A century ago the world was shocked and outraged when the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage with the loss of over fifteen hundred lives. Fundamental flaws and vulnerabilities uncovered by a secret commission just after Titanic’s loss and the latest research reveal a ‘perfect storm’ of causes that despite a clear calm night led to the tragedy.
In an almost eerie mirroring of current events, those causes reflect another ‘perfect storm’ that is now brewing. Today though, the coming catastrophe is not about the then largest ship in the world which was deemed to be ‘too big to sink’ but with the current global financial system which is equally and dangerously perceived as being ‘too big to fail.’
Whilst the collision with an iceberg was the immediate cause of Titanic’s demise, to understand the awful series of failures that sealed her fate, we need to begin from when the ship was designed and built until she sank below the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
As we do, we’ll see how their accumulation then, exposes the acute threat we are all in now from a financial system that has heeded few warnings,learned perilously little and continues to head at full speed towards the oncoming storm.
* Government policy
Then:
Building the biggest and/or fastest ships of all time to sail the Atlantic was hugely lucrative. Speculators like J P Morgan bought controlling interests in shipping companies aiming to take maximum advantage of the opportunity. Brad Matsen author of ‘Titanic’s Last Secrets’ has shown how corporate profits were further increased by the policies of both US and UK governments; with subsidies and tax breaks ‘being thrown at an industry that was virtually unregulated.’
Now:
Government and taxpayer backed bailouts following the 2007/8 crash, low interest rates and quantitative easing (increasing the money supply) policies have benefited banks, financial institutions and their leaders to the on-going detriment of everyone else. With enormous profits for the few with inordinate influence, huge areas of the financial market also remain effectively unregulated. Forthcoming bank ‘reforms’ barely address the key issues and dangers of the out of control system of speculation in derivatives and other financial products, the monstrous scale of which is now more than twenty times as big as the entire global economy.
* Deemed to be ‘too big to sink’
Then:
At nearly 900 feet in length, Titanic was the largest ship built to that date and deemed to be virtually unsinkable; not only due to her sheer size but also because her hull was made up of sixteen huge ‘watertight’ compartments which were supposed to separate and contain any flooding and prevent it deluging the entire ship. In reality the bulkheads that segregated the ‘watertight’ sections didn’t extend to their full height, so water could rise above them and then pour throughout the structure; an actual lack of separation that dramatically speeded up her sinking.
Now:
Driven by the potential and greed for vast profits and aided by computerised trading and minimal regulation, so-called investment banking has mutated and grown exponentially into a global market of unfettered speculation. To obtain maximum benefit from such casino banking, banks either acquired or internally grew their investment arms, joining them to the body of their ‘retail’ banking operations as collateral to leverage their speculative activities. Without separation, when their gambling paid off, banksters made enormous winnings; when it failed, they still made huge gains, and everyone else paid the price. Still being deemed ‘too big to fail’ and preventing the basic and effective reforms that would separate their retail and speculative operations, that gambling continues unabated.
* Construction
Then:
Titanic’s builders suspected her hull was too flimsy but overrode concerns raised by engineers in order to get the ship built on time and able to be as fast as the owners wanted. When she scraped alongside the iceberg, her hull was opened like a tin can as the too thin steel plates ripped apart and the iron rivets holding them together were unable to handle the strain.
Now:
The increasing complexity of speculative products disguises their inherent weakness. Essentially worthless or ‘toxic’ assets can be bundled with those offering some value and sold-on multiple times during which any understanding of their lack of worth is hidden – until they are redeemed or final settlement becomes due, when their junk status is revealed. Enormous levels of such ‘assets’ are still being held on banks’ balance sheets where they continue to be used to leverage speculation. Writing them down to their true value would not only significantly reduce the institutions ability to do this, but in some cases would literally bankrupt the banks.
The mathematical models on which such trading is based are also innately flawed and fragile by not taking adequate account of so-called non-linear causes and effects in the markets. Future projections are based on trends rather than the multitude of real-life scenarios where a small cause often gives rise to a much larger effect or vice versa and so cannot handle the financial strain of such market events.
Nuclear power is not evil; it’s the devil. Nuclear reactors produce electricity to run urban and industrial megacomplexes; they are not evil. But they are the devil: we cannot be sure of being able to always control them. To stake our future on nuclear power is to enter a pact with a force of nature that’s effectively uncontrollable. It’s a pact with the devil.
