Published: July 4th, 2012 at 3:40 pm ET
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Subscription Only: COMMENTARY/ Ryuichi Sakamoto: Mankind cannot live with nuclear energy
AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
July 4, 2012
[...]With the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, I feel it is now the responsibility of Japan as the only nation to suffer major radiation exposure on three separate occasions as well as a contribution to the international community to say to the entire world that mankind cannot live in this world with nuclear energy, be it in the form of weapons or as a form of power generation.
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h/t BoingBoing (Good eye by their editor, as they used the exact quote I had saved from the Asahi article when reading it earlier today.)
“Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese musician, composer, record producer, writer, singer, pianist, and actor, based in Tokyo and New York. [...] His greatest award success was for scoring The Last Emperor (1987), which won him the Academy Award for Best Original Score, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media” -Wikipedia
Published: July 4th, 2012 at 3:40 pm ET
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sending...
“Mankind cannot live in this world with nuclear energy”
That is the truth. And undebatable.
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the key part of the phrase is "…in this world…". Given the amount of radiation being spewed by the sun each second, nuclear power technology is perfectly acceptable outside the biosphere. As of this juncture in history, nuclear power should be completely outlawed for use on the planet. And, any-and-all space platforms that utilize nuclear power technologies must be parked in orbits (L5?) that are incapable of falling into the planet's atmosphere…
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Correct…
… Totally acceptable OUTSIDE this biosphere.
Wholly unacceptable WITHIN this biosphere.
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liked this qoute
"I am embarrassed to admit that it was only after 9/11 that I first began studying the history behind why the United States became a target of terrorists. That also immediately led to my asking myself about the contradiction in living in the United States as a citizen of the nation on which it had dropped atomic bombs. I have still not come up with an answer to that question…"
talking of security
interesting video that takes an alternate look at the "terror" issues
7/7 Kollerstrom and Farrell Are Dead.
"Kevin West's new film has been specially made to mark the 7th anniversary of the 7th July 2005 London bombings. It includes some of the new footage released by the sham Enquiry into the bombings held in 2010/11 and the subsequent release of more disinformation about what is supposed to have happened that day.
Based on and idea by Tony Farrell, sit back and watch Tony and Nick deal a pack of cards itemising many of the key points overlooked in the discredited and chaotic so-called 'official story'…"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8NZhl-ogoY&feature=player_embedded#!
it really is worth a watch
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thanks arc…
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oh and a thank you to tenacious david icke headline researcher for the link to this uk independent documentary.. seems like the david icke web site is worth bookmarking?
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Yes, for me it is anyway. A lot of people are quick to dismiss David Ike as a nutter because of some of his more shall we say, 'outlandish' beliefs, but after watching some of his lectures I found him to be very informative, articulate, and to the point on many things. I agree with much of what he says and am unsure about other things, but overall I enjoy learning his perspective on global and spiritual issues.
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Yes we can live with nuclear power and we are living with it 50 years. Only people, which is lacking deeper understanding, can speak such nonsense and obviously Ryuichi Sakamoto don't understand that he's talking about.
Nuclear is safest of all energy production industries including solar and wind: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html.
Why people don't complain about fossil fuel industries, but only about nuclear? Each year fossil fuel industries kill >100,000 people (explosions in mining, asthma and etc.), Chernobyl have been killed < 10,000. These industries not only kill more people in year, than Chernobyl did, but also produce CO2, which cause Greenhouse effect, and release in air radioactive substances (uranium, thorium, radon and etc.), which was captured in fossil fuels.
Radiation isn't so dangerous as people think, there is areas in which natural radiation is more than 5 times higher than world average (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivity), and people in these areas cancer rates is same or even smaller, than in general population.
Only uneducated, misinformed people or driven by emotional reasons, or by monetary interest, oppose nuclear power.
Most users in this site is these kind of people, they accept that is said to them without critical thinking and further investigation. Most of is driven by herd instinct and can’t think for them self.
