- On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station reactor
number 4 exploded at 1:24 a.m. "Tons of radioactive dust was"
unleashed "into the airtransported by winds, [and] it contaminated
both hemispheres of our planet, settling wherever it rained. The emissions
of radioactivity lasted [short-term] for 10 days."(1)
-
- On April 29, "fatal levels of radioactivity were
recordedin Poland, Austria, Romania, Finland, and Sweden."(2) The
day after (April 30), it hit Switzerland and Italy. By May 2, it reached
France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Greece. The next day,
Israel, Kuwait, and Turkey were contaminated. Then, over the next few days,
"radioactive substances" were recorded in Japan (May 3), China
(May 4), India (May 5), and the US and Canada (May 6).
-
- The radioactive spew from this explosion was "200
times greater than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima."(3) Not one person
was safe from this catastrophic nuclear explosion; and "65-million
people were contaminated...more than 400,000 people were forced to evacuate
the area [around Chernobyl], losing their homes, possessions and jobs,
as well as their economic, social, and family ties."(4)
-
- The long-term and hidden costs of radioactive contamination
have never been adequately reported by mainstream news. According to the
authors (including the distinguished Dr. Rosalie Bertell) of a new book,
"Chernobyl: The Hidden Legacy" "[i]t will take millennia
to recover[before an area] as large as Italy, will return to normal radioactive
levels in about 100,000 years time."(5)
-
- This week, April 29, 2009, marks the 23rd anniversary
since this catastrophe; so we have another 99,977 years to go, until things
return to "normal" again.
-
- With a myriad of on-going social costs ignored by most
of the world's media, the staggering medical consequences of now systemic
radiation poisoning, and the enormous tragedy of genetic malformations,
while the nuclear industry touts how "safe" nuclear power is,
it is time to look again at the very real costs --most especially with
the US financially bankrupt and the global economy in a deliberately created
train wreck of proportions never seen in our history. Given this global
economic collapse, there are neither enough financial or technological
safeguards available today or long term to protect humanity from the already
present and ubiquitous radioactive toxicity to which we are all exposed.
-
- Social Costs
-
- The surrounding area of Belarus was the worst hit, with
"30 percent of its territory rendered useless."(6) While hundreds
of thousands of people were initially evacuated, over these 23 years, many
have returned "home." Today, their lives and homes remain permanently
devastated. Poisoned. However, the Soviet government did not either report
to its own people how catastrophic this explosion was, or what were to
be the real, long-term radiation consequences. Further, people who were
working to supposedly "contain" the crisis, died shortly thereafter
from massive radiation poisoning. The government and various international
agencies (World Health Organization, International Commission on Radiological
Protection, IAEA) covered up and suppressed the truth. Physicians and scientists
who spoke out were discredited, lost their jobs, or were jailed. So, the
extent of this disaster, the real news of what actually happened, was inaccessible
to the millions of Russians affected as well as the rest of the world.
-
- The Chernobyl reactors were built under a post-Stalin,
5-year plan by Moscow bureaucrats who had absolutely no understanding of
the complex problems of building four reactors: (1) with such an unrealistic
deadline; (2) the dangerous instability of running reactors for long periods
on less than half power [that] made them unstable;"(7) and (3) a lack
of realistic safety measures in the event of a nuclear meltdown.
-
- The director of the power plant was a 35-year-old nuclear
engineer named Victor Brukhanov. Inconceivably, he was placed in charge
of both the building of the reactor-complex as well as creating a whole
new town of Pripyat (that eventually had 50,000 people). The race to complete
it, within the unrealistic deadline, resulted in parts that were "hastily
built on the grounds of the plant" and that "were not specifically
approved by the original designers."(8) Yet, it was Brukhanov's mission
to make Pripyat as attractive to Soviet workers as possible, regardless
of the very real nuclear dangers, as the city and the reactor were being
rushed to completion.
-
- Citizens were lured to Pripyat with inexpensive housing,
regular salaries, and all the perks that were generally not available to
the majority of Soviet citizens. Pripyat "was soon considered one
of the prime locations for young workers [the average age was 26] in Ukraine
and the surrounding area" that had "shopping centers, sports
facilities, schoolsand an amusement park."(9) The city boasted an
abundance of well-stocked food supplies and "goods that were difficult
to get in other areas of the country."(10)
-
- Lulled into a completely false sense of financial security,
"few realized that the massivereactors in use across the country had
already malfunctioned."(11) An accidental release of a cloud of radioactive
iodine at a power plantin Leningrad" had occurred in 1975, and a "near
meltdown" of another reactor had happened near Beloyarsk."(12)
Again, neither of these accidents were reported to Soviet citizens or to
the rest of the world. Secrecy was already in place regarding nuclear power
plants and the dangers of nuclear radiation.
