This is no ordinary weekend in the history of the world; no ordinary moment in humanity’s relationship to technology. As I write, crews of nuclear engineers are working against the clock to prevent the meltdown of not one but at least two atomic reactors, both of which are being flooded with seawater in a last-ditch attempt to keep the core from melting through the containment structure. It is probable that both have already experienced partial meltdowns, whatever that means. Five separate nuclear plants are in crisis at once. This is the first time in history that we are witnessing and indeed experiencing the simultaneous failure of multiple nuclear devices. These are a mere 170 miles from one of the biggest population centers in the world, in the midst of a powerful technological society that has been brought to its knees by a natural event.
A nuclear disaster is the time when we need society’s infrastructure the most. And as we are seeing, it’s the time when we’re least likely to have it available. With Japan already devastated, this is the last thing people need to be thinking about; therefore it’s the first thing that the planners of society — and make no mistake, society is planned — should be thinking about but evidently lack the common sense to do so. But somehow I doubt that these same engineers go home and light a candle in a wicker basket next to the drapery.
I am aware that the veil of denial, secrecy and lies that go hand in hand with splitting the atom have provided us with a population that is largely ignorant of the risks of what happens when you do so. There is not an ‘anti-nuclear’ movement to speak of. There are definitely some dedicated activists and mostly a few informed people who don’t like living an hour away from a decrepit nuclear plant that’s sitting on a fault line, as I am right now.
Nuclear power is a world of deception. There’s a reason that Harry Truman had to get on the radio a few hours after he ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and tell the American people that God told him to do it, and that Hiroshima was a military base. God didn’t tell him, and Hiroshima was an ordinary city going about its business. There was simply no other way he could justify murdering 150,000 civilians in an instant, and another 150,000 a few days later.