Angela Merkel rightly called Fukushima “a turning point for the world”. It is. This was no glitch in an unsophisticated backwater of a State that could be explained away by poor design or low operating standards; this happened in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world with an unsurpassed reputation for detail and precaution and a commitment to a major industry with 55 reactors. Continue reading
Tagged with Chernobyl
Caveat nuclear
The government’s pro-nuclear chief scientist, John Beddington, immediately leapt in with assurances that Fukushima is very different from Chernobyl (which it is, but that’s not the point: Fukushima is highly dangerous in its own right) and not spewing out radioactivity because the Japanese had taken the right precautionary measures (so why did 180,000 people have to be evacuated?). Continue reading