-
- When the nuclear accident happened at 3-Mile Island in
March 1979, Soviets had a field day criticizing capitalism, noting that
money and profits were more important than safety issues. This criticism
of the Western nuclear reactors was short lived. East or West, however,
any country with nuclear power continues to deceive its citizens about
the true costs and dangers of radiation.
-
- When Chernobyl exploded, the two operators in charge
followed their procedures, "to contain the damage as much as possible
and managed to impede the spread of the explosion to reactor number 3."(13)
These two men died soon after the explosion. However, in the rush for the
Soviet government to cover up what really happened, these men were tried
"as the single cause of the explosion."(14) In fact, after years
of lies and deceit, there were "various historical revisions of the
accident, during which it was made clear, that the principle cause lay
with planning defects of the reactor, they were exculpated of the crime,
but not officially."(15) Citizens of Pripyat were not evacuated until
two days after the explosion. There were only allowed to take personal
documents and some money. They were never allowed to return. Pripyat is
now a ghost town.
-
- An area for about 180 miles around the nuclear plant
site is called the "Exclusion Zone." It is "fenced off and
the entrance is forbidden."(16) Radioactive Cesium-137 rates are staggering.
Nonetheless, about 4,000 people moved back to evacuated areas, even though
they remain radioactive. People are forced to live in a contaminated environment.
-
- The clean-up continues to this day. "Clean-up"
(a real oxymoron) staff are called "liquidators." They are not
trained properly, not do they understand the enormous life risks about
the work they do. For example, between 1986-1987, more than 800,000 liquidators
worked inside the Exclusion Zone all without any medical monitoring
of radioactivity levels that "reached as high as 20,000 Roentgens
per hour. The normal level would be 0.010-0.020 milliRoentgens per hour.
The normal dose of radiation received from natural background radiation
over a lifetime of 70 years is 7 REM.(17) (See below, under Medical Costs.)
-
- All liquidators (who wore no protection as they tore
down contaminated houses and sifted through rubble) worked in a cloud of
nuclear dust that enveloped them. One liquidator, Zalavie Chechersk, noted:
-
- "We have always worked without protection, we don't
even notice it any longer. We got used to radioactivity and radioactivity
got used to us, and anyway, we have to work to live, and this is how you
work here."(18)
-
- It is a death sentence to be a liquidator.
-
- Longer term, anyone who helped in the clean-up also eventually
died. In Alla Yaroshinskaya's "Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth"(19)
the author reports, that requests to
-
- open judicial proceedings against the persons who obstructed
openness --glasnost-- with regard to the consequences of the accident,
and had hidden the information from residents of the dangerous zones"(20)
only received a 'bureaucratic' reply, always the same camouflage, the same
concealing of the global lie at the State level. Not a word of the government
decrees setting up the regime of secrecy, nor of the administration circulars
in the same spirit, not a word of the millions of people put in danger
by constant exposure to radiation. Not a word of the unchecked spread of
radionuclides [another term for radioactive isotopes that are produced
artificially during the nuclear fission process] throughout the country.
It was as if all this did not exist.(21)
-
- Chaos, on-going chaos, is what these people (living in
a radioactive environment) continue to deal with on a daily and yearly
basis. Today, more than 9-million people live in this area (Belarus, the
Ukraine, and western Russia), "with high levels of radioactivity,
consuming contaminated food and waterand 80 percent of this" entire
"population suffers from various pathologies."(22) So far, the
Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion "has caused more than a million
deaths."(23) The real death toll may never be known. The radioactive
core, entombed in a now cracking sarcophagus (where radioactive gas and
dust escape) still contains 180 tons of radioactive material.
-
- There have been hundreds (if not thousands) of scientific
studies that document the unmitigated nightmare that continues at Chernobyl.
"The last report of September 7, 2005, is that no matter how hard
they [the government and others] try to conceal the deadly reality of Chernobyl,
no one will succeed in eradicating it for several thousand years."(24)
-
- Medical Costs/Tragedies
-
- According to Dr. Pierpaolo Mittica, the on-going medical
nightmare of radiation poisoning includes(25):
-
- 1. An increase of 100 times the incidence in aggressive
tumors of the thyroid(26) and 50 times the incidence in other radiation-related
tumors (leukemia, bone and brain tumors) in the contaminated areas. Much
of this carcinogenic increase is in children.
