forced to abandon your home so quickly that you cannot even return to warn your neighbours and friends to evacuate. Then imagine being told you may not be able to live in your home again for decades. It is too dangerous, there is too much radiation. That is what happened to some 160,000 people because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. For the past two years these people have lived in limbo: not able to return, not able to start a new life, bearing the burden of the nuclear industry's disaster which the Red Cross calls an "ongoing humanitarian crisis".

Before this email you may never have heard of General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba's connection to this disaster. But these three famous companies were closely involved in the design, construction and servicing of the Fukushima nuclear reactors, which experienced multiple failures and three full meltdowns almost two years ago.

Then these companies walked away from the disaster without being held accountable, including without paying any of the cost - estimated at 250 billion US dollars.

This situation is completely unjust and must change. If you agree, please join us in taking action.

General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba are nuclear supplier companies who have left the Japanese people, especially the victims of Fukushima, to bear the burden of this nuclear disaster. In comparison with the zero dollars these companies have paid, the Japanese people have already paid 43.7 billion US dollars worth of public money.

The nuclear industry profits while creating huge nuclear risk, but people pay the price for this risk. This is partly because of flawed nuclear liability laws which prioritise the profits of the industry over the health and safety of the public by exempting nuclear supplier companies from paying for nuclear disasters. The situation in Japan is not an exception, nuclear liability laws are like this in most countries. The nuclear industry needs to be accountable just like any other industry in the world. The solution is simple "The polluter must pay."

You can help change this unfair situation - please help us build awareness of this issue and spread the word!

Thank you for supporting our work,

Aslihan

I WONDERED WHAT TO SAY

Last year I read an article in the Orange County Register regarding San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant and its problems (released radioactive materials into the atmosphere in an accident – not good). I thought the article was well written and I contacted the writer. He asked me to send him a copy of my book, “The Nuclear Catastrophe” (a fiction novel of suspense and survival). I did and then did not hear from him until last month.

He emailed me and said he enjoyed the book, but did not really know what to say in regards to the book. He said he enjoyed it but had concerns what readers would think since it was originally written in 1977. Since I had recently updated the manuscript to a 3^rd edition, bringing in cell phones and computers and ATMs (none of which will work without electricity to power the cell towers and internet transformers, and electrical machinery of the ATM) I informed him of this and a new updated copy was emailed to him.

Then we discussed whether people could really carry radioactive materials and be dangerous to others as presented in the book. If an explosion or other release of radioactive materials from a storage facility or nuclear power plant, or nuclear bomb took place the materials would be released into the atmosphere and slowly drift down with dust & rain, onto people and animals, soil and water. They take many years to decay and go away, sometimes hundreds of years. Decay means releasing invisible atomic bullets that can penetrate skin and bodies, just as x-rays and the sun rays do (remember those bad sunburns?) 

And finally, could a nuclear plant really be destroyed completely? I invited him to take a look at: http://pinterest.com/barbarabillig/nuclear-catastrophes/ where pictures of Fukushima-Daiichi and Chernobyl nuclear power plants before and after their accidents are posted. That is complete destruction.

But the basic question of “what to say” never really got answered. I pondered about what statement I would like to see made. And I think it is this:

Thirty-five years ago, as a science teacher living near San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant, I was concerned that an event (such as an earthquake) could trigger a series of reactions that would lead to large amounts of radioactive materials being released in the atmosphere and water. I wrote a fiction novel to bring attention to a potential problem – which proved to be true, i.e. Fukushima.

All human beings should be made aware of the aftermath of a nuclear bomb, nuclear power plant explosion or leak, or nuclear waste dumps.

Besides the fact that human beings make mistakes (operator error), many of the nuclear power plants are now approaching the 40 year old mark. This 40 years is about their life span and makes them prone to failures. Many new nuclear power plants are being built outside of the United States, especially in 3^rd world countries but they will one day be 40 years old, too. All human beings are subject to their failure as the oceans, rivers, and atmospheres will carry their deadly toxic radioactive materials around the world to all of us.

At the time Jane Fonda was looking for a script regarding nuclear catastrophes, she met with me and took away a copy of my novel. She ultimately chose “The China Syndrome” which was an excellent movie, but only went up to the fact that there was an explosion, and did nothing to deal with what would happen after the fact. The consequences after the fact are worse than the actual initial disaster.

We should all be aware of the legacy we are leaving for the rest of our lives and to those after us.