Spokesmen for the nuclear lobby claim nuclear reactors are safe. By safe they mean we can master them under all circumstances. This is essential, as a reactor requires constant control to remain operational. If the cooling system breaks down, the reactor core heats up, and if the problem is not remedied in time, the core melts. The radioactive radiation released by a meltdown is lethal for people, the same as for all forms of life higher than insects and grass. Failing to control other technologies creates local problems—the breakdown of navigation systems, power-shortages, unsafe drinking water, poisonous air—and while these are bad enough, they do not kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people. A major nuclear breakdown does.
The meltdown of the super-technology installation in Japan made it clear that perfect and reliable control is not possible. There are too many eventualities that cannot be foreseen. If an offshore quake can create a meltdown in a nuclear reactor, could there not be quakes right under a reactor that create it? There are numerous nuclear facilities right in, or near, major earthquake zones, for example, the aptly named “Diablo Canyon” facility in California—sitting on the San Andreas and the Hosgri faults. It is designed to withstand a quake of 7.5 magnitude—but what if the quake is of magnitude 8 or higher? Moreover instabilities are produced not only by nature, they are also produced by people. Our world is financially, economically, politically, and socially unstable. Crises of one kind or another are bound to happen. A major crisis could well precipitate an anomaly in a nuclear plant, whether by accident or by design.
The cataclysm in Japan produced a positive fallout: it opened a worldwide debate on the uses of nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Is fissioning the nucleus of the atom the best way to heat water to produce steam to run generators to produce electric power? Certainly, it’s not the only way. There are many safe and practicable ways to produce electricity without risking mass murder. Some are already technically as well as economically viable; others could be readily developed. We had better wake up and assess our options. Do we want to stay with our pact with the devil? “Nuclear future” could be an oxymoron. Let’s not wait to find out whether it is.
That’s right, meltdowns, potentially hundreds of them, simultaneously. Unbelievable? Think again. The greatest risk to humanity—complete extinction due to massive radiation build up from hundreds of Fukushimas—appears far too dangerously probable. Earthquakes and tsunamis are an obvious cause for additional Fukushimas, but massive X-class flares from our Sun are a much greater threat.
The specter of the 93,000,000 mile long lightning bolt
I like to write screenplays in my spare time, and the idea of the Sun reaching out and touching the Earth had crossed my mind’s eye a number of times over the years—particularly the idea that human negativity (hatred, war, violence) building up on the Earth could create and draw out this massive plasma bolt, bring it into being in a way similar to the way lightning is produced—but my imaginings were particularly provoked in 2009 when I published the late Jose Arguelles’ article at WorldShift 2012, Noosphere and Mass Awakening – Preparing for the WorldShift. Here was the closest thing I’d heard to my own ponderings at the time.
The cause contributing to the demise of the present world order would most likely be a CME knocking out the entire electronic grid. According to NASA this is set to occur in 2012, when it is predicted that a massive solar flare is likely to occur disabling the entire grid, an event that would take months to repair.
I remember feeling highly resonant with this when I read it, and remain so to this day, but before drawing any conclusions let’s unpack these ideas a bit, and bring them up to date.
Ervin Laszlo’s Carrington Event post
The next time I thought hard about a solar apocalypse was when Ervin wrote a post on the Sun for his WorldShift Notebook, Abrupt change 2012: problems with the Sun. That was on February 16, 2010. It’s been one of his most popular posts ever since.
Solar activity is predicted to peak around 2012, creating storms of intensity unprecedented since the 1859 “Carrington event,” when a large solar flare accompanied by a coronal mass ejection flung billions of tons of solar plasma into the Earth’s magnetosphere.
The solar storm of 1859 was the most powerful event of its kind in recorded history. On the 1st of September of that year the Sun expelled huge quantities of high-energy protons in a large flare that traveled directly toward the Earth, taking eighteen hours instead of the usual three or four days to reach our planet. It disrupted telegraph systems all over Europe and North America. Fires erupted in telegraph stations due to power surges in the wires; and the northern lights (aurorae borealis) were seen as far south as Florida.
[A similar event today] could knock-out virtually every major technological infrastructure on the planet: transportation, security and emergency response systems, electricity grids, finance, telecommunications, including satellite and other wireless networks, and even household electronic equipment.
So, Carrington 2—which science tells us is practically inevitable, and NASA is suggesting the next two years as prime time for—will in all likelihood take out power grids worldwide, and this is made all the more certain due to the massive hole in our magnetosphere, which has been in the news since 2008. This hole will allow in much more solar plasma this time, so complete devastation of large portions of the global power grid seems highly likely.
The devastating potential
Unless I’m mistaken, the frying of the power grids means meltdowns at the nuclear power plants that depend on those grids for the electrical power to run their cooling systems. Fukushima is melting down right now because the cooling system for the plant was rendered inoperable by the tsunami. In the Carrington 2 case, the cooling systems of potentially all reactors could be rendered inoperable, and there will be no backup power beyond a day or two because the grid necessary to deliver it will have been devastated.