- 2. There is a 30-percent increase "in malformations
due to genetic mutations, of pathologies of the senses, cardio-vascular,
skeletal, and muscular systems and the connective tissues, as well as diseases
of the nervous system and psychic disorders.
- 3. There is a 20-percent increase of premature births.
- 4. These figures do not include unknown numbers of spontaneous
abortions, miscarriages, and still-births due to radiation.
- 5. Low-level radiation exposure remains a hazard.
-
- Cancer has been around since ancient times. The difference
now is that it is epidemic. Much of this epidemic can be linked to human-induced
causes; and millions of cases can be connected to radiation poisoning.
Of course, there is the natural background radiation. However, for the
past 64 years, we continue to have radiation contamination from: thousands
of nuclear explosions (in the atmosphere, underground, above ground, and
in the oceans); other nuclear weapons such as Depleted Uranium (used most
recently on innocent Gaza citizens), X-rays and other kinds of nuclear
medicine.
-
- This is not a simple one-cause crisis. Rather, humans
have become sponges and unsuspecting guinea pigs for an assortment of highly
toxic substances, including very long-lived nuclear radiation; more than
100,000 chemicals in use (and 1,000 new ones added each year) with most
never tested for human safety; more than 60 illegal Clandestine Weather
Modification Programs (that have never had any public discussion or debate).
This list is just for starters.
-
- From the very beginning of the nuclear age (with the
secretive Manhattan Project established to build the atomic bomb), the
great majority of the world's citizens have never been warned about the
extreme dangers posed by nuclear explosions and the massive radiation that
ensues. We also have global contamination from many nuclear-related accidents
that continue to cause havoc for billions of citizens. Dr. Bertell estimates
that there may have been "thousands" of nuclear accidents, as
many have not been reported, but are known from "anecdotal" evidence.(27)
The enormous catastrophe at Chernobyl is one of many on-going radioactive
nightmares that wreck permanent havoc. Radioactive contamination does not
go away.
-
- The genetic mutations to all living beings (humans and
all animals) that are happening also have received little coverage from
corporate-controlled media. When the 1959 thalidomide tragedy struck infants,
the media did show many photos of deformed babies. The corporate-controlled
media is now silent, so the world at large does not know or see the devastation
that nuclear radiation continues to cause. However, the medical and alternative
journals have covered this horror.
-
- Nuclear radiation comes from several sources. The most
damaging are Strontium-90 and Cesium-137.(28) Radioisotopes (also called
radionuclides or radioactive isotopes) are the "radioactive elements
produced artificially during the process of nuclear fission." The
nuclei of these artificial isotopes are unstable due to "an excess
of protons and/or neutrons." This "instability provokes spontaneous
transformations into other isotopes, and this transformation is accompanied
by the emission of ionized radiation. This process is called disintegration
or decay."(29) This radioactive decaying process varies, depending
upon the isotopes. This is known as its radioactive half-life. Cesium-137
has a half-life value of 30 years, and for the emission of its radioactivity
to disappear takes 300 years. Cesium has a similar chemical structure to
potassium. Due to this, it can enter the body's circulation and substitute
its own radioactivity for potassium and cause "genetic mutations,
tumors, and a large number of pathologies in various organs."(30)
-
- Strontium-90 has a 28-year half-life, and disappears
after 290 years. Strontium shares chemical similarities with calcium, and
thus is absorbed in our bones, bone marrow, and teeth. As it emits radiation
constantly in the body this "causes cancers such as osteosarcomas
and leukemias."(31) Other radioactive substances include Iodine-131,
Uranium-235 (700-million year half-life, disappearing in 7-billion years),
and Plutonium-239 (with a half-life of 24,000 years, disappearing in 240,000
years). Thus, any contamination from these radioactive substances is lethal
forever; and it does not just mean immediate death, but in its longer duration
causes severe mutations and sterility in subsequent generations.
-
- The dramatic and heart-wrenching photos of infants and
children that accompany Mittica's book and Leuren Moret's articles need
far wider circulation. (See NOTES.) As extremely painful as they are to
look at, the intense impact of seeing these innocent children suffering
so acutely would cause a universal outrage, if millions of people knew
the extent of what radiation damage is doing! This is the true and tragic
cost of nuclear technology. There is no "fix" for these radiation
consequences that are now global. They are reported in obscure journals,
instead of on the front page of every newspaper and all Internet news sites.
-
- As I have written, invisible does not mean safe.