Consumer Ripoff by the Utility Companies

I started in 1977 making  the statement that nuclear power plants had the possibility of being dangerous.  I wrote: “The Nuclear Catastrophe”,  a fiction novel of suspense  and survival.  It foretold the idea  that an earthquake might cause the  control rods in a nuclear plant to become frozen in place and could no longer be used to control the speed of the nuclear decay of the fuel …… with an explosion and fires resulting….and the release of radioactive matter into the atmosphere, the water, the soils, the people etc.  That was just what happened in March of 20ll in the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Then as time went on I wondered why an executive at the Southern California Gas Company , married to a sister of my friend could afford to build one of the largest homes in Palos Verdes Estates (Southern California) while we were in our 40’s and still establishing our careers.  What did he do at this utility to earn so much money?  And later in Thousand Oaks, California, a water executive retired at an early age with a one million dollar bonus  (I think he had not taken vacation time – is that worth one million tax payer dollars – is not vacation absence work needs  covered by the other workers?).

Then my real estate career took off and I was busy with that and my family.  When the Fukshima Nuclear Catastrophe happened in March 2011 I googled the name of my novel (which was out of print, but had been purchased by many libraries).  It was still being sold as a used book by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and survival sites.  So, over a period of time, I updated it and brought it out again as a 3rd edition in EBook and paperback formats.  (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY)

Now I was interested in not only nuclear problems, but the whole concept of public utilities and what they are up to WITH OUR MONEY.  Utilities are a monopoly.   About ten  years ago in California, someone decided to let electricity be sold to private companies and let those companies resell  it to consumers on a competitive basis.  Since I  managed apartment complexes, I loved it…..the utility bills at these complexes went down about 50%.  But someone important must have been losing money because that whole deal was abruptly cancelled and once again I had one company only that I could buy from at their prescribed mandatory rate.

And where does that rate come from?  There is a Public Utilities Commission.  And an advocate for the consumer (available for complaints).  Have you EVER gotten a response from the Public Utiities Commission or the consumer advocate?  I HAVE NOT AND I HAVE COPIES OF THE LETTERS AND FORMS I HAVE FILLED OUT AND SENT.

Published in the LA Times on 12/29/12 page A14 is the following statement:  “Utilities charge ratepayers for every dollar spent…for which the state of California guarantees utilities an annual return of 11% for 40 years”.  That guaranteed return is paid by YOU, THE UTILITY USER!.

And what return is available to you, the utility user, in your investments?  1/10 of one percent to 1% at a local bank. 4 to 5% in tax free bonds (some are insured).    Even junk bonds don’t pay much more in today’s economy.  SO WHY ARE UTILTIES GETTING 11% GUARANTEED FOR 40 YEARS?  Because they can, or have, or have someone in their  pocket.  Our state and federal deficits are HUGE.  I continually hear that we will have to cut medicare.  What about cutting the UTILTIES hold on us?  We are a prisoner that no one is interested in paroling.

I wrote the Public Utilities Commission and stated that our local water company (a public company) had shown profit increases of 20% per year and they were still increasing rates.  NO RESPONSE.  My water bill started out at $500 per month in the summer and went up to $3000 per month in the summer within 5 years, until I  gave up and started letting things die.  I certainly would not want to interfere with their necessary increased profits by demanding reasonable water rates.

Have you heard the rumor that the Japanese Mafia controls their nuclear/electric production?  And that is why even though they experienced the horrific  Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs, there are still  public officials making the statements that they “cannot do without nuclear”.  It is my understanding that all their nuclear plants were shut down for almost a year after the disaster…..and they still had enough electricity for the nation.  Nuclear plants require a large investment of money – and then return a large amount of dollars to their owners.  Big Bucks for Big People.  What about the rest of us – the consumers who pay to make this happen.  We need to make our displeasure a priority. Cut utility returns in half and give half  of the savings to the consumer and half to the government and we would, as a nation, come out ahead.

GUNS, DEATH, AND ANSWERS – a response to The Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

The tragedy of death to innocent children, and adults who were their caregivers, is overwhelming. So what is to be done to prevent this irrational taking of life that seems to be occurring again and again?

Gun proponents seemed to be lacking on national television to defend their views. The other elected officials who were interviewed said something has to be done. I agree. And I am a licensed, concealed carry, gun advocate.

Prohibition of alcohol (and drugs) has not worked in the United States. Prohibition was tried in the Al Capone days and was a miserable failure. Illegal speakeasies and bootleggers were everywhere. Alcohol was eventually made legal again. Marijuana is slowly working its way into our culture, state by state. Just as these previous controls failed, I am predicting that gun legislation will not be able to effectively ban guns. Illinois is the only state where it is illegal for individuals to carry concealed weapons for protection in public, and the federal court of appeals struck down that ban this week. The state must appeal to the US Supreme Court or put a new law in place within 180 days. Even if it were passed – people are afraid.

