Wednesday, 16 March 2011

As Japan scrambled to prevent a nuclear meltdown, European energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger voiced surprise at the "incredible makeshift" means being used to stop the disaster at the Fukushima No.1 power plant.

"The site is effectively out of control," Oettinger told a European Parliament committee, a day after he said Japan was facing "apocalypse".

"In the coming hours there could be further catastrophic events which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island," he said, warning that the situation was now "in the hands of God."

8 comments:

I've spent the last two days auditing the news on satellite radio while driving lonely between various states feeling isolated and bereft. From the beginning, this seemed to be going in one specific, particular direction. I would say that your "coverage" really conveys the gist of what is going on without all the blather, for which we all should thank you, but somehow it all seems too incredibly sad to do anything except stare into space.

Well, someone should tell a joke. The problem is that not everyone can do that well. I, for instance, cannot. (Tested this out on my child on the way home from an orthodontist appointment today. Crashed and burned -- pls. forgive the unpleasant imagery.)

We keep playing gods and Nature is making sure it reminds us we are insignificant beings in this world.

But the question that is haunting me and I cannot find a reasonable answer to is: how can a species considered "intelligent" build a nuclear plant on the border of a techtonic plate where earthquakes are frequent? And yet, the question I should ask myself is: how can a species considered "intelligent" build a nuclear plant at all...?

Though I do not comment often, I am right here, peeping through your window on the universe every now and then =) Bear hug, my friend!

(Curtis, I hope you're not old enough to recall how Groucho Marx on his TV show used to have that stuffed duck that dropped down from the studio darkness and awarded you $50 if you "said the magic word"?)

As to why anybody would build a nuclear power plant in such an area, Lucy, I fear the reason is, to make money.

Naturally the inhabitants of the great cities did not want the nuclear plants built too close to them, for fear of just such an eventuality as this.

But in the less populous and less well-off areas of the north, local officials could much more easily be convinced, by the promise of jobs, significant economic investments (and of course the pro forma promises of safety), to put their populace at risk.

Power companies, of course, exist not to ensure and promote human health and happiness, but to make money.

Thinking of the Eye in the Sky and the Magic Word(s) put me in mind of De Ira Dei.

(I believe a few days ago the frazzled Japanese PM made the significant public relations mistake of suggesting that the present calamity may be a divine punishment... the response to that at the time was predictably pretty negative, but then, perhaps, as time goes by...)