-
- Nuclear Waste
-
- According to Dr. Bertell, who has written extensively
about the spectacular flaws and the true costs of nuclear energy: "The
problem of secure storage of nuclear wasteremains dangerous for millennia."(32)
Already many areas of supposedly "safe storage" are leaking radioactive
substances. Supposedly "safe" containers --actually, "time-bombs"--
have developed leaks and cracks.
-
- The US, has 1,623 Superfund sites.(33) About 11-million
Americans live near a Superfund site --and this includes 3-4 million children(34)--
loaded with an assortment of highly toxic materials, including an enormous
amount of nuclear waste. There are insufficient funds to clean up or safely
store this nuclear waste. Dr. Bertell notes(35) There is "no scientific
evidence that geologic strata can guarantee absolute stability of the [nuclear
waste] containers. Quite the reverse," as the earth's crust is in
constant motion.
-
- 1. Real costs are already seen in radioactive "caused
cancers in children, their children for generations to come."(36)
Over the last 30 years, there continue to be dramatic drops in fertility:
male sperm count is down more than 40 percent; and millions of women have
difficulty in conceiving.
- 2. Isolating nuclear waste for "eternity" is
a PR sham. "It is not possible to find materials that will assume
leak-proof retention, or even the US's poor understanding of radioactive
life, or eternity." Radioactive waste already contaminates many parts
of the less-developed world. Furthermore, the state of Utah is considering
bringing in low-level nuclear waste from Italy.(37)
-
- For example, toxic waste is stored in the 500,000-acre
site of Hanford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland, Washington, and the
Columbia River. Originally, Hanford was "chosen as the site for one
of three "atomic cities" to be built by the US Army to support
the Manhattan Project.(38) There are "excessive rates of pancreas
cancer and multiple myeloma, a rare type of bone marrow cancer, among former
Hanford employees" were reported between 1951-1971.(39) Both the Columbia
and Willamette rivers that go through Portland, Oregon, are some of the
most polluted rivers on the planet.
-
- Hanford was built in 1942 as a military facility, initially
to produce plutonium for US weapons.(40) Of the nine original General Electric
reactors there, eight have been leveled and one remains. According to Dr.
Bertell's book, "No Immediate Danger," Hanford was built without
public hearings. Hanford's radioactive nuclear waste includes hundreds
of liquids waste containers, and millions of gallons of "high level
radioactive liquid reactor waste."(41) The nuclear toxicity is so
enormous that now it is a "Superfund" site. The story of Hanford
as a "high-risk accident" waiting to happen, due to its contaminated
longevity, is well documented.(42) Public watch group, Heart of America
Northwest, notes that:
-
- The Native Americans living on and near the Hanford Site
have been dispossessed of their land and culture because of government
policies and economic expediency." Since Hanford was built, "as
much as 450 billion gallons of contaminated [nuclear] wastes have been
dumped into unlined soil trenches at Hanford. More than a third of the
177 underground storage tanks have leaked, resulting in more than a million
gallons of liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste contaminating groundwater near
the Columbia River.(43)
-
- Eisenbud and Gesell in their book, "Environmental
Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial, and Military Sources" note
that eight of the original reactors used "natural uraniumand were
cooled by single pass-through of Columbia River water. This cooling water
accumulated activation and fission products before being returned to the
river [and the Pacific Ocean]. In addition to activation products, fission
products also escaped because of failures of the aluminum cladding that
encased the natural uranium fuel."(44)
-
- Dr. Bertell notes that "Hanford is undoubtedly among
the most contaminated spots on the globe."(45) In addition, there
is the Umatilla Army Depot, a Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (in Hermiston,
OR). In June 2008, this facility resumed destruction of the highly toxic
VX nerve gas, by burning it and releasing it into the air. This carcinogenic
spew contaminated the Columbia River watershed and all living creatures.
The Pacific Northwest is seriously poisoned. People living near these hazardous
facilities are at high risk for immune disorders, cancers, reproductive
dysfunctions, neurological damage, and birth defects. Citizens concerns
continue to be ignored.
-
- Hanford is just one example of: the on-going radiation
toxicity to which citizens are exposed; the current hazardous radioactive
conditions that have a 67-year history; and many governments' continued
refusal to make health and safety a priority. A hazardous Superfund site
and safety are diametrically opposed to one another.