What are they afraid of? Other people. In one affluent neighborhood there have been 11 home invasion robberies in the last 2 months. Men dressed in ski masks with guns are simply breaking into the homes and demanding cash and jewelry. Because they CAN. They are in and out very quickly. They have neighborhood watch, local meetings, email alerts......and the break in gangs are still prevailing. But there are jails for those people when they are caught. In the meantime people want the protection of having a gun. But the shooters who select large groups to kill, rather than a home to rob, seem to be a growing problem.

So what do we address if we cannot get rid of the guns?

Answer: what makes guns safer to the public. Cars kill and maim. We don't get rid of cars. We make them safer and make stricter rules for the drivers.

FEDERAL legislation should cover:

Guns cannot be purchased over the internet or at gun shows without background checks. (They can be now.) All gun stores would also be included in this. Said background checks would be expanded to a federal database that includes medical records of mental illness.

Guns should be required to be locked up with formidable combination locks that others, especially those under 21 and/or mentally challenged, do not have access to. Guns come in parts. Guns should be stored disassembled to some degree and the parts kept separately when non-permit holders are living on or visiting the premises.. Permits for guns should include training, testing, and an assessment of family medical and social history.

People in charge of gathering students or people in groups should be instructed as to defensive measures and use of guns, and required to pass tests in these areas. They should be provided with an appropriate defensive weapon after proper instruction and testing. The Connecticut school principal of the elementary school was shot to death as she, unarmed, charged the gunman who was armed. If she had a weapon, and knew how to use it, it might have ended then and there. Airplane pilots are now armed in the cockpit. Arizona allows concealed weapon carry. When the Gabby Gifford shooting incident occurred in Arizona, one of the bystanders had a gun but did not use it because of the number of people that he might have hit. But he was gun educated and when the shooter ran out of ammo and stopped to load again, he jumped him.

Schools and other large gathering areas need to be able to effectively sweep and scan large areas for large metal objects or even for ammunition. We have the technology for computers, smart phones, travel to outer planets, complex video games – silent alarm scanners that protect our entrances and exits to movie theaters, malls, commercial buildings, and other public places is lagging because no one has presented an interest in purchasing such on a large scale. So they have not been developed. But with the number of mentally ill people who are using killing to express their unhappiness in the world, the time has come for change and prevention. We need immediate notification to police and the people controlling an area when a gun/and or ammunition has entered an area. Police and security can be provided with a chip that bypasses the alarm with a universal code. This should be a challenge presented to our programmers of today with a large reward for the technology selected.

More people have mental illness in the United States than have cancer or heart disease. Our systems for treating mental illness and containing it have broken down. One psychological expert featured on television said you can never predict who is going to be violent. I wonder about that statement. The shooter of these children and teachers was written up by the Los Angeles Times as a troubled, but bright, youngster who was removed from the school system by his Mother and home schooled. He, at 20 and still living with her, shot her and used her guns to commit these horrendous crimes. Could this not have been foreseen in some way? Do these shooters share some particular profile that is not yet recognized? It seems that medical records have become so private that we are prohibited for getting answers that are needed.

All children are tested for IQ, abilities, etc. Tests for violent propensity should be developed, administered and noted in private medical records but reported to a federal database that is used for gun permits. Those people should not be allowed guns. Medical people treating mental illness must be mandated to inform of danger (they are now, but not to the degree that prevents mentally ill persons from buying weapons). Awareness in parents should be raised from the testing of the children. Those that are withdrawn from society by homeschooling, should be required to pass a socialization test to obtain a gun.

Is this a terrible deprivation of rights and invasion of our privacy? Or is this protecting our society? Again, if you can't get rid of the guns, then keep the mentally ill people and criminals from obtaining guns. Have federal programs for gun education, use, safety, and permitting. Have federal grants for development of new technology for better protecting our public gathering areas from guns by silent alarm scanners. Have federal legislation on gun purchase, private home storage, public detection, background checks and data banks, that are stricter. It's time to stop this senseless slaughter.

THE ARAFAT MYSTERY

“At first the blood pressure was ninety over sixty. Rubbing his hands together, his fingers felt stiff, his right arm heavy. His blood pressure dropped slightly – 85 over 50 and harder to hear than before.

The pain began in the tips of his fingers. At first he couldn't really call it a pain. It was more of a numbness – an unpleasant lack of feeling. The numbness eventually gave way to a persistent electric discomfort– worse when he pressed down, but not completely gone when he didn't. Huddled in the darkness he tested his fingertips one by one. All of them ached. It was just nerves, he thought.

