Japan Nuclear Disaster: A Wake-up Call for Us All

Article first published as Japan Nuclear Disaster: A Wake-up Call for Us All on Blogcritics.

If you have been watching reports coming out of Japan, or reading about the situation, it must by now have made you reach this conclusion: nuclear power is just not worth it. I have seen the talking heads go at it on television, and some babble about how "safe" nuclear power is. I feel like saying, "Tell that to the ten thousand plus dead and the stricken survivors in Japan."



By all accounts the Japanese thought they were prepared for the big one; they had built the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant with expectations of an earthquake. What it seems they were not ready for was the tsunami that followed, which knocked out the plant's cooling systems and caused this catastrophe. Now the world waits to hear good news each day, but all we get is more of the same grim reports and the possibility of even worse things to come, like plutonium being found in the soil outside the plant.

This inevitably gets me thinking of the other nuclear problem: weapons. The notion of anyone using nuclear weapons should by now have reached a complete zero option.  For years I have heard about a "limited nuclear response" in various situations. In other words, your country hits my country with one, so I will hit you back with one. The greatest fear comes from countries like India and Pakistan which both have nuclear weapons and have at times been on the brink of hostilities.

After seeing what has happened in Japan, any rational person would realize that it is bad enough if something goes wrong with a nuclear reactor in a plant meant for generating power, but to intentionally use a weapon that will also release these harmful materials into the atmosphere should now be seen as a reprehensible and inconceivable act of barbarism. A small scale nuclear exchange could devastate this planet, causing climate change that would alter life as we know it forever.

I have heard reports of people in California taking iodine tablets for radiation they perceive may be coming across the ocean from Japan. Apparently radiation has been detected in numerous states (even as far away as here in New York). If people are worried about this situation, think how much worse it could be if two countries start lobbing nuclear weapons back and forth at each other. It would be only a matter of time after a nuclear attack, no matter how limited, that everyone on the planet would be affected adversely.



I don't expect that nuclear power will stop anytime soon (although the process should begin to shut down all plants worldwide); however, nuclear weapons are something human beings can control, and they must realize there is no other alternative. President Obama and other world leaders should take the initiative to begin discourse about how to bring about total disarmament for all countries in the world. I know this task will be arduous and take a long time, but we have to start somewhere, so why not start right now? The nuclear disaster in Japan is a wake-up call, so we better heed the warning.

Still, even if every country with nuclear arms did neutralize its nuclear arsenal, even if every nuclear weapon on earth were rendered incapacitated, there could be the possibility of one rogue terrorist group (or rogue nation) that decided to try to make one. Even with the cooperation of all parties, the unspeakable might still happen. I don't know how we can prevent that from occurring, but we better start thinking about the process before it is too late. We need to lose the nuclear power and nuclear weapons or we may just end up losing our planet.

Photo Credits:

Map- Huffingtonpost.com
Mushroom Cloud- photobucket.com

Japanese Tsunami: I'm Gonna Build Me an Ark

Article first published as Japanese Tsunami: I'm Gonna Build Me an Ark on Blogcritics.

The reaction to the earthquake in Japan and the horrific tsunami it spawned has been swift and, as should be expected, covered widely by the media. It was quite easy last evening to find reports on television about the story, even on small local stations. Turning to the PC, I got more of the same. It's a story that is necessary and compelling to report, and it makes us all worry a bit when we think of the power of nature. Sometimes, I think we take that for granted.
This morning as I made my usual quick trip to the supermarket, I was in the dairy aisle getting milk and juice. This is when I overheard two guys who had brought in handtrucks filled with new cartons of milk to replenish the supply. They were talking about the tsunami. "You see that wave in Japan washing everything away, man?"

The other guy stopped puitting milk on the shelf, tipped back his cap, and sighed, "Yeah, I'm gonna build me an ark."

They started laughing and went back to their work, but I started thinking about it. We take for granted how the milk will always be on the shelf, as well as everything else we need. We turn on the taps and the water comes out clean to drink. I go home, turn on my computer, and I can connect to the world. It's all so easy, so simple, and yet so frighteningly fragile, as this disaster in Japan clearly demonstrates.

I took down the old trusty Bible from my shelf and turned to Genesis. Noah must have been a great guy because he got a warning. He went out to build an ark because, according to the story, God was ready to smite the people and the earth but Noah had found "favor" with the Lord. Lucky guy, huh?

In Genesis 6:15 God gave Noah specific instructions: "This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high." The "cubit" was an ancient measurement, and since Noah couldn't rush out to Home Depot to get the wood measured and cut for him, he had to use the basic length of a cord that covered the distance between his elbow to the end of his middle finger, meaning a cubit changed with each person depending on his arm length. I then looked up cubit and the Merriam-Webster definition indicated that it equals about 18 inches in length.

I figured out that Noah's boat would be much too big for my family and me. Even if we took the dog, we would need a much smaller size. Maybe around 150 cubits by 25 cubit by 25 cubits. Unlike Noah, I could go down to Home Depot, get all my wood, use my power tools, and - wait a minute. What am I doing? Noah had found favor with the Lord. He had been told in advance, so there was a plan for him. When it was all over his boat came to rest and life went on for him and his family because that was what God wanted.

We might not be so lucky, right? In fact, in a flood that devastating, the world as we know it would be gone. There would be no more apps for my iPhone; hey, it wouldn't even work. There would be no store with stocked milk, no gas for the car (well, that would be washed away at this point), no daily newspaper or grande cappucino to drink with it. We would just have each other and have to start over from scratch.

I realized why Noah brought all those animals. They were not just being saved to keep each species going; they would also be a food source. The cows gave milk; the chickens gave eggs, and so on. Yes, I would have to build the ark to the original specifications and get animals - lots of them. Neighborhood cats and dogs, maybe that squirrel that destroys our pumpkins every Halloween, that raccoon I see up near the train tracks, and so on. I know this is a poor lot of creatures to take, but short of raiding the Bronx Zoo before the flood comes, what am I to do?

Maybe nothing. I sat here staring out the window and figured I would have to take what God has wrought just like everyone else. He didn't warn me or anyone in my family. I wouldn't be favored and probably wouldn't survive. It might be worse to be the only people on a ruined planet, fending for ourselves after all had been swamped and drowned. Yeah, I guess that would be the way it was meant to be.

Later in the morning I went out to the garage to get something. Stacked against the wall was all the wood I had bought last year to build a new shed but never got around to it. I forgot I had bought it. I picked up my tape measure from the workbench and measured my elbow to the tip of my middle finger. It was almost nineteen inches. I picked up my hammer, stared at the wood, and touched it with my hand. "Three hundred cubits, by fifty cubits, by thirty cubits." Hmm.

Photo credits:
Map - CBS News.com
Flood - Guardian.co.uk