-
- Sellafield in Cumbria, England, is another long-term
nuclear nightmare. According to George Beveridge, Sellafield's deputy director:
"It is the most hazardous industrial building in western Europe."(46)
In an article published this past week, Robin McKie, Science editor of
London's Guardian, notes that it
-
- is it hard to understand why the building possesses such
a fearsome reputation. Piles of old nuclear reactor parts and decaying
fuel rods, much of them of unknown provenance and age, line the murky,
radioactive waters of the cooling pond in the center of B30. [B30, is the
concrete edifice, at the center of this complex]. Down there, pieces of
contaminated metal have dissolved into sludge that emits heavy and potentially
lethal doses of radiation.(47)
-
- Like Hanford, Sellafield was built to become England's
first atomic reactor site to produce plutonium. The highly radioactive
nuclear waste produced there over decades has created another nightmare.
It is estimated that the cost of clean-up over the next 100 years could
cost the country up to £50 billion. From where is this money supposed
to come, given the UK's financial debacle?
-
- In a recent journal article about Sellafield, scientist
Leuren Moret who visited England in 2003 when there was "a nationwide
recall of radioactive salmon and venison throughout England." She
notes also that "sea animals in the Irish Sea are contaminated with
radiation from Sellafield, with levels of Technetium-99 reported in some
lobsters to be 40 times higher than the EU Food Intervention levels."
The accompanying photos to this article show other damaged-mutant sea animals.
-
- The widespread and long-term contamination about which
Moret writes is yet another reminder of the devastation caused by radiation:
-
- The daily 'permitted' radioactive emissions and discharges
into the Irish Sea since the 1950s, have turned contaminated sediments,
seawater, and biosphere into a radioactive sink or permanent point source
of radiation, with serious local and global effects. Daily 'permitted'
radioactive emissions and discharges from global sources have accumulated
to higher radiation levels than many Chernobyls would release, and are
the main cause of the large increase in ocean dead zones since the 1970s.
People are missing or overlooking the serious impact of chronic releases.
Politics and activism has been misdirected to focus on nuclear fuel in
pools, nuclear waste storage, and accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile
Island, a strategy guaranteed to fail.(48)
-
- With accompanying photographs of infants so enormously
damaged by radiation that affected their mothers during pregnancy, this
article needs to be widely disseminated. Calling this daily dumping of
nuclear materials into the biosphere an "undeclared and invisible
nuclear war" on all of us, Moret urges us to re-direct our collective
energies, because "chronic exposure of biological systems to low-level
radiation is the most serious impact now damaging the biosphere, especially
on a daily basis."(49) She further notes that after 1963 and the Partial
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, by US, UK, and the Soviets, "the Atlantic
fish catch had over-recovered to more than twice the pre-1957 levels before
the dramatic decline," indicating that recovery from contamination
was possible.(50)
-
- Recent Radiation News
-
- 1. Jan. 21, 2009. "Just before Bush left office
this past January," his administration "Approved new Protective
Action Guides [PAGs] for radiation releases that dramatic weaken public
protection." These news PAGs "would permit radioactivity in drinking
water hundreds to millions of times higher than longstanding EPA standards.(51)
-
- 2. Feb. 21, 2009. The Oregonian reports that the US Navy
plans to "increase warfare training off the Oregon Coast."(52)
This will be part of the decades-long, thousands of warfare training exercises
that have been going on off the Pacific coast of Washington state, Oregon,
California to the detriment of everyone living there.
-
- Through a Freedom of information request for the Navy's
Environmental Impact Study [EIS] for these military exercises, Rosalind
Peterson notes that the Navy "decided to use public lands, the Pacific
Ocean, private property, wildlife, and humans as test subjects for warfare
testing in four states. The Navy also has decided to contaminate our air,
water, and soils with the chemicals used in these programs. They fail to
list many of the chemicals that are to be used in these programs. There
is a short listing of hazardous materials, air pollutants, and pollutants
from munitions, expended materials, and radioactive materials [Depleted
Uranium?] that will be used in this project."(53)
-
- How much geologic instability has the Navy already created
in this area that has the San Andreas earthquake fault? To how much radiation
will the public and all ocean sea life be exposed? Why should citizens
be the military's radiation guinea pigs? In this EIS request, Peterson
also wants to know if weather modification programs will be used, including
the use of toxic aluminum-coated fiberglass [used also in Chemtrail aerosols].