Then the buzzing pain began in his toes. He began to be frightened. He reached up to his cellphone to call someone. The effort of reaching was excruciating. He glanced at his hands. The fingers and thumbs from the first knuckle to the tip had turned almost black. The rest of his hand was a dusky gray. As time passed his left hand, now fixed in a semi claw was nearly useless. He could work his right arm and fingers, but even slight movements of them sent intense pain shooting up his arm. Then the blood pressure went down to seventy-five systolic. It couldn't be heard in the right arm at all. The arm, from at least the elbow to the hand was dusky and mottled. For whatever reason, the arteries and smaller arterioles supplying blood to that limb had become blocked. To a lesser extent the blood flow to the left arm and both legs seemed compromised as well.

His hands and feet were throbbing. The cold gray hands with their blackened fingertips looked like out of a horror movie. He glanced at herself in the mirror. Something was wrong with his face. It took several seconds to understand the dark streams of blood that had begun winding down from his nostrils, across the top of he lip and alongside the corners of his mouth. He watched as his front turned a deep crimson as stain spread over the groin and legs. He was hemorrhaging from his nostrils and mouth. Fresh and drying blood covered him and was spatter on the floor and wall. Suddenly he threw up and it was all bright red blood. He tried to speak but the words were only in his mind. They would not come out. His vision seemed blurred, and there was glazed fear in his eyes. The left side of his body was paralyzed. Terror beyond any he had ever known took hold.

DIC - disseminated intravascular coagulation – the most dramatic and horrifying of all blood-clotting emergencies. A fatal stroke caused by a cerebral hemorrhage was a terrifying possibility.” (1)

Yasser Arafat, 75, died in a French military hospital near Paris on Nov. 11, 2004. His health had deteriorated suddenly during an Israeli military siege of his Ramallah, West Bank, headquarters. French hospital reports attributed his death to a massive brain hemorrhage, but gave no details on what caused a related blood condition called disseminated intravascular coagulation, also known as DIC.

No autopsy was done at the time of Arafat's death at the request of his wife. But she later filed a lawsuit spurring a French investigation. French medical teams ruled out poisoning and an 8 year Palestinian investigation found no conclusive evidence of foul play. However, In July 2012, tests carried out by the Swiss Institute of Radiation Physics as part of a nine-month investigation found traces of polonium in quantities much higher than could occur naturally on Arafat's personal belongings, such as his clothes, fur hat, and toothbrush used in his final days. (2)

Polonium is a highly radioactive element occurring in uranium. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident, in 2006 was announced as due to Polonium poisoning, but never definitively proven. It has also been suggested that Irène Joliot-Curie was the first person to die from the radiation effects of polonium. She was accidentally exposed to polonium in 1946 when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench. In 1956 she died from leukemia. According to the book The Bomb in the Basement, several death cases in Israel during 1957–1969 were caused by Polonium. A leak was discovered at a Weizmann Institute laboratory in 1957. Traces of Polonium were found on the hands of professor Dror Sadeh, a physicist who researched radioactive materials. Medical tests indicated no harm, but the tests did not include bone marrow. Sadeh died from cancer. One of his students died of leukemia, and two colleagues died after a few years, both from cancer. The issue was investigated secretly, and there was never any formal admission that a connection between the leak and the deaths had existed. (3)

But, for imagination's sake, is it possible to visualize what could have happened to Arafat? How would the polonium contamination get on his hat, his clothes, his toothbrush? Wouldn't someone have to have transported and opened a sealed capsule of the radioactive material? And wouldn't they themselves be exposed? Perhaps in this day of suicide bombers, that is of no concern to some terrorists. Where would the terrorist obtain the polonium? There probably is a black market for everything – or a government could easily provide it from their uranium stockpiles. But just as we never found out who, beyond the actual assassin, was responsible for killing John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, this too will probably remain a mystery.

By November 24, 2012, Arafat's body had been exhumed from its concrete encasement, samples taken, and he was reburied. Testing will be done in Switzerland, France, and Russia with results expected in a few months.

1. Based on a fictional account of DIC in “Natural Causes” by Michael Palmer
2. Los Angeles Times, “Remains of Arafat to be exhumed” by Maher Abukhater & Mark Magnier
   11/25/12
3. Wikipedia

SILENT WARRIORS

SILENT WARRIORS – From  “Collapse”  a fiction novel by Richard Stephenson

“Domestic terrorists are the hardest for us to capture…..We have seen some progress capturing  waves of Silent Warriors that make it across our 7612 miles of borders.  The majority of terrorists invaders have no identification of any kind, not so much as a fake driver’s license………

The invasion of America was done in secret.  It was quiet. ….The Empire of Iran sent an entire regiment of Muslim warriors to sneak into the United States to do one thing and one thing only – install fear, panic, and paranoia in citizens of every walk of life.  Their mission was clear and they did not discriminate.  No one was off limits.

