Thoughts on Japan’s Nuclear Crisis, March 2011

Man vs Mother Nature, Mother Nature won: Japanese earthquake and Tsunami, Mar 2011. The Fukushima DaiIchi nuclear incident is a man made disaster.

Having taught English in Japan for a year, I have first hand experience with people from Japan. I was stationed in Kyushu, the largest southern island of Japan, about 100km away from a very large volcano. When you live in close proximity to a volcano that often blows its top, you become pretty nonchalant about tremors. Being Canadian, this never happened to me. The Japanese people love fresh food, especially vegetables. Having some of their food supply deemed unfit to eat is a big psychological blow. We can only hope that this nuclear disaster can be averted. Earthquake, tsunami, and now a nuclear incident: How much can they endure?

Japan loves fresh. You can see this in their homes, where there is no large refrigerator. All food is bought fresh daily and eaten soon after. Because much of Japan is tropical, this saves energy and increases your quality of food. Imported food is looked on sceptically. I recall a grocer telling me that the cheap “Grown in America” oranges were laced with pesticides and would kill me. They were Sunkist from Florida. Of course I bought them and they were delicious.

It is this attitude of “Fresh First” that makes the current nuclear incident even more serious. Contaminated land due to nuclear fallout may never again bear produce fit for human consumption. Here in Canada we would probably import fruit and veggies from some other part of the world and not bat an eye, but in Japan, this will not be the case.

The other issue is that Japan is a crowded country. In my little area of Japan, far from a large city, land is used intensively. There are fields for planting, and for living, not no area is fallow or otherwise unused. Here in Toronto you can go to many areas and see totally unused land. Small villages in Japan are really not very small when compared to Canadian villages. Japanese homes are not large and have small back yards. My point is that even in small villages in Japan, population density is high. This means that there is really no place to go to get away from a contaminated area. Those that are forced to flee will simply crowd out others in another area.

I have faith in the Japanese people in that they are hard working and resilient. How they will solve this problem I do not know, but I wish them luck. I hope that the Fukushima DaiIchi Nuclear Powerplant will change the nuclear power industry for the better. In the mean time those in harm’s way need to move to safety.

Japan is known for their advanced earthquake technology. Was it a calculated gamble to use nuclear reactors in Japan? Unfortunately the downside of this gamble will now play itself out. I wonder if mankind is really smart enough to control Mother Nature. Maybe the smartest thing for mankind to do may be to coexist with Mother Nature and not try to conquer her. She is unpredictable and incredibly strong. Mankind needs to understand that we are small.

The Force is with Her, not mankind.