It’s sad to see how people is living in dream world…
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Are you suggesting that because more people die in auto accidents each year that that is definitive proof: Airplanes are safer?
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Perhaps if we had drunken pilots playing video games as chauffeur…
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===
Nuclear is safest of all energy production industries including solar and wind.
===
Please link to ONE Wind Turbine accident that created exclusion, "NO GO" zones where human life is threatened with malformations and cancers for the next 300 years?
Please link to ONE Solar accident that rendered a nation crippled and bankrupt while poisoning the land, the sea and the food?
Please link to the ONE Tidal Generator accident that turned a whole community's way of life bankrupt and that didn't poison the surrounding shorelines with toxic goo that eats holes in crustaceans and makes the food sources toxic?
Just ONE example… Please.
Make your case or get lost.
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Can you show me where wind or solar or coal caused genetic mutations like these?
http://chernobyl_mutants.images.nodes.org
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dunno,
You can't be serious… "We will" End nuclear power.
Advantageous solar mutations have gone on naturally for billions of years.
Deleterious mutations from nuclear effect all future generations. This is no excuse for the machine to exist.
How much coal is used in uranium refining?
What the hell is going to be done about the millions of tons of spent fuel/waste accumulating across our tiny planet?
Go eat some tuna.
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LOL, I've seen rod adams post that text, almost word for word…
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Jebus,
It's the "False Equivalency" game.
If I can get you to agree with my premise: Fossil fuels kill the most people…
… Then I can get you to buy into (short for swindle the mind) a concept that mitigates the lesser of the evils so as to shill FOR that lesser evil.
We see it in politics, all the time.
Because Romney has bilked people out of their jobs… that makes Obama's indiscriminate killing of women and children in Muslim countries all that much better… So guess who's gonna get re-elected?
.
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excellent Max…
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Aftershock,
I don't mean to imply that indiscriminate killing of women and children in Muslim countries is the lesser of the two evils I cited as the examples. Jobs are replaceable… lives, are not.
Just was meant as a quick example(scan any US newsy/blog site).
While BOTH are evil…
… We're told to choose the lesser.
And most do so without questioning why they must choose an evil, at all. Doing so only ensures future evil… NOT less.
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Max, I immediately got what you were saying and totally agree…
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@Max – who scans a news site anymore ?
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p.s.
Rod Adams sounds like a pornstar's name.
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Because more people die from cigarettes each year…
… That prove heroin is safer?
You do play funny equivalence games…
… Because 1+1=2 that proves 5 = 7.698 NO?
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@dunno: can you assure us that an area that's contaminated by nuclear power byproducts is safe to live in? If so, I'd like to see you visit the Chernobyl region and witness the response of the locals to your position. You'd have nothing to fear, as I'd make sure you neither beaten to death or drowned in an abandoned well. Of course, the residual radioactive contaminants would be another story…
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You, sir, are enjoying a bit too much of the wacky-weed ("Mary Jane" to you 60's refugees) if you believe Nuclear power is 'safe. Nuclear power has the capacity (and has done so in several locales, Fukushima being merely one of a number) to render portions of our planet UNINHABITABLE for VAST periods of time. Solar, Wind, nor Fossil Fuels have such a capacity.
A simple mathematical formula will show you that Nuclear Power is the WORST and MOST POLLUTING form of industry in existance:
Contamination = non-use of land/water/air for
Time = period of time contamination perpetuates the above
POLLUTION=CONTAMINATION X TIME.
And since a windmill accident will probably render a field unusable for a few weeks (while workers clean up the debris) and a solar power waste from manufacturing may contaminate the land for a few decades, and petroleum byproduct spills might contaminate areas for several hundred years, NUCLEAR fallout remains toxic for hundreds of THOUSANDS of years (e.g., Plutonium, as is currently scattered around the Fukushima plant).
HOW, given the timeframes and insiduous nature of nuclear contaminants (e.g., you can see/hear/taste/feel the hot particles that settle in your lungs and give you cancer), can you say nuclear is 'safe' (other than by smoking wacky-weed)???