…..Arriving via Iranian submarines or by simply walking across the Mexican border, the warriors breached the US with only the clothes on their backs.  They were given no specific instructions, no target to destroy, they were simply told to be creative and improvise.”

These paragraphs are taken from the fiction novel “Collapse” by Richard  Stephenson (which I loved).

 And  assuming there is truth in fiction -destroy is what these people have done very effectively. While not every immigrant to the US is a silent warrior, there are those that fit this profile.

They are funded with cash monthly payments of $2,000 and up, per month, wired in to anonymous accounts (wire transfer receipts have been documented).  They start a business and after establishing credit and credibility run up debts to everyone and  then file bankruptcy.  They marry and have children and when divorced, fail to pay child support.  They hide money from the courts and secretly buy property.  They pay up front fees to rent an apartment or house after they have no credit and then default, causing further losses to the owner.  They destroy the unit as they take as much time as legally allowed to vacate – 6 to 9 months with no payments.

Some may  argue that born and bred Americans do this also.  That is what they are allowed to do under the laws of the country in which they were born in.  However:

These are the silent warriors……the economic terrorists coming from outside our country.  Our laws are written to protect well meaning citizens who “make a mistake”.  These are not mistakes – these are a way of life.  And these people, who have immigrated and become citizens…..should have this  citizenship revoked and sent back to their country of origin.  Sorry, but since when did we  invite people to come live here to be abusive to others?

This is like the 3 strikes law that puts you away for the rest of your life.  Here’s an immigrant who  1)defrauds creditors of money borrowed and files for bankruptcy protection (bankruptcy fraud  can be perpetuated)  2) marries and defrauds the child and wife of support   3) then  rents  and due to the laws that protect renters, can defraud the rental owner of almost a year’s income……with no punitive damages to this terrorist.  This particular case I refer to managed to buy a 40 acre piece of property for $150,000 cash during his bankruptcy and failure to pay his wife or landlord or creditors, stating in court papers he had no earned income.

And another of another many cases:

LA Times: 9/16/2012  Adel Daoud, a US citizen from Chicago, was arrested in a sting operation wherein an undercover agent provided him with a phony car bomb by pretending to be a terrorist looking  for co-conspirators.  The FBI watched him press the fake trigger.  He is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy a building with an explosive.

Silent Warriors.    And I hope you read the newly updated version of my fiction novel of survival:

“TheNuclear Catastrophe”  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

                                TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

Nuclear accidents are recognized as part of the nuclear package. They are a threat to our health, well-being and even our survival as a world. Many people would like to see nuclear power plants dismantled, shut down, phased out. Especially since the spent fuel has no place to be safely stored.

But, nuclear is here in the United States and elsewhere because it has very high financial returns. Perhaps not for the taxpayers and utility users. But for the owners of the plants. The San Onofre plant online information states that the plant generates electricity for 1.4 million average homes. If this average home had a $100 monthly electric bill that would be almost 1.7 billion dollars of revenue per year! Of course there are costs to run a plant, but investors want a return on their money or they wouldn't be doing it.

So now that there are problems with the plants, the safety, the aging of the structures, the fact that they are not earthquake proof, there are calls to shut them down. But this is a free society and how are you going to get them shut down? Not enough people signed the nuclear initiative in California to get it on the ballot. It was a fear driven negative campaign that energy rates would go up and we wouldn't have enough energy. So far, with San Onofre shut down, nothing has happened. No blackouts, no anything different.

There is an avenue open to the voting people of the United States to rid ourselves of the nuclear problem. And that is make them “financially unfeasible”. This method may or may not apply to other countries, depending on their ways of governing throughout the world.

If we have to keep these plants, at least there should be some motivation to make them safer (the “owners” are probably a protected entity with limited liability such as a corporation or LLC – and they certainly don't live near a plant! So why should they spend what could be profits to install proper updated equipment?) Therefore nuclear plants MUST HAVE UNLIMITED LIABILITY  FOR THEIR ACCIDENTS.

Right now, insurance policies do not cover nuclear damage to homes or automobiles. This is specifically excluded. If your home, car, or personal possessions were damaged by a radiation release you are not covered by much of anything. (If you don't understand the risks to your home and property from a radiation release – please read my fiction novel – The Nuclear Catastrophe – a novel of suspense that has a family involved in a worst case scenario). There is a government Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that could help if the President declared a disaster area and perhaps would provide a small loan or monetary assistance. But in a large disaster don't count on the government. That's why nuclear plants MUST HAVE UNLIMITED LIABILITY FOR THEIR ACCIDENTS. If they want the big dollar returns they must take the big dollar risks with complete liability, extending to outside the corporation to all shareholders, owners, etc., with PERSONAL LIABILITY.

