Fukushima and Covid19

 USA has 9/11, Japan has 3/11.  3/11/11 was the date of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that has had some earthquake political implications for Japan.  1606 people died from the disasters but another 2317 died from a chaotic evacuation amidst lack of public health, medical care and suicides.  A sizable area of Honshu Island was evacuated, not just for days but several years.  Now it is ten years later and people are refusing to return.  Formerly the government was trusted and now there is nationwide great distrust. And this could be a similar outcome if the COVID lockdowns continue in USA. 

            The Fukushima area has been rebuilt with roads, railways, and many tons of decontaminated soil. But the long limbo for residents has taken a toll on their spirits.  Families were separated, livelihoods lost.  And the government which had quickly signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement intended to use nuclear energy to meet the goals.  54 nuke plants pre-Fukushima produced 25% of the country’s energy.  Today only 6 plants have re-opened and they produce 6%.  What has gone up?  Coal.  In areas that have received an all-clear for return, only 25% have, mostly elderly. Rebuilding a community is far more difficult than repaving the roads.  We in OK have found this to be the case with Kaw City when Kaw Dam displaced the residents.

            The last elevated-isotope result agriculturally was 6 years ago in almost all areas of the disaster, though a few lands and a small town next to the plant are advisory not to return yet. Power companies nationwide have poured billions into new seawalls, filter systems, hardened emergency generators and other safety assurances.  Why aren’t the other plants allowed to reopen?  Voter sentiment.  Government trust has gone from 61% to 24%.  Japanese used to trust their leaders but have now frozen the nuclear means to which those leaders wanted to become carbon neutral. Azby Brown of Safecast, an NGO in Tokyo observes, “Trust is not a renewable resource.  Once you lose it, that’s it.” Now Gov is advancing renewables, i.e. wind and wave energy to become 60% of usage (solar doesn’t work in a country with 80” of rain a year).  Experience shows these are capable of topping off supplies but hardly of the majority of power.

            Could a similar politics happen in USA in the aftermath of COVID?  First lesson from Fukushima is that keeping people away from their homes was a disaster.  Some say Japan should have only kept restrictions and people from their homes for a month or so.  It was too much disruption with many businesses closed forever.  Will the restaurants come back strong in NYC and the hospital in Slippery Rock?  What if studies show post-mortem that masks didn’t work that well, lockdowns for healthy people only killed lifestyles, that vast numbers of people were treated for depression (as per Fukushima), and statistics were much in error by the fault of people in government who had an agenda?  Trust will fall and particularly trust in government officials.