We have 104 reactors here in America, and there are some 400 commercial nuclear power plants worldwide. Their battery backup systems are designed to last only a few days at most, and there will be no trucks bringing fuel to run their backup diesel generators. The electronics in those trucks will be fried, and so will the fuel production and distribution system itself. So it appears that unless a series of intelligent collective actions is taken immediately, actions of unprecedented scale and proportion, potentially hundreds of nuclear reactors will melt down should a Carrington 2 occur because the power to cool them will not be coming back on for a very long time.
NASA’s projections
Surely scientific authority could never agree with this assessment… Unfortunately, it appears that it does agree, but no one wants a panic, so the official word from mainstream media has been measured, and the connection between the 2013 solar maximum, the Carrington Event, the hole in the magnetosphere, the vulnerability of the grid, and nuclear meltdowns has not been clearly drawn. Nonetheless, a NASA study came out in 2009 that shocked a lot of people. Here’s a Fox News interview with Michio Kaku that really brings it home.
Set us back 100 years… The truth, as I alluded to above, could actually be much worse.
“At first I didn’t believe it,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction.
“The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself,” says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data.
“The solar wind presses against Earth’s magnetosphere almost directly above the equator where our planet’s magnetic field points north. Suppose a bundle of solar magnetism comes along, and it points north, too. The two fields should reinforce one another, strengthening Earth’s magnetic defenses and slamming the door shut on the solar wind. In the language of space physics, a north-pointing solar magnetic field is called a “northern IMF” and it is synonymous with shields up! So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead,” says Sibeck. “This completely overturns our understanding of things.
“The years ahead could be especially lively. Raeder explains: “We’re entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It’s the perfect sequence for a really big event.”
So when you factor this hole into the Carrington 2 scenario, a return to the horse and buggy world of the 19th century seems inevitable, but the ride back in time is definitely not going to be pleasant (and this is not to mention the radiation). Most of the knowledge of how to live without electricity has been lost. No more Google to answer your questions, so if you don’t have a specific book with the critical knowledge you seek you will be as ignorant as any of our ancestors ever were, in fact, more so. And what will happen to the great cities of Earth? Millions of people packed together with no electricity for months, even the cars and trucks won’t run, their electronics ruined. What happens when the grocery stores are empty? Add to this radiation from multiple meltdowns (10, 20, 50, 100 or more) bioaccumulating month after month and we’re looking at an extinction nightmare beyond comprehension.
“It just means that Solar Cycle 24 is ramping up!” Chamberlin told SPACE.com. “This is the first of probably many more X-class flare to occur over the next 2 to 4 years as we reach the peak and then descend back down from solar cycle 24 maximum.”
They’re coming, ladies and gentlemen, and they’re probably going to get a lot bigger, perhaps even as big as a Carrington Event, possibly even bigger. To help put this in perspective, in the last 150 years three geomagnetic superstorms are most worth mentioning: the Carrington Event of 1859; an event in May, 1921, about half as massive as Carrington; and a much less powerful event in 1989, which knocked out the grid in Quebec, leaving six million people without power for 9 hours. The 1921 event was ten times as powerful as the 1989 event, and Carrington was probably 15-20 times as powerful.
Conclusion
We appear to be in extreme danger. All of the other threats to humanity and the Earth are secondary at best. Our nuclear pact with the devil could mean we lose our collective life, for all life on Earth would likely succumb to the radiation of even a few more Fukushimas. So we must prepare for this scenario, an all out effort is needed, a project like nothing ever before, a global moon shot designed to de-commission and convert every single commercial nuclear reactor in the world. Simultaneously, every power grid worldwide must be backed up and maximally shielded, with replacement transformers standing by. We need to greatly accelerate Germany’s lead in de-commissioning its nuke plants, and we need a solution for where to store all the nuclear waste. These are some of the subjects I hope this Burning Issues Forum will take up in earnest, and draw maximum attention to over the coming weeks and months.
In closing, let me offer an ironic hope. Throughout human history, one thing has consistently been able to unify people, and that is an external threat. Every single one of us now faces an external threat beyond anything ever imaginable, a threat to our very existence and the existence of our children, one that we ourselves created in our pact with the devil. Perhaps the prospect of Carrington 2 will actually be the catalyzing event that pulls humanity together and proves to us all that we can in fact come together and live as one.