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please billyedtimmy – never associate 'wacky-weed' to 'believe Nuclear power is 'safe''
They are vastly disjoined issues and I'd rather you didn't make that poor reference.
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My apologies to wacky-weed. No disrespect meant to the product.
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Apologies to wacky-weed accepted
that sounds funny 
sorry I was a bit prickly about it. It was a rough day. Crashing now with a smile.
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@dunno – I try to read and consolidate what you write, it's all fair.
And just suppose we accept what you say.
What you fail to consider is the toxic waste that will be left for FUTURE generations to deal with. If they can.
All you are supporting is your selfish indulgence of a life style of convenience, at the cost of a clean and uncontaminated future for the generations to come. (don't give me the garbage about carbon contamination, you know we are talking hundreds, possibly thousands of years for nuclear waste).
You've probably seen the selfish types; vastly overwieght, and driving a large 4 wheel drive tank, probably throw the rubbish out of the car window. Living in a large house that runs air-conditioning 24 hours of the day. When finished at lunch or a picnic, they just get up and walk away, leave all the garbage for someone else to deal with.
All at the same time supporting the corrupt overloads that demand we suffer this system.
So you can carry on all you like, but to me it's morally vacant to leave waste for future generations to deal with, and it's brain dead to support a corrupt network of organised crime.
Solve those two issues, then maybe we can talk.
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It's okay, 'dunno', you may not be the "sharpest knife in the drawer", but at least you have logged in here to say what you think.
Maybe, you'll reconsider some of what you've stated or learn a little in the process.
I usually do not respond to comments that are lame attempts at diverting from the real issue. The issue at hand is that Fukushima is out of control and destroying 'the chain of life' via contamination of the air, water and soil. Non-stop, no end insight. We've been repeatedly lied to and no data or lack of data is the daily name of the game.
One final point.
In the link YOU PROVIDED about the place where people live with higher than normal radiation you forgot to read the last paragraph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivity
NOTE: "…study has shown that people in the area HAVE a significantly higher expression of CD69 gene and also a higher incidence of stable and unstable chromosomal aberrations. Chromosomal aberrations have been found in other studies and a possible elevation of female infertility has been reported."
Chromosomal aberrations and female infertility…!
For those two reasons alone, these Nuclear Death Machines must be stopped.
Thank you 'dunno', I am glad you commented here.
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Only 1800 test subjects…not a big enuf sample to say they are "radioactive" resistant, but enough to say gene mutation and lack of fertility. Good news, they show slight resistance, bad news no children…..
I sure hope Japanese scientists are NOT using this type of reasoning–for their population! To allow radiation levels to "weed out" the radioactive sensitive population is a criminal approach. Might as well have death camps. HUM..come to think of it..isnt that Fukushima?
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You named yourself well.
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dunno;
Every day, I spend hours doing serious research on electric power in general, and nuclear power specifically. Most of what I read is in mainstream new media. Much of it is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nuclear industry, and scientists.
I am an engineer, I have a broad understanding of science, I am well educated, I have three patents on inventions of my own, and I seriously doubt I am stupid (though my landlady very often disagrees with this last point).
After reading material by and about nuclear hacks all day, I come to ENENEWS for sanity. Not all of the people here are better educated than I am, but I would guess quite a few are. Not all are as calm as I am (I never, ever rant!) but some are very even tempered.
Very few of the people here are as comically uninterested in truth or safety. A few, however, definitely are, and I am guessing you might be one of them.
Perhaps I should say, "Thanks for that very funny thought." But the comedy of saying nuclear power is safer than wind or solar, or that it is safe at all, is overshadowed by the gloom cast by a person so obviously … let me guess – paid to keep his head in the sand.
It did make me laugh, I admit. But I immediately felt guilty. It was rather like laughing at a person who fell down on the ice and got injured. It was an unkind laugh, and I am ashamed of it.
