They Got Away With It: One Man’s Idea For How Those Responsible For Mishandling The Fukushima Disaster Can Pay For Their Mistakes
It’s just over five years down the road from the massive, horrific meltdown at power company TEPCO’s Fukushima Daaichi nuclear power plant, releasing radiation into the atmosphere and the ocean, unleashing god knows what long-term effects on the planet, the people and the animals who happen to live here. Indeed, the reason for massive die-offs of a variety of species in the southern Pacific Ocean remains a mystery. Although massive, bloody tumors and other health problems observed in Pacific sea life would seem to indicate radiation as a possible source.
But even with the damage of a Level 7 nuclear disaster as classified by the International Nuclear Event Scale, even with the news that the plant has continued to leak radioactive water into the ocean this entire time, even with the well-documented ineptitude of the cleanup effort, no highly placed employees of TEPCO nor any high-ranking politicos have been punished.
One Japanese nuclear engineer has an idea for how that can be rectified.
Koide Hiroaki has been a fierce critic of the Japanese government and TEPCO ever since the disaster first began to unfold, and he has come up with a novel way for those responsible for flubbing the clean-up process to atone for their mistakes: feed them.
Specifically, feed them the products of the farmers who continue to work the land near the plant, the areas of highest radiation levels, simply because they have no other means to scratch out a living. From an interview Hiroaki did with Counterpunch:
“Right now the people of Fukushima have been abandoned in the areas of the highest levels of radiation,” Hiroaki said. “And abandoned people have to find a way to live. Farmers produce agricultural goods, dairy farmers produce dairy products, and ranchers produce meat; these people must do so in order to live. We should serve all of the most heavily contaminated food at say the employee cafeteria at TEPCO or in the cafeteria for Diet members [Japanese parliament] in the Diet building. But that isn’t nearly enough. We must carefully inspect the food, and once we’ve determined what foods have what levels of contamination, once that is fully measured and delineated, then those who have the corresponding levels of responsibility should eat it, should be given it.”
It’s a novel idea, and no doubt controversial, especially to those he intends to feed the affected foodstuffs. But really, when you think about it, isn’t this perfectly logical? Isn’t responsibility for cleaning up your own mess something we were all taught as small children? When decision-makers have the luxury of personally avoiding the consequences of their decisions, leaving that to the poor and desperate, the disconnect between the elites and the populace grows worse and worse. Sa Hiroaki puts it:
“…each one of us, especially those who built post-war Japan, bears responsibility for allowing our society to heavily dependent on nuclear energy without carefully reflecting on the risks and consequences of it. And more importantly, we have the responsibility for protecting children.”
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Seems fair enough.
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