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Chernobyl Legacy
April 26, 2012
Twenty-six years after the meltdown at Chernobyl, the legacy of the 1986 explosion lives on.
"It is a disaster that left a 30-kilometre uninhabitable exclusion zone, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and still threatens the lives of tens of thousands," writes Greenpeace today.
All these years and a triple meltdown at Fukushima later, the industry and its supporters have yet to learn.
"The nuclear industry still hasn't realized or admitted that its reactors are unsafe. Reactors are vulnerable to any unforeseen combination of technological failures, human errors and natural disasters. That puts the tens of millions of people living near the worlds more than 400 reactors at risk." Write Greenpeace's Justin McKeating.
To get a sense of just what those tens of millions live at risk of, take a look at these photographs by award winning photographer Paul Fusco. Earlier this month I had a the honor of participating in the fourth Schuneman Symposium held at the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Among the speakers was Fusco, an extraordinary MAGNUM photographer who traveled to the Ukraine to see the legacy of Chernobyl after twenty years. Fusco expected to stay two weeks. He stayed for two months, following parents, children, nurses and cancer patients.
"It changed my life. I couldn't leave. It was so immense in its implications. There is so much damage to so many people in so many ways…" says Fusco.
Yet his extraordinary photographs, which you can see here in a short promotional slideshow, aren't printed in US papers. They're like his pictures of US military funerals, his current project, which is called Bitter Fruit. "The pictures are printed a lot in Europe. Never here," Fusco told the Scripps students. "Why do you think that is?"
Time Is Short
April 26, 2012 at 8:13 pm Log in to Reply
Within a few years this will be commonplace, in many countries.
Are the governments going to kill them, like the Japanese do, or allow them to live, like the Ukrainians?
These are questions that are being discussed right now. Who's going to pay for their medical care? Will there be any medical care, after all the cancer patients break the medical budgets?
Chernobyl – one exploding NPP, buried under concrete in a couple of weeks, with a million people affected (admitted to).
Japan – 20 NPPs, 20+ SFPs in various stages of destruction, 3+ cores still melting, no containment, untold amounts of uranium and plutonium aerosolized and spread worldwide, levels increasing exponentially. New, highly lethal compounds spreading, no one knows how far or how long. Earthquakes daily.
May G-d have mercy on us all.
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DisasterInterpretationDissorder
April 26, 2012 at 8:49 pm Log in to Reply
Exellent summary T.I.S about what to expect.
A situation where the hospitals are way, way behind capacity ( people dieing in parks, doorways) and no painkillers left combined with an
emerging "mad max world morality" is not and will not be my cup of thea . At least not when we are not gonne survive anyway.
Just saying, "enough sleepingpils" might also become hard to get…make sure you are prepared .
When i'm moody because of the zillion ways we have so very focused on denial clusterfekked ourselfes checkmate, this docu gives me some
hope for Mother Earth, sort off comforting i find. Earth: Making of a Planet – National Geographic Channel
I hope she has the ability to remember us next time when she's growing intelligent species from here skin. Let her growing skills evolve and become AVATAR !
Oeps sry, just dreaming out Loud now. More like a frustrated Dreamshout ?? ^^) about what could have been if the Capitalistic Algoritme (materialisme) did not become the Only operating system for the majority of cultures made out of two legged biological computers that killed the others.
Earth: Making of a Planet – National Geographic Channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1-F4lxJPo0
Meanwhile, be glad for every day you are alive in reasonable health , and enjoy peace if you have that luxury. Peace out.