The 2007/2008 global financial crash wasn’t unexpected or unprecedented. The Wall Street crash of 1929 followed a boom in the then new radio stocks. The 1987 crash followed the boom in junk bonds. And the boom in computer-based dot.com start-ups was followed by the bust of 2000. All of these boom-bust cycles were energized by financial speculation and people with a lot of money wanting to invest to get more – much more. And during all of the booms, by far the loudest voices were those insisting that ‘it’s different this time.’ Any dissenting views were marginalized; not because history had proven them wrong, but because with so much money to be made for the relatively few who could work the system, no-one wanted to hear them.
The latest and largest boom, founded on property speculation and sub-prime mortgages, bundled into complex financial packages that only a few financiers themselves understood, was all too likely to end in disaster. And of course when the inevitable bust came it was so calamitous that to save the financial system – or so it was portrayed – governments and hapless taxpayers were obliged to bail out the profligate banks caught up in the scam.
The market for ever-more complex financial derivative products has been increasingly based not on real assets but on a pack of financial cards founded on investment quicksand. Termed by investor Warren Buffett ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’ it has exploded over the last decade and now dwarfs that of ‘real’ economic behavior based on the trading of goods and services.
The latest estimate, which may well be an under-call, is that the derivatives market is worth an annual $1.2 quadrillion – that is 1.2 thousand trillion dollars – 20 times greater than global GDP. A market that is unregulated and effectively untaxed.
Perhaps the most lethal potentiality of the derivatives market is its speculation on scarce commodities and resources. Unless the possibility of such abuses is radically curbed, this gambling in a world where growing demand for such resources is outstripping supply could prove catastrophic.
Independent views of the reforms that are currently in train consider them inadequate even in avoiding a potential repeat of the 2007/8 crisis. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, told the German magazine Stern in November 2010, in the next crisis “It would be impossible to persuade taxpayers to fund bailouts. It would be a crisis of democracy.”
The rampant global financial markets, partnered with dangerously inadequate economic measures, continuing lax regulations and fragmented oversight and a woeful lack of moral good sense, will unless restrained almost certainly cause a meltdown of the financial system: a global economic disaster.
The bottom line is that the financial system needs a major and urgent overhaul to become fit for a world where unbridled material greed is devouring the Earth’s natural resources, obliterating her planetary capital and driving a widening gap between haves and have-nots in the global community. The system needs to shift from operating on the premise that ‘more is good’ to ‘enough is good.’ And when it comes to speculation by a few with money to make vastly more money, civil society needs to wake up and proclaim, ‘enough is enough’.
Unless we hear and act on this urgent call, not only the financial system, but democracy itself and untold lives and livelihoods around the world will be destroyed.
In March of this year, Japan experienced an earthquake of a magnitude which, it is said, can be expected only once in a thousand years. This disaster, I believe, coupled with the aftershocks, tsunami, and nuclear radiation leaks that followed, holds the potential for greater tribulation than we experienced during the period after World War II.
To me, it seems very meaningful that the threat of nuclear crisis is now hovering over Japan, the only country to have suffered the tragedy of the atomic bomb.
The Japanese are a peace-loving people who cherish harmony above all else. Since ancient times, we have lived with deep feelings of gratitude and respect for nature and for all living things. However, in our enthusiasm to establish a thriving economy, we stumbled into an extremely deep and dangerous pit: we adopted the use of nuclear energy. If each Japanese citizen had been aware of the enormous danger involved in using nuclear energy, and taken responsibility for it, I feel sure that the present crisis might have been averted.
At the present time, the Japanese people are displaying tremendous fortitude in coping with the electric stoppages brought on by reduced electric power. How proud I am of them for this! Many of them are discovering that in developing a more energy-conscious lifestyle, they are spending more time with their families and enjoying a simpler way of life.
Rather than riding on half-empty trains that run three minutes apart, the Japanese people are finding that they can easily wait a few minutes longer for trains that run at ten-minute intervals. When I see their gentle expressions as they stand courteously in line on the platforms, I am newly reminded of the qualities of patience, thoughtfulness, and conciliation that form the basis of the Japanese character.
Prior to the recent tragedy, huge amounts of electricity were being consumed unnecessarily. Brightly lit shopping centers, dazzling neon signs on every street, amusement centers equipped with rows upon rows of game machines—these were the scenes that met our senses every day. But now, Japan is changing. We have been given an opportunity to turn tragedy into a rebirth. We have been given an opportunity to make a contribution to the world as a whole by demonstrating a slower-paced, more energy-conscious way of living. This is a duty that we cannot turn away from, for if Japan does not respond decisively to this tragedy and set a positive example for the world, who can say when an even larger nuclear disaster might erupt elsewhere, plunging the world into chaos and signaling the demise of all life on earth?