Banks call for personal liability on risky loans. They often require it for construction loans, for small business loans, anything they consider risky. And certainly nuclear has been proven to be risky. So.... nuclear plants MUST HAVE UNLIMITED LIABILITY FOR THEIR ACCIDENTS.

If the voting public is unwilling to sign petitions to get nuclear plants shut down out of fear of cost increases for their utilities, they are gambling their life and their health for lower costs. But at the very least they can get it on the ballot of each and every state that: nuclear plants MUST HAVE UNLIMITED LIABILITY FOR THEIR ACCIDENTS.

The following chart from Wikipedia compiles costs of different kinds of electricity from different studies. Yellow represents costs of nuclear energy production. Who is paying for this? YOU ARE.

It's time for nuclear energy to pay up - They MUST HAVE UNLIMITED LIABILITY FOR THEIR ACCIDENTS.

Trashed by the Trashy

TRASHED BY THE TRASHY

Writers have to have thick skins. And as author of “The Nuclear Catastrophe” a fiction novel of suspense, I certainly am no exception. Who are my main critics? Why, the PRO NUCLEAR group of course.

I have never said I was anti-nuclear. Instead I have stated I was anti-nuclear ACCIDENT. If we could have nuclear power without the possibility of these terrible contaminating accidents that have occurred, I would be first in line to support it. But, the acceptance of nuclear power means that one must also accept that, the worst scenario in terms of death of our population and contamination of our environment  is possible. And is that worth it?

So when I go to my Amazon.com book page and see critics who so clearly have not read the book they cannot even come up with a good criticism (I was a school teacher for some years – I know how to grade papers) I am amazed that they have to stoop so low. If nuclear power is defensible – then defend it. But to say “your characters are from a comic book”, “you don't know what you are talking about”, “the dialogue is wooden”, makes one wonder what kind of research THEY have done.

I'm sorry but they get an “F” in those book reports. The book was originally published in hardcover and can still be found in libraries across the United States. I brought it back out as a paperback and an Ebook because it was still being sold as a used book by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and survivalist sites on the web years after it was out of print. This week it was in the top 20% of paid kindle books.

So Friday is “Book Buy” day for a group of writers that work together to publicize our books. If you would like to join in then Friday is the day to purchase “The Nuclear Catastrophe”. If you have not read this book, then even if you are pro-nuclear, and wish to defend your cause, you can then pick items that I have brought up that relate to the role of nuclear in our lives . For the rest of you book lovers, it was written to entertain and raise nuclear awareness. I hope you will participate on Friday, July 13, 2012, and invest 99 cents.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

Barbara Griffin Billig

Author: The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of suspense) also published in paperback as:

            THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe

Make Up Your Own Mind - The Experts Have Different Opinions

Fukushima Risk Less Than Feared
By Sabrina Richards | May 24, 2012 in the NUTSHELL

Cancers due to radiation will not increase in Japan, according to studies conducted in the wake of the 2011 nuclear disaster.

The radiation emitted during the Fukushima nuclear accident is unlikely to lead to increases in cancer, according to two separate studies conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). Based on estimates of radiation doses received after the accident, even cases of cancer in the nuclear plant workers highest exposed will be difficult to attribute to radiation, according to the reports on radiation exposures in the first year after the accident.

Both the WHO and UNSCEAR assessed public exposure. “If there’s a health risk, it’s with the highly exposed workers,” Wolfgang Weiss, UNSCEAR’ chair, told Nature. More than 150 nuclear plant workers received high enough exposures to slightly raise their risk of cancer, but most civilians did not, according to the WHO’s evaluation.

UNSCEAR’s report calculated that the Japanese government’s estimates of exposure were correct within a factor of ten, but surveys and interviews examining public attitudes show continuing distrust of official numbers. Residents are reporting high levels of PTSD symptoms, and some feel that reports on radiation exposure, though independent, may not be thorough enough. “I think international organizations should stop making hasty reports based on very short visits to Japan that don’t allow them to see what is happening

DANA POINT, Larry Hamlin: (Regarding) the usual anti-nuclear alarmism about radiation risks from the operation of the San Onofre nuclear plant [“San Onofre cancer study,” May 31]. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the annual radiation dose received for populations within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant are more than 40,000 times less than that same population receives from natural background radiation.

Further, this nuclear power-plant-related EPA-estimated dose is more than 50 times less than a single dental X-ray, more than 200 times less than a single chest X-ray and more than 400 times less than a person receives in a one-way flight from Los Angeles to New York.