Finally, Peterson notes:
-
- It also appears that nothing would be spared in testing
weapons of war on the publicit appears that these Western States will be
sacrificed for building and testing more weapons of mass destruction. Remember
that sacrificing California, Washington, and Oregon is just the beginning.(53)
-
- 3. News headline on March 9, 2009: "At Least 31
Nuclear Reactor Applications With the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
Staff at allheadlinesnews reports that, despite the controversy surrounding
the nuclear repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, the US nuclear power
industry may be on a comeback trail based on at least 31 applications for
nuclear reactors..." NRC expects "more applications in the coming
days."(54)
-
- 4. Karen Dorn Steele, an award-wining investigative reporter
was interviewed a few days ago by Amy Goodman on her "Democracy Now"
radio program. Steele was asked about her many years of research at the
Hanford Nuclear site. She responded by saying:
-
- Hanford is the nation's largest plutonium production
complex. It made the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. In the
course of weapons production, it sent a lot of radiation into the air,
contaminating the region. There's now a major lawsuit with over 2,000 plaintiffs
winding its way through the federal courts. It was filed in 1991, seeking
compensation. So far, the lawyers defending the government contractors
have racked up about $60 million in defense costs, and not one sick person
has received a dime. So it's a justice issue. Again, sovereign immunity
is being claimed by the government, and the government agreed to indemnify
these contractors who came in during World War II.(55)
-
- Governments' repeatedly claim "sovereign immunity."
Rarely do they take responsibility for the havoc they create.
-
- The Precautionary Principle
-
- As I have written recently, the entire concept of precaution,
as espoused in the Precautionary Principle, is not part of the US government's
agenda where the over-riding focus is on war and destruction.(56) The US
budget for this year is the largest in our history.(57) Most of it is going
to war and military expenditures. This is all to the exclusion of desperately
needed social services. There are insufficient funds for health and elder
care, education, and massive crumbling of infrastructure of roads, bridges,
and a poor-to-nonexistent rail service. All this loss, while the US has
the largest prison population of any western country.
-
- The concept of the Precautionary Principle requires doing
no harm. When we have reasonable suspicion of harm; where there is scientific
uncertainty, we have an ethical and moral responsibility to take action
to do no harm.
-
- The US is an extremely violent society. Where the US
military is fighting two illegal wars, and sales of weapons are thriving
(at great cost to the rest of society), there is no concept of precaution,
nor has there been any with any on-going secret bio-warfare and military
ops. Warfare is diametrically opposed to precaution. As the US economy
is in a freefall collapse, warfare --and the illegal use of nuclear weapons--
is the focus of an astronomical and completely unsustainable budget to
the exclusion of everything else that this country needs to function in
a healthy way. The US government has ignored its responsibilities to the
world community disregarding international laws, as well as to its own
citizens, by repeatedly violating its own Constitution. Greed, fraud, lies,
and deceit are the way the United States and many corporations are run.
There is a complete lack of ethics and accountability. This entire system
is broken because of a lack of precaution.
-
- The level of corruption and criminality that pervade
governments and corporate business today are off the scale. Are these people
to whom we want to entrust the so-called "safety" of nuclear
technology that has failed and permanently endangered our entire planet
and all our lives? The history of the nuclear-warfare industry is not one
that engenders trust or belief that they know what they are doing except
making profits. The true cost-benefit where lives and safety are more important
than profits are not part of any current government equation. Chernobyl,
Hanford, and Sellafield are just the tip of the proverbial problem. Nuclear
energy is still a hazard.
-
- We must ask these questions, and demand to be heard:
-
- 1. How long do we wish to be duped about this failed
technology that has caused so much havoc?
- 2. With so many countries on the brink of bankruptcy,
REALISTICALLY, how can there be sufficient money to store deadly radioactive
spent fuel for hundreds (let alone thousands) of years, when this technology
is in an already failed state now? Who pays for future accidents, when
there are already crumbling, hazardous sites all over the planet, that
can never be cleaned up? This puts everyone at continued risk. Yet, the
US government continues to cut miniscule band-aid funding.
- 3. When will there be real reporting of the enormous
radiation poisoning of our biosphere and genetic damage to millions of
people and other living creatures that gets massive front-page coverage?
We continue to remain at very high genetic risk from all the nuclear-related
technology to which we are already now exposed.
- 4. When will millions/billions of people be tested for
levels of chronic radiation exposure (either through insurance policies
or national health coverage)? The tragic survivors (and their offspring)
of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings are still being monitored.(58)
For those who have any medical insurance (most of the under-developed countries'
citizens do not even have basic medical care), testing for radiation exposure,
or the toxicity of Chemtrails and other Clandestine Weather Modification
Programs' poisons, as well as thousands of other deadly chemicals ubiquitous
in our environment is not part of any standard medical procedures.
