Sustainability and Politics: Nuclear radiation 'the greatest public health hazard'

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Nuclear radiation 'the greatest public health hazard' - CNN

CNN: Is it possible to have a safe nuclear power plant?

Helen Caldicott: No. They are very complicated machines containing the energy released when an atom is split: Einstein's formula e=mc², the mass of the atom times the speed of light squared. Anything can go wrong: natural disasters, failure of cooling systems, human and computer error, terrorism, sabotage. Radioactive waste must be isolated from the ecosphere for half a million years or longer, a physical and scientific impossibility, and as it leaks it will concentrate in food chains, inducing epidemics of genetic diseases, leukemia and cancer in all future generations, the greatest public health hazard the world will ever see.

Einstein said, "The splitting of the atom changed everything save man's mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe." He also said, "Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water."

CNN: Doesn't every form of energy production involve some risk, as we saw with the oil spill in the Gulf?

Helen Caldicott: Well, that was dreadful. But to leave a legacy of huge vats of leaking radioactive waste around the world, inducing epidemics of malignancy and random compulsory genetic engineering, is a legacy for which future generations will be distinctly ungrateful.

CNN: Is there any other aspect of this event that we should be paying attention to and are not?

Helen Caldicott: No, except that the media keep interviewing nuclear engineers and physicists, but in truth this is a medical problem of vast dimensions.

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I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.