COMMENT: Every day we receive radiation from the sun. However, we do not have to be outside in that radiation. We can stay inside, wear protective clothes, etc. We do not breathe that radiation. Part of the radiation emitted from a nuclear power plant escapes with steam and the radioactive particles are attached and dispersed in a different manner than sunlight streaming down to earth. And it is possible to breathe these particles or have them drop on growing crops or water supplies to enter the food chain. Tuna off the coast of California as of August 2011 was found to have radioactive Cesium ten times higher than the prior year and that radioactive Cesium was linked to that produced in the Fukushima nuclear disaster. However, those amounts are still said to be so small that they will not hurt us. (Do you eat a lot of tuna?)

If we flew 200 round trips from New York to Los Angeles a year we would receive another ANNUAL dose of radiation equivalent to that from a nuclear power plant within a 50 mile range. Or had 50 dental films taken. Or had 200 chest x rays.

But do we want to have that extra annual dose of radiation from a nuclear power plant?

Opposing Views (and there are plenty besides these quoted):

Study #1:Nuclear power station causing cancer (www.timefor change.org)
An official study from the German government shows the risk of getting cancer is increasing for children growing up in the neighborhood of a nuclear power station. This is in particular true for leukemia, a special case of cancer.

Study #2:Leukemia death rates in U.S. children near nuclear reactors rose sharply (vs. the national trend) in the past two decades, according to a study that was published in the the European Journal of Cancer Care in 2009.

The greatest mortality increases occurred near the oldest nuclear plants, while declines were observed near plants that closed permanently in the 1980s and 1990s.
*******************

Knowing that coal power stations have their own risks does not make the risk from nuclear power stations any smaller. Renewable energy should be the way to go.

Germany now produces 50% of its energy from solar during mid-day hours. This is equivalent to 20 nuclear power plants operating at full capacity without any radioactive waste! LOOK – IT CAN BE DONE!

Don't forget – running nuclear power plants is big business and pays BIG BUCKS. No one involved in that industry wants to see it go – or be lessened.
But, make up your own mind. I have, and I don't want the risk.

A Look at the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe by Natural News

A Look at the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe by Natural News

A Look at the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe by Natural News

This is a guest blog from Natural News.

Fukushima reactor No. 4 at risk of catastrophic failure, dwarfing Chernobyl disaster; human civilization on the brink

May 6



NaturalNews Insider Alert ( www.NaturalNews.com ) email newsletter

Dear NaturalNews readers,
 
I'm interrupting our normal email schedule to bring you an urgent alert that makes everything else seem insignificant by comparison.

The issues of GMOs, fluoride, food freedom and vaccines won't matter at all if we don't solve this far bigger issue that threatens human civilization: Fukushima reactor No. 4.

Right now, the reactor's spent fuel pool is just one earthquake away from a structural failure that could set off a chain of events leading to the release of anywhere from 10 times to 85 times the Cesium-137 released in the Chernobyl disaster.

Such circumstances caused one of Japan's former ambassadors to make the following
extraordinary statement: "It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor." - Mitsuhei Murata, Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal, Executive Director, the Japan Society for Global System and Ethics. A failure of the reactor -- and the subsequent catastrophic release of Cesium-137 -- would decimate human life across North America, killing off crops, polluting groundwater, causing widespread infant stillbirths and unleashing an explosion in cancer rates. North America could become uninhabitable by humans for centuries.

Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, meaning that if North America is blanketed with a layer of radioactive dust in 2012, that radioactivity will still be half as strong in the year 2042. It will drop by half again by the year 2072. By the year 2102, it might be low enough to where humans could start to re-colonize the continent, but even then, rates of cancer and birth defects would likely be off the charts.

Yet, as we speak, the mainstream media is running a total media blackout on this story. Governments are pretending there is no problem, and the corporations that built these nuclear facilities (like GE) are quietly running disinfo campaigns to convince everybody there is no problem.
 
I've just published an urgent feature story on this issue, outlining the facts about Fukushima reactor No. 4:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035789_Fukushima_Cesium-137_Plume-Gate.html
 
I've also reprinted an urgent press release from a coalition of organizations calling for urgent UN intervention to deal with Fukushima before it kills us all:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035788_Fukushima_United_Nations_radiation.html
 
I'm urging you to forward and share these stories and help raise the alarm. Nothing else is important anymore. It doesn't matter who is running for President, what's in the vaccines, or whether GMOs are labeled if our civilization is dead from radiation! NaturalNews is shifting our editorial priorities to focus on Fukushima. All other stories are being made secondary to this urgent issue.

I'm also recording a "radiation survival 101" audio program.
 