This is why I say that now, it is time for Japan to send an emphatic message to the world: Let us refrain from all use of nuclear power! Let us refrain from all further development of nuclear weapons! Instead, let us devote our efforts to creating a sustainable future for our beautiful, precious planet Earth.
For many long years, a majority of the earth’s population have been living a life of dependence, never believing in themselves, always trusting in what others said or did. And in trusting in the decisions made by a small number of people for the sake of short-term profits and gain, we have neglected our responsibility as inhabitants of Earth. We have allowed others to usurp our inherent authority, and even our power of thought. Now, however, we are standing at a turning point. We have been given an opportunity to reflect upon our past errors and recover what we have lost. We have been given a chance to rethink our way of living, and develop new, natural energy sources that do not harm the earth.
In today’s society, we are always aiming for a more advanced technology, but for the most part our aims are grounded in materialistic desires: how to live more conveniently, how to enjoy more luxuries, how to prolong our lives and postpone the moment of death. Because we cling to materialistic aims and values, we are unable to hear the voices that are calling from within us and around us. We cannot hear the cries of the trees, the plants, the animals, and the insects who are suffering from our self-centered lifestyles. We do not even try to hear them. We think only of our own comfort and our own convenience.
We want money, power, and reputation. And because our motives are not on a high plane, we cannot achieve high level results. Rather than developing an advanced, earth-friendly technology, we receive a destructive technology instead.
Human beings are always creating visions for the future. However, the visions we have been depicting in our minds are not viable ones. A big house, land, a powerful position—what power do these visions hold in the face of an earthquake? What can they do to dissuade a tidal wave? What authority can they exert to reverse the effects of a nuclear explosion?
It appears to me that the Japanese people have been singled out by evolution itself to be the Great Turning in the development of the basis for the new global civilization at the level of the industrial world.
In 1945 when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, I was fifteen years old. I could see, even then, that this terrible use of power was the end of something. We could destroy ourselves. The self conscious, self-centered species had gained powers we used to attribute to gods. Either we would grow up and learn to become wise humans, or destroy our life support systems.
A great question arose in my mind. What is the meaning of all this new power, especially technology and industry that is for the good? What are the positive images of the future we want to reach regarding this power?
I had an innate sense of hope but no sense of direction or vision of the future.
In 1952 I was taken to the Oval office to meet President Eisenhower. “Mr. President,” I asked, “What do you think is the meaning of our new powers that is good?”
He shook his head and said, “I have no idea.”
I thought, well then, we better find out! That quest for the meaning and direction of human evolution became the purpose of my life.
Gradually, after reading Teilhard de Chardin, Buckminster Fuller, Jonas Salk, Ervin Laszlo and others, a response emerged. It is that the meaning of our power is the conscious evolution of humanity. The evolutionary perspective gives meaning to our crises and direction to our powers. As Sri Aurobindo put it, “Man is a transitional species.” We are the generation entering the Great Shift from Earth-bound creature humans to universal co-creative humanity. Our crisis can be seen as the birth of a universal species, if we can respond in time. Quickly.
It seems to me that the extreme nature of the crises we are facing, as a species, is actually the greatest evolutionary driver that humanity has ever had. Climate change and global warming, along with all the other related crises, are already threatening life itself on this planet. But now, with the growing dangers of the damaged nuclear plants in Japan, it is increasingly irrational to advocate more nuclear power as the answer. And much less the use of nuclear weapons as deterrents to war.
Is it possible that Japan, by a strange unfolding of history has been the first nation to suffer the horror of the atomic bombs, and it is now the nation to be faced with a run-away potential melt down of major nuclear plants. Could it be that this nation is being called upon by destiny to offer humanity the turning point away from nuclear power, as well as fossil fuels, toward clean energy and a sustainable world, as well as the seeds of a new vision of our future…vital conditions of our continuing evolution.
From a spiritual point of view the Impulse of Evolution, the unfolding Implicate Order, the Consciousness Force, the 14.7 billion years of encoded dynamic unfoldment, is increasingly incarnating within us as our own drive to evolve more consciously in order to survive and thrive. It is as if the “soul” of evolution is awakening within evolving humans as a drive toward conscious self and social evolution. We are evolution becoming conscious of evolution. If we have a further destiny on this Earth and eventually in a universe of untold dimensions and intelligence, this set of crises and capacities must be considered as fostering the emergence of ourselves as universal humanity. In this perspective, we are entering the dangerous, yet natural “Worldshift” toward the next epoch, with Japan taking the lead in conscious evolution.