So please, stop being silly. I want to stop feeling guilty about laughing at you.
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I can not fathom how governmental leaders can insist that their country and it's people MUST risk life and prosperity just so that some shareholders can make a profit when there exists ways to earn these profits from producing what people need, energy, that does NOT require such risks.
These same leaders do this insisting that they're thinking of the people's future and the nation's prosperity. Yet, as Fukushima and Chernobyl prove, these gains come at extreme risks. That these leaders insist in taking such monumental risks and that the people keep voting for these leaders is more proof of the brainwashing and propaganda that has been invested into producing energy at monumental risks to humanity has been a success… It's insanity.
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well, we're sending 4.5 kg of plutonium 138 to mars on the curiosity rover. so we're well into polluting other worlds too.
boy, are humans jerks.
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thats PU 238…
all I want for christmas is an edit function on enenews
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There ARE ways to produce energy who's byproduct is NOT a threat…
… Yet we're saddled with leaders who think we must risk life and prosperity.
Some leaders, eh?
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Great! One of my all-time musical heroes has come out against nuclear energy.
YEESSS.
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Re: Dunno's reference: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivity
The idea of radioresistance is an important issue that Dunno raises. But there are more than 200 different fission products released by nuclear bombs and reactors. We cannot generalize the effects of each of these products to a study done where all the inhabitants have lived with exposure to some naturally occurring radioisotopes. Life has adapted to certain radioactive substances. To generalize and say we are foolish to fear what might happen with so many unknowns doesn't make sense. It is a type of foolish bravado, which typifies the pro-nuclear cult.
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Not trying to argue or minimize your point, but Arnie G. says at least 1,400 radioactive isotopes were released by the Fukushima 1 plant accident.
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I cannot recall who first posted this excellent citation for research showing that "background" radiation causes mitochondrial DNA mutations.
Lucy Forster, Peter Forster, Sabine Lutz-Bonengel Horst Willkomm, Bernd Brinkmann Natural radioactivity and human mitochondrial DNA mutations PNAS http://www.pnas.org/content/99/21/13950.long
“The observation that radiation accelerates point mutations at all is unexpected, at first glance, because radiation was, until recently, thought to generate primarily DNA lesions (1). A potential explanation is provided by our additional observation that these radiation-associated point mutations are also evolutionary hot spots, indicating that the radiation indirectly increases the cell's normal (evolutionary) mutation mechanism (5).
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Majia: Here is the info on effects of radiation on mitochondrial DNA: http://www.drlintegral.com/Fukushima.pdf
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Plutonium, There is nothing more toxic/deadly to human beings.
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http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/plutonium.html
"How do people come in contact with plutonium?
Residual plutonium from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing is dispersed widely in the environment. As a result, virtually everyone comes into contact with extremely small amounts of plutonium…
The stomach does not absorb plutonium very well, and most plutonium swallowed with food or water passes from the body through the feces. When inhaled, plutonium can remain in the lungs depending upon its particle size and how well the particular chemical form dissolves. The chemical forms that dissolve less easily may lodge in the lungs or move out with phlegm, and either be swallowed or spit out. But, the lungs may absorb chemical forms that dissolve more easily and pass them into the bloodstream.
Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation.
External exposure to plutonium poses very little health risk, since plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation, and almost no beta or gamma radiation. In contrast, internal exposure to plutonium is an extremely serious health hazard. It generally stays in the body for decades, exposing organs and tissues to radiation, and increasing the risk of cancer. Plutonium is also a toxic metal, and may cause damage to the kidneys."
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"Since plutonium levels in the environment are very low, they pose little risk to most people." So is this statement supposed to minimize and reassure? And they don't mention nuclear reactor disasters as a contributing source.
Lets just say the EPA admits we have a problem, but minimizes it. So how does plutonium interact with all the other myriad of bad actors in the environment, including other radionuclides?