I'm assigning coverage of Fukushima to our staff writers and investigators, so expect to see a lot more reporting on Fukushima until (and if) this Reactor No. 4 problem is properly addressed.

In the mean time, just one earthquake in Japan could unleash the worst-case scenario, sending a massive plume of Cesium-137 headed directly at North America. The fate of our world now rests on the unpredictability of Pacific Rim earthquakes! This is a stupidly risky roll of the dice we've all walked into, and if we don't make it, future archeologists will one day discover a fine layer of Cesium-137 dust followed by a global mass extinction event.

Nothing else is important compared to this. We either solve the Fukushima situation -- and then eliminate ALL nuclear power plants on the planet -- or we carve our own graves in the sad, pathetic history of an arrogant civilization "suicided" by corporate-run science.

Pray for our world today. We may have already killed ourselves with stupidity.
 

Fukushima reactor 4 requires urgent intervention; coalition calls for emergency UN
action to halt catastrophic release of radiation (NaturalNews) Kyoto, Japan -- On 30 April, seventy-two Japanese NGO organizations lead by Shut Tomari and Green Action send an urgent request to the UN and Japanese government urging immediate action to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant...
 

The Birth and Death of Democracy

The United States is now arguing over who has “too much” and who has “too little”.  While no one can predict the future, the following has been circulating over the internetIand bears some thought.  I have edited out the parts that "Snopes" has declared to be untrue.  The rest is for your imagination to consider.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as

a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters  discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates  who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the  result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.  (Not verified) During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following  sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."   The United States has always been successful as a free economy. Being supported by the government promotes dependency which leads  (according to this history) to downfall.  Let us not abandon the poor or the  sick  but we need to create jobs to empower our country.  And we  need to foster knowledge to fight apathy.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON EARTH DAY?

EARTH DAY is Sunday April 22, 2012. Every year on April 22 Earth Day is celebrated since it was started in the 1970's, thought to be the beginning of the environmental movement. Most protestors at that time were against the Vietnam war. But cars were gas guzzlers, air pollution was acceptable, and climate change had not been thought up. However, a woman named Rachael Carson had published a book called “Silent Spring” in 1962. It sold over 500,000 copies in 24 countries and alerted people to the dangers of pesticides accumulating in the earth and its food chains. She has to be given credit for bringing thoughtfulness about our environment to the public eye.

The actual creator of Earth Day was Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson after he witnessed the massive oil spills off the coast of Santa Barbara, Ca. He proposed a “National teach-in on the environment” to the media and accumulated staff and volunteers to promote various events on April 22. Twenty million Americans gathered and demonstrated for a healthy, sustainable environment in coast-to-coast rallies. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.



In 1990 Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. President Bill Clinton awarded Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder.



Earth Day 2000 had 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people. Earth Day 2010 was focused on Earth Day Network which reconfirmed Earth Day as a powerful focal point around which people could demonstrate their commitment.

Mobilize the Earth. Earth Day. 4.22.12

On April 22, more than one billion people around the globe will participate in Earth Day 2012 and help Mobilize the Earth™. People of all nationalities and backgrounds will voice their appreciation for the planet and demand its protection.

Attend a local Earth Day event and join one of the Earth Day campaigns to elevate the importance of environmental issues around the world.

Share what you are doing for Earth Day: register your Earth Day events, put them on Facebook, or send a tweet.

Website: http://www.earthday.org/2012

And as you all know, my particular environmental interest revolves around nuclear awareness. We still are not sure of the far reaching effects of the Fukushima disaster. Dr. Helen Caldicott of Boston said if the number 4 nuclear reactor had a further meltdown and explosion of radioactive material she would evacuate her family to South America. There are further admissions of radioactive water being leaked into the ocean from the Fukushima site. The past Prime Minister Kan of Japan has stated he was not aware of how dangerous nuclear plants can be. He now wants all the plants closed in Japan and decommissioned. He reminds us that hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and cannot return to their homes because of this disaster.



Studies are now showing increased rates of cancer in certain of the populations residing next to nuclear reactors. 50% of the people polled around selected nuclear plants stated they had no idea what to do if the warning sirens went off. We may have to wait twenty years to see the full effects of the radiation released from Fukushima. Hopefully it will not be another Silent Spring.

Barbara Griffin Billig

Author: The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of suspense) also published as:

THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe

Follow on Twitter: @ barbarabillig

Blog: http://www.thenuclearcatastrophe.blogspot.com

Web page: http://mysite.verizon.net/resrrmof/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Nuclear-Catastrophe/187754411274067

Available for Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WDRWXY

Available as THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe in Paperback

Read an excerpt now: http://bit.ly/pY8HxX