Fukushima

Dolores Park, San Francisco.

April, 10, 2011

Today - SIXTY-SIX years after the atomic bombing of JAPAN - that country faces another nuclear crisis. A total of SIX nuclear reactors threaten the lives of many thousands of people in JAPAN and around the world. The long-term effects of radiation are hard to measure but we know radiation kills. 

Japan's 54 reactors provide some 30 percent of that country's electricity, and this is expected to increase to at least 40 percent by 2017, and 50 percent by 2030. Japan has a full fuel cycle set-up, including enrichment and reprocessing of used-fuel for recycling. 

Nuclear power has become a significant factor in the industrial world’s central planning. It has become essential for the continuance of what some  describe as disaster capitalism. Disaster capitalism is prepared to risk many thousands of lives and our planet so the few can make more and more money.  Enough is enough!

After World War Two, the Japanese Constitution included three nuclear principles - that JAPAN would not possess - manufacture - or introduce nuclear weapons into Japan. But today Japan has reconstituted its military, and secret agreements with the UNITED STATES now permit storage of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. So today JAPAN claims to be a pacifist nation but stores American nuclear weapons on its soil and at the same time, seeks shelter under the American nuclear umbrella. And has gambled on nuclear power. Today they suffer the consequences.

THIRTY-TWO years ago I was living on Restaurant Row in Manhattan – that’s West 46^th Street near Times Square in New York City– when I heard on Pacifica radio’s New York station WBAI – that there’d been an accident at THREE MILE ISLAND near HARRISBURG the capital in Pennsylvania.  It was March1979. 

At the time I was a filmmaker working on a film about nuclear power.  I offered my audio tapes and what I knew about nuclear energy to Pacifica radio station WBAI and that night they put me on air until dawn – calling people who knew the implications of the THREE MILE ISLAND disaster –taking phone calls from listeners – it was amazing – and soon afterwards I was a regular volunteer at that community radio station - that Pacifica radio station, WBAI in NEW YORK CITY – and I volunteered and worked there for more than FIFTEEN years. 

But in some ways I never left – here I am today in California - at another Pacifica radio station – the first Pacifica radio station - that’s been here more than SIXTY years – KPFA  – three decades later – still in community radio and now a permaculture teacher too - returned to community radio – it’s a good marriage.  And its great to be here today with KPFA as a co-sponsor of this great day.

Some may remember that at the same time way back in 1979 – when the accident happened at THREE MILE ISLAND - a film staring Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda and Jack Lemon, called THE CHINA SYNDROME came out. It was playing just down the street on Broadway close to where I lived in NEW YORK. 

I’s a film about an imaginary nuclear power plant that suffers a serious accident and how a TV news reporter and a cameraman - played by Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas - how they uncover serious safety issues at the nuclear power plant. It was a great movie - and very frightening. The film was released on 16^th March 1979, 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident - a real disaster. 

In the film, a physicist says the China Syndrome would render "an area the size of Pennsylvania" permanently uninhabitable. And here was this real-time accident actually happening in Pennsylvania, as the film came out – a kind of dreadful synchronicity - and New Yorkers were terrified. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It’s how millions of Japanese must feel today – as I speak here in California.

The phrase China syndrome refers to a nuclear core meltdown - when the reactor core actually melts through the concrete floor of a nuclear plant -into the soil and groundwater and that is what seems to have happened in the past month in JAPAN. The phrase is an exaggeration of course – the nuclear core will not melt all the way to China – but in Japan at FUCKUSHIMA, perhaps more than one nuclear core seems to have melted through the concrete floor - it will poison the water table and the land for a very, very long time.

Today, in the UNITED STATES we have more than ONE-HUNDRED nuclear power plants – ONE-HUNDRED-FOUR to be exact. They provide about TWENTY PERCENT of electricity in this country. 

Since that day more than THIRTY years ago – not one nuclear power has been licensed and built in America. But Obama wants to change that – Obama wants more nuclear power in America – GE wants them – Halliburton wants them – the pentagon wants them but DO YOU WANT THEM?

Here’s some important numbers one needs to understand when we think about nuclear power – because nuclear power helps drive the industrial world’s economies.  Electricity drives half of America’s industry – without electricity modern civilization, as we know it, collapses.  

But I’ll tell you something – think of all the crap – all the waste, all the rubbish we create with that electricity – I bet we could cut our electricity consumption in half and we’d all be better off – healthier, safer, happier – sure we need electricity -  but how do we use it?

About HALF of electricity is for commerce and industry. Less than ONE-QUARTER is used in our homes – less than ONE-THIRD is used for transportation. Electricity drives our consumer-based economy.

We all know that conservation can make a huge difference and that we are a very long way from an intelligent energy policy – one that employs soft technologies like solar, wind, tidal, geo-thermal and most importantly – conservation. All of these technologies reduce the impact on climate change– they create a more livable world – and they create employment but they don’t support the war industry that drives our economy. And that’s a big problem for our military-industrial complex that needs nuclear power not just to generate electricity but to generate and build weapons and bombs.

They call nuclear power clean and a way to reduce climate change. And they say the same about natural gas. They use this argument to sell nuclear power and natural gas to us - as clean energy sources. But they fail to point to the enormous cost – the hidden costs of nuclear power – the enormous amounts of energy it takes to build a power plant and they never talk about the risk.

But you know the insurance industry is smart – the insurance industry will not insure nuclear power – the government does that through something called the Price-Anderson Act – because,  really insurance is simply not possible. 

And they say natural gas is clean and safe by now natural gas - hydraulic fracking - destroys and poisons our drinking water – ruins the landscape and poisons the Earth. 

And they don’t tell us how almost half of greenhouse gases come from coal – coal that rips the tops of mountains and pollutes rivers - coal which produces HALF our electricity. We are locked in a dreadful negative feedback loop. There is no such thing as clean coal. 

The amount of change we need is enormous. 

And I know it will take a huge effort to make that change - and that each one of us needs to be part of the change – to change our own lives as we put pressure on industry, commerce and government to change the way they do business. To shut down the madness.

Now I am a permaculture teacher as well as the interim general manager at KPFA – Pacifica Radio. And I know there is an alternative to this madness. Permaculture is an ethical system and is based on three fundamental ideals – care of people, care of Earth and return of surplus to both. 

Clean air, clean water and clean, nutritious food is our birthright – already impinged upon – and should be protected – in Malcolm X’s words – by any means necessary.

We need radical change and I urge you to start the change today – in your own homes and communities. And I urge you to support community radio – community radio – Pacifica radio KPFA – 94.1 FM – to bring change to KPFA  too – to help stop the ridiculous in-fighting that plagues our own institution -  I promise that we will continue to report and educate on this issue. It’s important. It’s vital for us and for our children – and as the Native Americans teach us – our planning should be long term – to the SEVENTH generation.

The impact of nuclear pollution, however, last far far longer than SEVEN generations – that’s about 125 years. I say shut the bastards down now –  shut ‘em down by any means necessary. Shut ‘em down!

Thanks for coming out today