Will we see the EPA raise the limit (again) and state: Since plutonium is now present everywhere….[whatever it takes to not alarm you]?
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Isn't it reassuring [not] that the EPA has set a standard for our drinking water, and lumps all alpha emitters together, not isolating plutonium levels?
"EPA sets health-based limits on radiation in air, soil, and water. Federal government agencies are required to meet EPA standards the same as commercial industries. Using its authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA limits the amount of radiation in community water systems by establishing maximum contaminant levels. Maximum Contaminant Levels limit the amount of activity from alpha emitters, like plutonium, to 15 picocuries per liter."
This is why I have a reverse osmosis filtration system for my family's drinking water.
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Recently I got my towns water report for 2011.
The funny thing about it?
The 2010 report listed Radium and others.
This new report didn't list anything radiological!
How convenient!
I called my water authority and asked why the info was scrubbed of this most recent report "Which would have included Fukushima"
They flat out told me the levels were so low they decided to not post anything publicly…
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I have the last 3 years worth of reports and they all included radiological levels except this latest one.
I live in SW Washington.
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Interesting yogda. That says something.
Take photos of the reports and put them on flickr or on dropbox and post a link to them so we can see the reports too. One with and the one without.
(just cover up any name address info)
Enenews might even show it as a story.
I would certainly call it noteworthy.
Recording the call, (taking notes), or making copies of the letter requesting the data might also be a good idea too.
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MY water report does NOT have any tests for anything radioactive. WHY? We are 9 miles from a nuclear plant(s) — which have leaked into the test well. The water company tells me that the US government, based on Nuclear Regulatory law, is the only one who can test for radiation, its the EPAs job. IF they are testing, there is NO WAY to find out. The county engineer did send me all the data reports for 2009-2010–and they just installed a NEW reverse osmosis system which they are advertising heavily..BUT what about the 15 some years we have been drinking the local ground water which had issues with LEAD levels, and some other not as nasty items. LEAD –it can come from tritium breakdowns. NO testing available –they just say–no danger, believe us…no danger. I would like the actual TEST figures. Anyone want the test data from Virginia near a nuclear plant? Just post a request.
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Hi Jec, I would like to see the test data from the Virginia nuke plant. Nice big spike over 700CPM there a few days ago. Then the EPA turned off the monitor.
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So this CNN YouTube video is Dr. Sanya Gupta talking about unsafe radioactive levels of drinking water in Japan for infants. No mention of pregnant females. Then he goes on to tell us about contamination here and it is inconsequential to health equating it to a CT scan. I like this bloggers comment: "the best science that you know"??
A cat scan does not contain radioactive elements, it bombards one with X-rays
The half life of any radioactive element varies from weeks to X millenniums.
What kind of lies by omission is this ?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TeTZAdYZXA&feature=share
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I just saw a picture of Joseph Gilbert Hamilton, MD drinking a radioactive sodium solution in 1939. He was born in Nov 1907 and died in Feb 1957. He died of radiation induced leukemia at age 49. Now, if he were just getting the equivalent dose of radiation from a CT scan, would he have died of leukemia? He was a professor of Medical Physics, Experimental Medicine, General Medicine, and Experimental Radiology. He helped conduct research on the effects of plutonium on humans in 1945 and 1946.
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My question is rhetorical. There were no CT scans when he was around.
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The NCRP Publication #160 (2008)states the following: This report is a long-awaited sequel to NCRP
Report No. 93 ( published in 1987) and provides a
comprehensive re-evaluation of the exposure of the
US population to all natural and man-made sources
of ionising radiation in 2006—some 25 y after the
previous assessment for the early 1980s. Over this
period, the average annual effective dose per individual
in the US population (EUS) from all sources has
increased by a factor of 1.7 to 6.2 mSv, with the
increase being almost entirely due to the dramatic
growth of relatively high-dose medical imaging procedures
using X-rays and radionuclides.
So medicine has advanced the exposure of radionucleides and xrays. Are we any better off for this?
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