Friday, June 8, 2012

The Elephant in the Room


The footage from the Tepco webcam trained on Fukushima has not looked good for a couple of months now.

Events at the plant seemed to escalate after Tepco stated they were going on vacation.

I know that Tepco returned to conduct the photo-op tour of unit 4, but I bet they didn't stay very long.

The emissions at the plant have became very obvious and protracted.

Some days the emissions are brownish gray, other days yellow, and some days pink.

Early today they were yellowish; now they are pinkish.

No one (who is talking) knows exactly what that means.

Many people have suggested that the pink is from cesium and the yellow is from strontium.

How strange, but if true it affords the benefit of being able to see the traces of the poisons that are contaminating our world.

I wonder whether people in power ever watch the Tepco webcams?

I know they have satellite pictures and analysts' updates. They don't have to scan websites and headlines and news stories and twitter feeds trying to discern data on the plant's status.

But do they ever watch those webcams? Do they see the endless emissions that vary in quantity and color, but never fully cease?

I am betting that people with decision making power with respect to this disaster NEVER watch the cams because that would convey the reality and becoming of the nuclear inferno.

Satellite pictures and analysts' reports are frozen representations that have been instrumentalized to emphasize aspects relevant to decision-making.

In contrast, the webcam is dynamic and grainy. It offers no precise images and interpretations. Yet, it does show the intermittent, but also endless, eruptions of steam and smoke from the plant.

Fukushima can be a barely visible elephant in the room for those decision makers so long as they don't see it as ONGOING AND ESCALATING.

. . .

It is so strange because the plant is like the elephant in the room that everyone pretends not to see.

Every now and then I update people around me. I tell them they need to know some bit of information about fallout, like "don't eat the honey anymore because cesium was detected in LA cedar trees."

They pause, become silent and then rapidly change the subject. It is totally strange.

Now that the cockroaches are greatly diminished in quantity in my area, I think the elephant is starting to stomp its feet. Can people ignore that kind of effect?

Maybe people won't even notice when insects or birds are gone. Could that happen?

How sick would people have to get before they linked it to an environmental cause?
 
How long can people deny such a large and dangerous elephant?

 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Majia!! I thought about this this most interesting post and these are my thoughts (hope you don't mind the link) http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/the-elephant-in-the-room-thats-as-big-as-a-whale-normalising-radiological-pollution/

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