When I first read Elzbieta Matynia’s response to the massive earthquake in Japan, I respected the sincerity of her judgment, but thought that it was a bit much. It seemed to me that actually the news reports I was reading suggested a much more positive story than the one she seemed to be reading. The earthquake was the most severe in recorded Japanese history, much more powerful than the devastating ones in Haiti and Chile. Yet the death toll seemed to be quite modest, a little more than one hundred people. This suggested to me the wonders of modern technology. As the father of an architect, I was proud of what humans can do when they put their minds to it.
Then the reports began to come in about the tsunami, reminding me, reminding us, the limits of human power in the face of a massive natural force. My decision to introduce Elzbieta’s reflections with the suggestion that perhaps thousands have been killed, even though at the time the estimate was still between one and two hundred, were sadly justified. Now in the video reports we tremble in fear at the power the devastation reveals. This clearly puts us in our place.
But it is the third dimension of the disaster, human and not natural, that is the most humbling. While the wonders of technology are revealed in minimizing the effects of the earthquake, the dangers of our technology are revealed in the still escalating nuclear disaster. It reminds us that we are capable of destroying our world, demonstrating the deadly potential of atoms for peace, along with atoms for war.
Indian Point Energy Center © Daniel Case | Wikimedia Commons
I feel compassion, perhaps pity, for the victims in Japan, something that we will return to tomorrow in a post on distant suffering. But given the powers of modern media and given that I write these reflections a few miles downstream from the Indian Point (Nuclear) Energy Center, the suffering doesn’t seem that distant.
As I suggested earlier, this requires political action, preceded by deliberation. Wise folk tell us that given global warming, we must use nuclear energy, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but others warn that this is a power that ultimately can’t be tamed, more like a tsunami than an earthquake. Now is the time for informed deliberate debate.
Krieger is correct. There is only one safe place to put a nuclear reactor – in the sun. The experts who have been telling us nuclear energy is safe are like the economists who had been saying that bankers can regulate themselves because they have an interest in not letting the bank fail. Everybody else thought there was something fishy about 40x leverage, that the banks could collapse, but by and large we deferred to the experts despite our misgivings.
It’s the same thing with nuclear power plants. Engineering common sense says they are not safe. But Very Serious People have been saying they can operate them safely, so we let them go on with their business. Not wise.
I vented off my frustration in my blog. In short, don’t trust anyone over 30.