The Trepidation-Sedation Syndrome

I am coining a new phrase here at Planet Waves. This term describes the long-term social and psychological effects from the practice of government and corporate risk communication — the communication of potential environmental hazards to an affected public. The term is Trepidation-Sedation Syndrome. Trepidation is a state of alarm or dread; apprehension. Sedation is the act of calming by administration of a sedative; syndrome, the pattern of symptoms that characterize or indicate a particular social condition.

In response to the explosions of Unit-3, containment attempts at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant seem to be proceeding with little result. Enter the state of trepidation-sedation. It’s the same tack used by BP during the Deepwater Horizon Spill last year, where BP played a game of cat and mouse with the press, the government and the people of the Gulf states over actual volume of the massive, endless rush of oil gushing from the crack in their well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. We are witnessing this again with growing frustration over the lack of complete information from the Japanese government. They rely on TEPCO — the Tokyo Electrical Power Company — for information on the actual facts on the ground at the Daiichi site. It seems like they’re not getting it.

There is a long history of lies by TEPCO to the Japanese people and their government. There are the lies of previous government administrations over the safety of Japan’s nuclear power plants. And then there is the worldwide, corporate-driven effort to downplay the ramifications of this accident and the riskiness of managing nuclear power. While most of our apprehensions were assuaged or stifled over the decades, the clock has run out. We have been sedated long enough.

Witness members of a traditionally calm Japanese public reacting to trepidation-sedation like patients in the throes of drug withdrawal.

According to the Los Angeles Times, even many normally patient Japanese are expressing deep irritation:

“We’re worried, and the government attitude toward this accident has been very inadequate,” said Hitomi Yamashita, 40, a railway service desk worker in Sendai who grew up in Onagawa, about 15 miles closer to the stricken reactors. “They don’t tell us what we should do, don’t provide good advice.” At school, there’s very little explanation for our children. This is our children’s health we’re talking about. I’m very, very, very angry and very concerned about getting through the next little while.”

Most people in Sendai, a large town close to the nuclear disaster, have yet to form contingency plans other than staying indoors. They haven’t yet reached a level of active distrust for the government. Others, like Toshiko Tsuzuki, 55, are taking various historical precautions.

Tsuzuki said she bought face masks for her family as the possibility of fallout, and stormy weather, has increased. “We’re afraid of rain and snow,” she said. “We know from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it can spread radiation when precipitation falls.”

I’m very worried about the nuclear danger,” said Sayaka Takahashi, an office worker. “That’s why I bought this hat,” a floppy beige fishing hat adorned with cartoon characters. “I hope it will help me cover up. I don’t want nuclear plants. I want natural energy or wind,” she said. “On TV, the government says the nuclear plant should be all right, but I don’t trust them. We now put our trust in chain letters.”

These e-mails making the rounds offer advice supposedly from someone who knows someone working at a nuclear plant. Many tell the recipients to wear hats, keep their skin covered, use an umbrella and avoid contact with rain or snow after an accident.

“I don’t know if they’re true or not,” said Asuka Kikuchi, 23. “But many people trust them more than the government.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the distrust stems from a long history of alleged lies and coverups by Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the Fukushima plant. Televised news conferences throughout the day advise the public to “stay calm.”

“The government is deciding which information to release, balancing the public’s right to know against prevention of panic, said Richard Tanter, a senior research associate with the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability in Australia.”

These protests may seem mild to the Western mind, but for polite Japanese society, public displays of dissatisfaction and distrust are significant. It is understandable that the Japanese government must responsibly coordinate the public’s safety, mitigating panic from disaster situations such as these to prevent further injury. Messages that soft pedal the danger are, for better or worse, part of that, and a tool of government. But inserting into this the corporate lie like “acceptably low levels of radiation” and “well, now there IS water at the site” (when our inspection found there was none) — is like saying the cyanide in the groundwater you’re drinking is perfectly safe.

When an environmental accident is compared to the impact of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima by the nation’s Prime Minister, it is more than understandable that the Japanese have plenty of reason to be enraged. As should we all, anywhere in the world where nuclear power is being used. How many more spins of the wheel are we going to take until we realize the sedation we’ve been fed on the safety of nuclear power is as worthless as the words of a corporate spokesman?

J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the inventors of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, was the first of many scientists who thought they could control how others would use their research. For this, he has been regarded as foolish and possibly arrogant. Now, the aspirations of the men and women who worked to develop nuclear energy for peacetime have been betrayed by the business interests that continue to control the nuclear energy industry. Cost-cutting design safety and enhancing profit of an energy source that should have neither is fatal hubris. Keeping people from knowing the extent of their lies and the poor management of this nuclear crisis is criminal.

Until the human managers and profiteers of this power source understand how far, how wide, how deep and how long is the duration of damage nuclear power can inflict, and are able to tell us the truth about it, they shouldn’t be handling it. The people are waking up and scratching the itch that has been waiting, long overdue for the scratch. We have been living with trepidation of the worst-case scenario from nuclear power buried deep in our global psyche. Now it emerges like the steam cloud over Daiichi’s Unit-3. No more sedation. Sober from this moment on.

Yours & truly,

Fe Bongolan
San Francisco