As the health impact of smoking became better known to Americans, the practice eventually diminished. The cigarette industry decided to look beyond U.S. borders. Huge amounts of money are spent convincing teenagers in the so-called “developing” world that this cancer-causing product defines their entry into adulthood.
Fast food, fast profits, and other modern gifts to the world ultimately will not health or security make. There should be no flag waving for the “Whopper” or the bacon-wrapped fried chicken known as the “Double Down.” However the folly and arrogance of nuclear energy is in a league of its own.
Not one new nuclear energy plant has opened in the U.S. since the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island. Yet despite the environmental and security risks posed by nuclear energy facilities, the U.S. continues to support their development elsewhere. For example, in derogation of a core bargain of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that, with the exception of the U.S., China, Russia, UK, and France, only countries renouncing the development of nuclear weapons should gain the so called benefits of nuclear energy, the U.S. government advances the economic interests of the nuclear industry by supporting nuclear energy deals with India, a country which has developed a robust nuclear arsenal and refuses to join the NPT. Not only is this folly, but it is an arrogant folly.
Nuclear energy plants, like nuclear weapons systems, do not forgive mistakes of judgment, of mechanical error, or simple human negligence. Still, in the face of dire warnings to the dangers of nuclear power, humans continue to build nuclear energy plants and nuclear weapon systems, convinced that no mistakes will be made. How easily we forget a truism when greed and the quest for power intoxicate our reason: systems are only as foolproof as the humans that create them.
The crisis in Japan is just the most recent tragedy to befall the nuclear age. There is perhaps no other country with more sophisticated nuclear facilities, with more safety checks and backup systems in place. Yet mistakes were made. Hearts all over the world reach out in sympathy for the suffering of the people of Japan. The extent of the catastrophe in Japan is not yet known, nor will it be known for quite some time, as radioactive isotopes could linger in the air, water and soil long after the reactors finally cool. However, the cost is already too high.
Reality demonstrates that it is supreme arrogance to think that we will not make mistakes of judgment, that machines will not err or that human negligence can be avoided. In fact, only God does not make mistakes. Acting as if we were God is nothing short of blasphemy.
The tragedy in Japan is a strong and deplorable wake-up call to stop this arrogant nuclear folly. Should the warnings of nuclear weapons opponents be as crassly ignored as those from nuclear power opponents, the consequences could be unthinkable. There have already been far too many computer and human errors nearly triggering nuclear exchanges for any informed person to rest easy. President Obama has wisely advocated that the U.S. should lead in global efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.
We are not perfect and all that we create reflects our imperfections. We thus must not make imperfect devices that can destroy so much precious life. That is wisdom that we can be proud to export.
Japan has been struck by the most powerful earthquake and tsunami in history. Almost thirty thousand people are dead or missing, and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes and are forced into evacuation centers. On top of that, the nuclear radiation released from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant continues to present a dangerous situation.
This natural disaster has been much greater than anything we ever expected or were prepared for. We were awed by the unimaginable forces of nature that proved to invalidate any prediction based on past statistics. We may say that we were reminded how powerless human beings are compared to nature’s immense force.
Right now, people around the world are especially concerned about the unfolding nuclear crisis. Learning from history, we all knew that we would face a dangerous situation if a nuclear accident occurred, and we were supposedly as prepared as we could be for incidents of natural disasters. Nevertheless, this catastrophe has taken place, and I cannot but think that it carries an important message to humanity. Up till now, humanity has enjoyed great material prosperity through the advancement of civilization. However, behind such development, we have bred arrogance thinking that human beings are the master of the Earth and that nature is subordinate to us. The message that I am hearing is: “We must think and act on the premise that human beings cannot control nature.”
With respect to nuclear power, we must first acknowledge that nuclear accidents do happen as a result of natural disasters beyond human control. Furthermore, if we take into account man-made errors and malfunction as well as threats of terrorism and other factors, perfect security can hardly be guaranteed. Also, we should bear in mind that if we fail to handle accidents in a timely manner, as may be the case we are seeing now, it could lead to irrevocable consequences for humanity and the environment.
Advocates of nuclear power contend that it provides clean, carbon-free energy and that it is low-cost. But do those benefits have higher priority than all the risks involved? Fossil fuel energy, on the other hand, undoubtedly has negative effects on the environment, and it is exhaustible. Therefore, it cannot be a long-term option. Consequently, we must seriously start thinking about ways to make full use of natural energy, such as solar energy (which provides fifteen thousand times the energy required by humanity) as well as water, wind and geothermal energy. These are abundant resources of nature that we can use almost indefinitely without destroying the environment. Some may argue that with the current technology, converting natural energy into electricity is not cost efficient, and less practical than fossil or nuclear energy. If so, should we not be directing our efforts and resources towards advancing technologies for a cost effective use of natural energy rather than trying to build a more reliable nuclear reactor? Also, if you think that the global annual military spending is over 1.5 trillion dollars, would it not be a wiser choice for our security to invest that money in research and development of alternative energy?
