Meanwhile, back at the Fukushima "not a meltdown"...

[DEFCON]

Today we have 'internet news' and the so-called 'mainstream media'. The majority of people seem to believe the mainstream is the purveyor of truth & fact and the internet the home of the conspiracy theorist. As it is, for the most part the internet offers the facts well ahead of the mainstream.

Nuclear power is proving to be very bad and unnecessary medicine and yet, the US continues to move ahead with its plan to build & operate a brand new GE 1000 reactor claiming there's a need. Where's the non-informed and yet always opinionated public on the issue? When it comes to Fukushima and other large scale horror shows such as the 100+ year old dam breach story posted by Don above, it's pretty clear that people don't learn from history and they definitely don't want to hear anything current that may be threatening; they instead prefer to keep their focus on a narrow plane where they exist believing the government is looking out for them and nothing can go wrong. This same theme applies right across the board too; consider politics, banking and the economy. It's a fact; the 'sheepole' make mass control & manipulation easy for the big-shots.

[DEFCON]

PS:

About a year back the news advised; 'the Japanese government has authorized the dumping of huge quantities of radioactive water into the pacific ocean'.

Doesn't that ocean belong to the rest of the planet too? How or why did the world as a whole just sit back and watch the toxic dump without comment ? Apparently, honouring Japan's national pride and other equally stupid concepts were more important than the obvious consequences to the ocean environment or the rest of the world? If, but more likely, when building four finally does fall and the unstoppable nuclear fire begins heralding in the end of global life as we know it, what will we say then? Who will we blame...TEPCO?

[Don Hudson]

malcolm;

. . . do any of us really care and if so what are we as individuals doing to change this other than by posting go this forum?????

First, I refuse to wear a mantle of guilt - ever, for any actions or absence of actions. I know you're not "judging" others here and my remark is not aimed at your post but it must be clear - whether national or personal, guilt is never conducive to acting with integrity.

Next, the question itself is rhetorical because clearly people "care", most very deeply. There are relatively very few who are true sociopaths.

So asking the question must mean that one has a good idea what "caring" looks like. I would like to discuss this.

I think caring looks like music - Moon's "Pete Seeger" signature says it all. I think caring is precisely the act of posting in forums like this and elsewhere because it is ideas and perceptions, emotions and drives that slowly animate collective action. The most difficult thing in the world to kill is an idea. Collective action almost always begins with a single song, poem, essay, book, (think of Yevtushenko, think of Solzhenitsyn). Philosophically, I think caring exhibits the character of "tending to . . ." - it is more than awareness, it is an engagement which seeks/embraces knowing in a way that tends to and informs one's actions, which need not be uniquely physical - actions can often be a stance, which, if one is looking for just the physical, such may appear as "indifference".

To the topic of the thread, the very size of the Fukushima disaster and the direct health threats beggar individual participation in direct ways so the millions who do really care must find indirect pathways to personal actions, contributed in ways which best suit individual talents, abilities and priorities.

Action comes in as many forms as there are people. Reading is action, because it is education, which is always a requirement for further action. Otherwise one rides of in all directions, squandering energy, enthusiasm and diluting ideas and perceptions. I highly recommend Charles Perrow's book, "The Next Catastrophe" for a good read on how accidents "occur". I recommend this because Perrow is a pioneer in this work and knows what he's talking about, including the factors which went into creating the Fukushima accident.

Social action is almost always messy, but (real) democratic action itself is messy and risky in the sense that one cannot always control action, (which is why most western governments, big business and other conserving social institutions barely tolerate it and often fight it).

I'm probably misperceiving, but I am under the impression from the slight frustration expressed in your post that you may be looking for set, solid outcomes that are obtainable "if only the right action is found and taken" - that there is a concrete solution "out there" which we can discover and enact if we only apply enough "action".

It is trivial to say, but social action is not predetermined by plans, does not have manuals, procedures, processes and accountabilities in place which are intended to make outcomes predictable or appropriate.

The question of action to "stop" Fukushima, is the same question that the world now wrestles with concerning Syria. There is no solution at the stage at which we are viewing these disasters. All is hindsight - "What we think should have happened does not explain people's behaviour.* "

When we ask people who really, deeply know the Fukushima accident from a human factors stance as well as the technical, "what/how" aspect, we find that discerning a course of action is like discerning which way to proceed through the forest when one has been lost for two years. Also, the forces unleashed by uncaring human behaviour where good people chose blindness because seeing was too expensive and politically inconvenient, are physically extremely dangerous locally in Japan, and potentially those near or in the Pacific into which perhaps thousands of tons of radioactive water are now leaking.

As with Syria, what does "action" mean in the face of soverign nations? Even as the United States has a long interventionist history, it is powerless to act in such events. What enforceable rights would actions have even when based upon a clear case of widespread-harm-to-humans? The images from Syrian cell phones convey the horror of madmen in government but the immediacy of such images cannot detract from "slow disasters" of others' making. We choose "action" according to our moral compass and energy; - in fact we cannot 'not choose'.

* Sydney Dekker, "Field Guide to Understanding Human Factors"

[Don Hudson]

Fukushima: Japan promises swift action on nuclear cleanup

Prime minister Shinzo Abe makes pledge amid growing concern at scale and complexity of operation

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

The Guardian,

Monday 2 September 2013 10.04 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/02/fukushima-japan-action-nuclear-cleanup

The buildup of water at the site is close to becoming unmanageable. Experts say that Tepco will soon be left with no choice but to release the water into the ocean or evaporate it.

At present, water is used to cool melted nuclear fuel in three reactor basements, where it becomes contaminated and then mixes with groundwater seeping down from the hills behind the plant. The site's tanks, basements and pits contain an estimated 338,000 tonnes of tainted water.

The chairman of the country's nuclear regulation authority, Shunichi Tanaka, said on Monday that discharging the water remained an option, but only after it had been treated to bring radiation levels to below regulatory limits.

"If we decide to discharge water into the ocean, we will use various methods to ensure that radiation is below accepted levels," Tanaka told reporters in Tokyo. "We will have to dispose of it eventually, but we are committed to reducing or removing radioactive materials.

"There are specific limits that are used worldwide for the discharge of contaminated water. Nuclear power plants do that under normal circumstances – we're not asking for an exception to be made in Fukushima's case."

Tanaka said monitoring of the more than 1,000 water tanks at the site had been "inadequate". Previously, only two workers were dispatched twice a day to check the tanks, but did not carry personal radiation monitors and failed to keep proper records of their inspections. Tanaka said that a small leak and signs of possible leaks had been spotted at several other storage tanks.

Tepco apologised for the "great anxiety and inconvenience" caused by the contaminated water.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/02/fukushima-japan-action-nuclear-cleanup

[Mitch Cronin]

"Ice wall" is going to happen:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/09/03/fukushima-japan-government.html

[conehead]

The "ice wall" project won't be completed until March 2015. Not good.