Part 14: Fukushima in overflow: radioactive effluent circulating into all oceans
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” ― Chief Seattle
Twenty-nine months after Fukushima’s nuclear power plants exploded and started leaking millions or possibly billions of gallons of radioactive toxic waste into the Pacific Ocean, the contaminated liquid circulated (s) into all of the oceans of the world.
Fact: that radioactive waste enters into every living creature in the Earth’s oceans and contaminates their flesh. If you eat salmon, tuna, shrimp and other marine creatures in 2013, you cannot help but absorb, to some degree, the radioactive contamination of Fukushima.
That single catastrophe may spell greater disasters for humans and all living creatures in the seas around the planet—for decades to come. As one writer said, “We’re all standing on the beach for this one.”
“Radiation readings around tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have spiked by more than a fifth to their highest levels, Japan’s nuclear regulator said, heightening concerns about the clean-up of the worst atomic disaster in almost three decades,” according to Alan Sheldrik, Tokyo, Japan.
The NRA later raised the severity of the initial leak from a level 1 “anomaly” to a level 3 “serious incident” on an international scale of 1-7 for radiation releases.
“There’s a strong possibility these tanks also leaked, or had leaked previously,” said Hiroaki Koide, Assistant Professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute. “We have to worry about the impact on nearby groundwater…These tanks are not sturdy and have been a problem since they were constructed two years ago.”
What bothers me as a food eating, water drinking and air breathing human being on this planet stems from the reality that we humans continue our mass contamination of our planet at breakneck speed. If you look at the swirling radioactive plumes flying out of Japan on every ocean current—you see that Fukushima’s radioactive waters spread to every nook and cranny of every ocean in the world.
Numerous reports tell us not to eat any more fish from the oceans.
“Radiation levels around Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned,” reported the BBC September 1, 2013.
As to Fukushima, when the entire story comes to light and countless thousands and even millions of humans suffer from radiation poisoning, cancers and heaven knows that else—we must ask ourselves how much further we humans want to ride this planet down into a hell-hole of consequences.
Every single day of the year, we burn 84 million barrels of oil that ultimately exhausts into our oceans—to acidify them—which makes them more and more uninhabitable for all living marine creatures and planetary life.
We spray billions of tons of pesticides and insecticides onto our plants 24/7 here in the USA and abroad. Ironically, we outlawed DDT in the USA, but Chevron Company still makes it and sells it to people around the world. I know because I smelled it in my bicycle travels in Asia and South America. We know it kills all life and destroys ecological systems, but for the love of money, we keep selling that DDT crap abroad. Unfortunately, like the Fukushima disaster, 80,000 chemical poisons that we created also spread around the world 24/7.
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Consequently, cancers affect 1 in 3 people here in the United States and cancers grow worldwide as we continue our quest to soak the planet with chemicals. Cancer escalates as the number one cause of death in the world. The more we continue our plundering and polluting of this miraculous globe, the more we shall face the wrath of Mother Nature in various forms: tornadoes caused in January in Illinois or massive killer tornadoes in Oklahoma that kill and destroy anyone in their paths. All because of massive carbon footprint unbalancing of our weather patterns. Loss of the rain forests and positive weather systems they generated.
Loss of over 100 species every single day of the year because of human encroachment. (Source: Norman Myers, Oxford University) Acidified oceans that continue their death spiral with radioactive wastes from Fukushima. Not known by most Americans, we dumped billions of pounds of mustard gas and Lewisite gas into the oceans after WWII. We dumped over 500 barrels of radioactive waste 20 miles off San Francisco, California in the 50s. Today, all those drums rusted open and spewed their contents into the Pacific waters. We continue to draw down aquifers and contaminate ground water at the same time here in the USA with massive pig farms, cattle farms and industrial waste. For example: the toxic and polluted Mississippi River blooms into a 10,000 square mile dead zone at its mouth because of so many chemicals from farm and industrial run-off.
Today, about a billion people lack reliable access to potable water.
(Most Americans do not possess a clue as to the global water crisis, but it is coming to America faster and faster as our population escalates by 138 million net gain within the next 37 years. US population projection for 2050: from 316 million in 2013 to 438 million people and on to 625 million people. Over 1 billion humans lack a clean glass of drinking water in 2013 daily. Humans add an additional 1 billion people every 12 years.) Photo by National Geographic
If you could see what I saw as to raw sewage-chemicals injected into the Yangtze River in China, Ganges River in India, Hudson and Potomac Rivers in the USA, and many other rivers in South America—it would cause you to mentally vomit. We humans created upwards of 27,000 square mile dead zones at the mouths of these major rivers because of the enormous amount of chemicals we inject into them before they reach the oceans.
Now, we vomit our radioactive waste from Fukushima to all oceans of the world, which will take centuries to neutralize, if ever.
At some point, we human beings, whether Americans or planetary citizens from other countries must take stock of what we are doing to the planet and doing to ourselves.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” ― Chief Seattle
If we keep going in the same direction we tread today, the 21st century will prove a bumpy ride for all of humanity along with all the other creatures in our path.
Frosty Wooldridge is a Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences. Facebook: Frosty Wooldridge. Facebook Adventure Page: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World. Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com. www.frostywooldridge.com.
