Nuclear Spinning 442 Reactors Worldwide

This is a poem I wrote some years ago regarding Nagasaki and Hiroshima. When I saw the first images of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami my immediate thought was Hiroshima, as the wreckage looked a lot like images in 1945. Then I saw the reports coming out of Fukushima I reflected on the nuclear debate that had happened in Australia in the last year of the Howard Government. There were many advocates. Nuclear was referred to as clean energy, yet the concerns surrounded the danger of nuclear radiation, accidents, targetting reactors, weaponisation and the radioactive waste with half lives of billions of years. It is a risk we cannot afford to take not only in nation states but globally as the earth’s air, water, soils and winds are linked in the ecosystem that knows no boundaries. When accidents happen radioactivity doesn’t disappear it circulates.

There are a total of 442 reactors worldwide, notable countries as follows: 104 in the United States, 58 in France, 54 in Japan, 32 in Russia, 21 in South Korea, 20 in India, 19 in UK, 18 in Canada, 17 in Germany, 15 in Ukraine, 13 in China, 10 in Sweden and the list goes on. http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.oprconst.htm. Australia is the third largest supplier of uranium in the world.

What we are witnessing in Japan is a catastrophic disaster, the nuclear issue in my view is far worse, as it is three possible four reactors where explosions have occurred. I thought about Chenobyl and the contamination of water, the plumes across Europe and so on. I thought of Helen Caldicott an Australian doctor and anti-nuclear activist who won the nobel peace prize in 1985 who started physicians for social responsibility. She was very influential during the 1970s, 1980s and to the present day. She founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in the US which evolved into Beyond Nuclear. She has met with world leaders to warn them of the real dangers of nuclear energy, power and weaponisation. I saw her on TV around 2001 and had a feeling to remember her. Then when I google searched ‘peace’ her name came up. I contacted her and sent my c.v. to my surprise she sent me her telephone number. I felt strongly to see her, had no ideas about nuclear issues. She told me to read a few books of hers Nuclear Madness, Missile Envy, A Passionate Life and the New Nuclear Danger. I drove 2,000 km on credit card (no money) to meet on a gut feeling. She and I spent some time talking about world issues in her house on the central coast at the time. She encouraged me to study peace at an important time in my life. No career path in it, it was my vocation. I told her I was a clown and she excitedly pulled out photos and told me she had protested with Patch Adams in New York, both were protesting naked about the ‘Naked Truth’. I would call that the butt of the joke haha. What I loved about her is her upfront natural style (no bullshit), she says what she thinks and is accessible to people. I am sure she will be looking upon the events in Japan with horror as she would know what the impact will be. You can read her profile at her website http://www.helencaldicott.com/about.htm.

In the future we will not have nuclear and peddle it as clean energy, we will have free energy and a renewable future that is in the interests of all people.

My heart goes out to the Japanese people, we are a global family, my hope is the world pulls together to assist them in this very shocking time. They will have to start again. Re-think their future.

NUCLEAR SPIN

The dawn service,
A memorial of Nagasaki,
The shroud of mist obscured the countryside,
As it appeared grey and motionless,
For the burnt out ruins
hang like plagues of a great city,
Extinguished in the flash of an eyelash,
A payload delivered as a global marker of dominance,
As the faceless Fat Man ordered the final blow
of the samurai sword,
without mercy,
For there is no honour in warfare,
And there is no fairness in war.

Today marks the alpha and the omega,
For their must be an end to what is MAD,
For we can START again,
For weapons as inanimate objects cannot destroy without intent,
It is the human who is at war,
With himself,
For when he takes responsibility for his own weakness,
He will find the strength of non-violence,
Is the silhouette
Of a simple spinning wheel.

For when we spin a nuclear future,
When the myth becomes the spin,
We sell uranium as yellow cake,
Yet no-one is prepared to eat the cake at the party,
For the party is not celebrating,
For there are no surprises when economic interests
are the guests at the party,
for they do not bring the present that is truly wanted,
for the next generation can go eat cake.

It is time to teach of renewal,
for renewable sources are pure and regenerating,
as there is no ecological footprint in solar,
there is no hot air in wind,
for kinetics have a thermal drive,
that is the current that does not alternate,
and as each home becomes self sufficient,
the energy industry uses transformers,
to re-direct their energy to new ways,
for there is no such thing as clean coal,
the industrial revolution is over,
the new revolution is social responsibility,
the responsibility to protect,
all interests.