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NOTEBOOK 7

4g. Rewrite the details of a significant event in your issues history from the point of view of your
opposition and/or from those whose voices have largely been unheard regarding the issue. What did this
activity help you discover about your issue and those affected by it?

One of the events from my social issue that has taken place recently is the disaster that took place in
Fukushima Japan. It was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It was
started by a tsunami following an earthquake on March 11, 2011. The tsunami disabled the emergency
generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the
reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns and the release of radioactive material in
Units 1, 2, and 3. Loss of cooling also caused the pool for storing spent fuel from Reactor 4 to overheat
on 15 March due to the decay heat from the fuel rods.

Fukushima will likely go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century. Governments and
corporations are not being honest with citizens about the risks and dangers that took place and continue
on today.

Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in temporary housing more than six years after the
horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially reopened to
former residents, but many of those former residents are reluctant to return home because of widespread
distrust of government claims that it is okay and safe.
According to Dr. Caldicott, One hundred tons of terribly hot radioactive lava has already gone into the
earth or somewhere within the container vessels, which are all cracked and broken. Nobody really knows
for sure where the hot radioactive lava resides.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. For over four decades Dr.
Caldicott has been the embodiment of the anti-nuclear banner, and as such, many people around the world
classify her as a national treasure. Shes truthful and honest and knowledgeable.

Following the meltdown, the Japanese government did not inform people of the ambient levels of
radiation that blew back onto the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the
reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.

Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by saying: In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four
hundred tons of highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the U.S. Because the
radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the
fish, and not testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation every day.

This research of this event has reinforced my thoughts about Nuclear Power, Although its relatively clean
energy, the waste left behind, and the ability to lose control of it when mother nature hits, is not worth it
and we must phase out of this power source and onto other safer, stable ways such as renewables.
Works Cited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/15/whats-really-going-on-at-fukushima/

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=pictures+of+fukishima+disaster

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