Whether we continue to rely on nuclear power or make a bold shift to safe and sustainable forms of energy is the most crucial question confronting humanity today. It is a choice that each of us must make, and we must do so wisely and responsibly not only for ourselves, but also for future generations and for sustainability of our life on Earth.
Finally, I want to raise another important question.
Following the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, there has been an outbreak of enormous fear among people in Japan and around the world. The international media daily report the critical situation, alarming the public about radioactive emissions polluting the air and contaminating food and water. Many foreigners including business persons and diplomats have fled Japan. Even in Tokyo, which is more than 200 kilometers away from Fukushima, the number of foreign residents has greatly decreased. Some of my thoughtful friends abroad have even offered their home and urged my family to evacuate. This phenomenon is good evidence that many people around the world understand the nuclear dangers and strongly fear its radiation.
Then, what about nuclear weapons? Despite the fact that nuclear power is originally intended for safe and peaceful use, current events at Fukushima have revealed its inherent risks. On the other hand, nuclear weapons are made to kill and destroy to begin with. If ever used, deadly radiation will be spread all over the globe and will inflict unimaginable harm beyond our worst fears. Some may say that nuclear weapons are only maintained as a deterrent. But then, if it is something so destructive that it will never be actually used, why are we spending an enormous amount of money to produce them, maintain them with utmost caution, and eventually decommission them, only to poison the earth environment? Indeed, nuclear weapons are none other than the devil, which Professor Laszlo talks about.
I believe that the current nuclear crisis in Japan is not only an important message for us to reconsider our energy policies, but moreover, a wakeup call for humanity to stop and think once more about nuclear weapons.
At this time, when the entire world is shaken by fear of nuclear radiation, we must remind people of the serious threats associated with nuclear weapons, which are far more dangerous than nuclear power stations. I strongly feel that we should take this opportunity to promote a global trend toward the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
I have opposed nuclear power since my service on the Technology Assessment Advisory Council of the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment, from 1975 until 1980. Even back then, it was clear that nuclear power was a fearsome military technology looking for a civilian second life. President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace was the strategy to subsidize this technology, although it was never economically viable. We were told that it would produce electricity too cheap to meter. The public was never given all the facts: that there were health risks and no plans to provide storage for the spent fuel rods, which would be radioactive for centuries. Strangely for a society so dedicated to the “free market” as the USA, nuclear power was the first truly socialist industry, created by government, given billions in taxpayer subsidies and indemnified for all risks of accidents by the now-infamous Price-Anderson Act, which protects nuclear power operators from any liabilities, which it foisted onto taxpayers and future generations. The private power companies operating nuclear plants can garner the profits while the risks are socialized.
There is still no solution for the long-term safe storage of radioactive nuclear wastes. The USA has 71,000 metric tons of these wastes sitting in pools of water alongside most reactors. This seems also the case in Japan with the Fukushima reactors. These radioactive wastes will be difficult and hazardous to transport, if a safe location is ever found. The plants need to be de-commissioned after 25-30 years, even though many, like the crippled Japanese reactors, are almost 40 years old. De-commissioning is estimated to cost an amount equivalent to the cost of building the plants.
Most importantly, there are now many well-researched studies (see www.EthicalMarkets.com and www.greentransitionscoreboard.com) that show that nuclear plants are not needed. The Scoreboard, which totals all private investments since 2007 in growing green, cleaner energy worldwide and indicates that this investment reached over $2 trillion in February, 2011, shows that a combination of ramping up investments in energy-efficiency, solar thermal, central plants (power towers) and photovoltaics (rooftop panels, new roof tiles), wind turbines, and water and geothermal energy, makes these technologies cost-competitive even given the massive subsidies to nuclear and fossil energy. Not only are wind and solar far more cost effective, they can be built and brought online in a matter of months, much faster than the ten years it takes on the average to build a nuclear plant. In addition there is the availability of geothermal power, especially in Japan and Iceland, countries that sit on the confluence of tectonic plates.
The fundamental case against nuclear fission is that it is simply the most wasteful, stupid and costly way to boil water! Electricity is usually generated by boiling water and using the steam this creates to drive turbines to produce electrons. The water can be boiled with oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, or geothermal power, which are the simpler ways that have been used for most of the Industrial Era. Building a vast, costly nuclear plant, digging up uranium and using coal to enrich it, shipping it by rail to the nuclear reactor is the most cumbersome and mindless way of boiling water!
