Good morning!
We can sit peacefully, quietly, in the early morning, sometimes with a candle, sometimes with electricity, which is, of course, brighter.
In Japan now, as you know, there is a nuclear reactor crises, and the presidents of nuclear companies and even of countries are being dispatched to help with the crises.
Today’s TV from Japan reported the differences between the standards of the IEAE and the Japanese NISA. The IEAE reported that an area 40km away from the reactor has two times the allowable limit of radiation. The NISA claimed that their way is better than the IEAE’s.
Shouldn’t we have stricter and more universal standards for safety? The international standard also says that there is no threshold for a safe amount of radiation. But the government always says that it’s safe for now, never telling of the long-term effect.
A scholar calculated that Japan produces nuclear waste, called death ash, in the amount of 50t – the equivalent of 50,000 Hiroshima A-bombs – every year. No one knows how to store it safely. No one even knows how to restore the safety of the nuclear power plant site.
So, we must sit down and see what is essential not only for our life, but also for the life of other species and life to come. As we experience the global problematique (interrelated problems of global warming etc.), we must taste the man-made mass extinction.
We had better sit without electric lights, rather than see the dark world without life, with no way to sit in peace.
3/31/11