- 5. Why are the Nuremberg Declaration of 1983 ["Any
use and the threat of using atomic, biological, and chemical weapons is
contrary to international law and criminal."] and the UN's Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (see below) not enforced, so that we all are
safe? How can these international rules actually be inforced, when there
are criminals in charge?
-
- Again, with 31 new proposals in a Congress (no longer
working for the people) to build new nuclear facilities --with a real history
of devastating accidents-- massive contamination that will never go away,
documented genetic damage around the globe, greed continues to be the modus
operandi, and the Precautionary Principle is excluded.
-
- The overwhelming majority of the world's people want
to live their lives in peace and health. This is difficult when so many
of today's illnesses are radiation related or have been created in secret
bio-warfare centers. [Did this new outbreak of swine flu come from some
secret lab?] These facilities are paid for with citizens' hard-earned taxpayer
dollars. The Orwellian rhetoric of peace belies the reality of constant
warfare and genocide perpetrated by many governments, but the causes are
generally unknown by the majority of its citizens.
-
- We are being chronically poisoned. Many people of good
will, who understand the factual consequences of radioactivity, continue
to write and speak out. Their voices must be heard, as we all are in grave
danger. Here are just two examples: In a recent article entitled "From
Hiroshima to Iraq Uranium Wars: A Sucidial, Genocidal, and Omnicidal
Course," Leuren Moret writes eloquently and urgently about this military
insanity.(59) For decades, Dr. Helen Caldicott has written and spoken out
internationally about the massive radioactive dangers to which we are all
exposed.(60) No one is safe.
-
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by
the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948) NOW must be more than written words.
Here is part of the Preamble:
-
- "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and
of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family
is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world,
- Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have
resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,
and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of
speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as
the highest aspiration of the common people"(61)
-
- If we truly want a world where our children and grandchildren
can be born and grow up safe and secure in health and peace, we must wake
up from our catatonic state of and denial, become informed citizens (instead
of shoppers), and create and join together in a global grassroots movement
of good will to: demand real justice and accountability from those in charge
perpetrating fraud and criminality, parading as government policy, that
endangers all of us; demand ethical conduct; and refuse to pay taxes without
representation to fund a constant war agenda that has contaminated the
fragile web-of-life on our besieged planet.
-
- "Our Children are dying. Help!"
- A letter from the high-radioactivity zone at Chernobyl
- "I am not yet thirty-two, and I have to go into
hospital several times a year. My four children, the eldest of whom is
twelve, are constantly sick, too (weakness, pains in their joints, low
hemoglobin counts, enlarged thyroid and lymphatic glands, headaches, stomach
aches, nonstop throat infections). It's the same in all the families.
- We want to live. We want our children to live and grow
up healthy, and for them to have a future. Because of the indifference
and hard-hardedness, and cruelty of these on whom our destiny and that
of our children depends, we are condemned to the most terrible fate, which
we well understand. The only ones who don't understand are the bureaucrats
in their comfy armchairs.
- They promise the people of Narodichi that they will evacuate
at least a few villages, but in our district it is never mentioned. And
for so many years we have been forced to eat and drink radioactivity, to
breathe it in, and just wait for our last hour. And all this in the land
of the soviets, where it is always said (on the radio, in the newspapers,
at school) that humanity is always the central priority!"
- Valentina Nikolayevna Okhremchuk, mother of four boys,
and all the mothers of Olevsk district. (translated from the Russian).
Alla Yaroskinskya, "Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth," 1995.
-
- "Should the public discover the true health cost
of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and
people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death."
Rosalie Bertell. "No Immediate Danger" xiii.
-
- ***************
-
- Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
is the author of "The Uterine Crisis" which London's Ecologist
calls "an inspiration."
-
- ****************
-
- NOTES:
-
- 1. Mittica, Pierpaolo, et al. "Chernobyl. The Hidden
Legacy." London: Trolley, Ltd., 2007: 22.
- 2. Mittica, 22.
- 3. Mittica, 29.
- 4. Mittica, 22.
- 5. Mittica, 22.
- 6. Mittica, 22.
- 7. Ingram, W. Scott. "The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster."
NY: Facts on File, 2005: 21.
- 8. Ingram, 18.
- 9. Ingram, 18.
- 10. Ingram, 18.
- 11. Ingram, 20.
- 12. Ingram, 20.
- 13. Mittica, 56.
- 14. Mittica, 56.
- 15. Mittica, 56.
- 16. Mittica, 56.
- 17. Mittica, 57.
- 18. Mittica, 56.
- 19. It was published in English translation in 1994 by
the University of Nebraska Press.
- 20. Yaroskinskya, Alla. "Chernobyl: The Forbidden
Truth." Transl. by Michèle Kahn and Julia Sallabank. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1995: 89.
- 21. Yaroskinskya, 89.
- 22. Yaroskinskya, 22.
- 23. Mittica, 23.
- 24. Mittica, 18. This information is based on an article
by Dr. Michel Fernex, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Switzerland.
- 25. Mittica,180-181.
- 26. Kazakov, Vasili S., et al. "Thyroid cancer after
Chernobyl." Nature. Vol. 359, (3 Sept. 1992): 21.
- 27. Bertell, Rosalie. "No Immediate Danger. Prognosis
for a Radioactive Earth." Toronto: The Women's Press, 1985. Dr. Bertell
notes that the increase in various cancers (that used to be a sign of old
age, now is a marker for premature ageing: "[C]ertain biological processes,
which normally occur with chronological ageing, break down earlier when
the person is exposed to ionizing radiation." See: Mittica, 196.
- 28. For a list of other radioactive materials see: Mittica,
42-43 and Bertell, 15-63.
- 29. Mittica, 42.
- 30. Mittica, 42.
- 31. Mittica, 32.
- 32. Bertell, "No Immediate Danger": 178.
- 33. According to the Center for Public Integrity. See:
http:// projects.publicintegrity.org/superfund/?gclid=CI_ysJirhZoCFQHyDAodlCslGg
- 34. See: Live Leak: www.liveleak.com/view?i=8a3_1199734181
- 35.
- 36. Mittica, 180.
- 37. Mark Clayton. "Will US become world's nuclear
waste dump?" Feb. 28, 2008:See: /www.csmonitor.com/2008/0228/p03s03-uspo.html
- 38. Bertell, 88.
- 39. Bertell, 89.
- 40. Bertell, 109.
- 41. Bertell 120.
- 42. One of the tenacious public watchdog groups, directed
by Gerald Pollet, JD, is Heart of America Northwest. For extensive information
on Hanford, see: www. hoanw.org
- 43. "Hanford History 101." Heart of America
Northwest: www.hoanw.org/more/index.cfm?Fuseaction=more_47323§ion=more_47323
- 44. Eiesnbud, Merril, and Thomas F. Gesell. "Environmental
Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial, and Military Sources." 4th
ed. Academic Press, 1997: 484. 45. Bertell, 185.
- 46. Robin McKie, Science editor. London, The Guardian/Observer.
April 19, 2009: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/19/sellafield-nuclear-plant-cumbria-hazards
- 47. Robin McKie, Science editor, London's Observer. "Sellafield,
England. The Most Dangerous Place in Europe." April 19, 2009: http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=21021
- 48. Leuren Moret. ""Global Implications of
Sellafield: 'Irish Sea Coast Effect' and Beyond." Namaste magazine,
April 2009: www.namastepublishing.co.uk/Global%20Implications%2
- 0of%20Sellafield%20-%20Irish%20Sea%20Coast%20Effect.htm
- 49. Moret, see. Note above, 48.
- 50. Moret, see. Note above, 48.
- 51. Jan. 21, 2009: www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=11939
- 52. "Navy plan to increase warfare training off
Oregon coast draws objections." Feb. 4, 2009:
- www.oregonlive.com/environment_impact/2009/02/navy_plan_to_increase_warfare
- 53. Rosalind Peterson. Feb. 21, 2009:
- www.newswithviews.com/Peterson/rosalind114.htm
- 54. See: www.allheadlinesnews.com/articles/7014351747
- 55. Amy Goodman, "Democracy Now." April 21,
2009:
- http://i2.democracynow.org/2009/4/21/hanford_nuclear_reservation_a_look_at
- 56. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri. "Gone Missing: The
Precautionary Principle." 12 Feb. 2009: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1226857
- 57. David Swanson. "The Largest Military Budget
in World History." April 8, 2009: www.globalresearch.ca/printArticle.php?articleId=13106
- 58. Leuren Moret. "Populations Exposed to Environmental
Uranium. Increased Risk of Infertility and Reproductive Cancers."
Namaste magazine. (Nov. 2008) Vol. 10, Issue 4: 3
- 59. Leuren Moret. "From Hiroshima to Iraq Uranium
Wars: A Sucidial, Genocidal, and Omnicidal Course." Dec. 28, 2008:
www. rense.com/general84/occd.htm
- 60. "An interview with Helen Caldicott."
- http://heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.4.ENVIRO.HelenCaldicott.htm
- 61. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: www. un.org/Overview/rights.html
-
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