Nuclear power also cannot address climate change issues because of its costs, in spite of the industry touting it as “carbon-free”—which it clearly is not. In the last count, as Ervin Laszlo suggests in his “Pact with the Devil” post, “nuclear future” is an oxymoron, and it is irresponsible.
Once all the social and environmental costs and health risks are properly assessed and the nuclear subsidies are cut off, we will see the wrong turn that governments have made in backing nuclear power. We will also see how faulty it has been to allow these external costs to be passed on to taxpayers and future generations. After Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and now Fukushima, as well as the hundreds of near-miss accidents, many of them un-reported, economists will no longer be able to call these costs “externalities” (a Freudian slip!), or claim that they were unexpected.
I read the Burning Issues Forum and your key note message. I think it is necessary to focus on the alternatives for nuclear energy, and I believe the key is the change of our consciousness.
For example, Tokyo and Kanto area has been operating under the conscious electricity saving and restriction. The light at night is less than one third of the regular days, but still we are all okay, because our consciousness has changed since March 11.
This, that is, conscious change is what we can do immediately. Of course there are a few people who need help under the reduced light condition, but again we can promote “the mind of helping others” as a part of consciousness change.
I believe we human beings should change our idea of living. We should recognize that providing maximum satisfaction to all people is impossible. We should prudently find a way to live in a condition between above absolute need and below the level where we live well enough.
Even while mourning the victims of the Earthquake and the Tsunami in the Tohoku area, we are in the midst of another catastrophe. It is Invisible, odorless, but it is an enormous menace.
Japan is one of the richest industrialized countries in the world. We have achieved an economic growth miracle after World War II. But in the afternoon of March 11, 2011, we were hit by one large hiccup and sneeze of Earth. Just a brief “sneeze” of the Earth’s crust took more than twenty thousand people’s lives, and made more than four hundred thousand into refugees in a split second.
GDP, money, economic power… they were utterly helpless in the face of this sudden attack by Nature. We should be humble enough to acknowledge that we human beings are not living creatures by ourselves, but creature whom Nature allows to live.
People in the Tohoku area (which is in the northern part of Japan), kept calm and did not panic even in the middle of this catastrophe. Why? They know the meaning of Nature. In the long history of their biological and cultural DNA, they learned that our life is in the palm of Nature’s hand. Panicking in the face of Nature is meaningless and cannot help to straighten things out again. They know that human beings are too small to fight against Nature and Destiny. They live their life for almost a half of the year in the deep, cold, and dark of winter. So, it is precious for them to welcome the lively signs of spring. They have keen sensitivity for Nature, with deep awe and respect.
The clean and sweet breeze of Spring bringing the fragrance of flowers, the voice of birds as the Sun streams through the leaves of trees…. these are things people like I, living in cities like Tokyo and elsewhere in the modern world, have left far behind in the process we call modernization and industrialization. For what purpose? In the attempt to get richer, and have a more convenient existence with a bright future, we have been dashing forward to achieve what we call modernization by using more energy, more electric power.
Yes, in our ignorance, arrogance, conceit, and greed, we believed that we have inexhaustible natural resources forever at our disposal. We believed that we could control everything in the world, even Nature. Also the atom? Of course! Why not?
Yesterday the Tokyo Metropolitan area officials issued a warning, “Do not give tap water to babies due to contamination.” Tokyo is believed to be the most modern and the safest city in the world. But it happens to be located a little more than 200 km from the Fukushima Nuclear power plant. And so: no tap water for babies!
When three years ago Dr. Laszlo asked me to contribute to his book WorldShift 2012, we already knew that something, some catastrophe, would happen if we do not make a major shift. Now we are in the middle of that “something.” We cannot always foresee when and how natural disasters happen, but we can at least avoid disasters we create ourselves.
Please open your eyes and learn from the disaster we are going through right now in Japan! It is up to each of you, and each of us, to shift this world. I believe that it is only possible to shift it by the power of cooperative and connected efforts by ordinary people living their life wherever they live in the world. The devil, as Ervin Laszlo reminds us, may be in every corner of the world, and it affects the life of every one of us.
Thank you for offering your prayers for us! With love, from Japan.
A century ago the world was shocked and outraged when the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage with the loss of over fifteen hundred lives. Fundamental flaws and vulnerabilities uncovered by a secret commission just after Titanic’s loss and the latest research reveal a ‘perfect storm’ of causes that despite a clear calm night led to the tragedy.
