How Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown Saved The World: Greens Routed
READING the press you might have formed a belief that the Fukushima nuclear reactors were going to kill everyone in Japan and then everyone in the US and Ireland. The Irish Independent thundered:
Explosion could send contamination to Ireland
Paul Melia told us:
Not until last year did the UK Food Standards Agency declare that the Scottish sheep industry was free of radioactive material from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. Despite being more than 2,000km away…
Two points to note: Ireland is 10,000 miles from Japan; Chernobyl has little in common with Fukushima.
No-one has died from the nuclear power plant bing hit by the 5th largest earthquake of the past century and a 44 foot tsunami. You can thank great engineering and Japan’s mastery of technology for that.
If you want to look at the perils of power, look at coal:
52 feared dead in Pakistan coal mine explosion
Tim Blair observes:
According to sources cited by England’s Daily Telegraph columnist James Delingpole, 44 people have been killed in wind farm accidents over the past decade. By comparison, only seven people have perished at nuclear facilities over the same period…
According to the European Nuclear Society, one kilogram of coal will yield about 8 kWh of heat. One kilogram of uranium-235, however, will yield around 24,000,000 kWh. So uranium requires less digging – and therefore less risk – for two to three million times the payoff.
Think how many lives will be saved by nuclear power? Japan’s Fukushima reactors might have saved the planet.
George Monbiot, the Green Shirt, is now a fan of nuclear power. That’s the same power Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, told Newsnight viewers was “inherently dangerous“. Says he:
Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.
But the media does not listen. Get this from the Daily Mail:
As five are reported dead, will nuclear officials ever reveal the true heroics of Japan’s ‘Fukushima Fifty’?
The paper gives it the sideways eyes:
Fifty essential workers stayed behind to stop a catastrophic meltdown at the plant, as 750 of their colleagues were evacuated earlier this week when the over-heating seemed to be getting out of control.
What meltdown?
Five are now believed to have died, 15 are injured and others have said they know the radiation will kill them as they battle to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods.
The inference is clear: nuclear kills. And on it goes:
At the height of the disaster some experts speculated that the workers were on a suicide mission.
Only, they didn’t die from nuclear radiation. They died from the cold and the lack of medical care:
NHK reported that 25 of the nearly 10,000 evacuees from Fukushima prefecture have died in shelters.
Twenty of them were elderly people forced to evacuate from nursing homes and a hospital after problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Several died as they rode without adequate medical care on a bus on the way to the high school shelter, Fukushima prefecture government officials said.
Other scare stories from Japan’s Media Apocalypse:
Daily Mail: Japanese have 48 hours to avoid ‘another Chernobyl’.
Courier Mail: Nuclear Rain Hits Australians
Daily Mail: Richard Shears Sees Cowardly Japanese And Brave British Hookers
The Sun: Virginia Wheeler smells the fear
As Lewis Page wrote in The Register:
As one who earns his living in the media these days, I can only apologise on behalf of my profession for the unbelievable levels of fear and misinformation purveyed this week. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist.
If only the rest of Japan was built as well as nuclear power stations. Should we ban the building of houses until the building rules are toughened up?
Posted: 22nd, March 2011 | In: Key Posts Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink
