Stephen Lendman
Activist Post
In her book titled No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, nuclear power/environmental health expert Rosalie Bertell (1929 – 2012) said:
Should the public discover the true health cost(s) of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.
In her article titled “Radioactivity: No Immediate Danger,” she coined a new word. “Omnicide” describes the ultimate human rejection of life. It’s “difficult to comprehend,” but it’s happening, she said.
She called industrial radioactive pollution “cumulatively greater than Chernobyl. We are now in a no-win situation with radioactive materials, where (it’s) acceptable to have cancer deaths, deformed children and miscarriages.”
Industry propaganda falsely claims nuclear power is clean and green. The nuclear fuel cycle discharges significant amounts of greenhouse gases.
It’s also responsible for hundreds of thousands of curies of deadly radioactive gases and elements in the environment annually.
“Claiming nuclear production of energy is ‘clean,’ ” said Bertell, “is like dieting but stuffing yourself with food between meals.”
Separately, she said:
There is no such thing as a radiation exposure that will not do damage. There is a hundred per cent possibility that there will be damage to cells. The next question is: which damage do you care about?
All toxic hazards are serious, she explained. Nuclear radiation is worst of all. It threatens all human life. “Our present path is headed toward species death – whether fast with nuclear war or technological disaster, or slow, by poison.”
Global suicide is certain. Continued nuclear proliferation and Fukushima accelerated it.
March 11 marked its second anniversary. It’s perhaps the worst ever environmental disaster. Reliable experts call large parts of Japan unsafe. They’re too hazardous to live in.
According to Professor Hiroaki Koide, Tokyo’s as contaminated as Fukushima. Thousands of city residents protested. They oppose nuclear power. They want safe energy sources replacing it.
Radiation contamination is widespread. East Asia, North America, Europe and other areas are affected.
Hazardous air, water and land readings across many areas globally are many multiples too high. Future epidemic cancer levels are certain. It occurs when body cells divide and spread uncontrollably. If untreated, it metastasizes and kills.
Michel Chossudovsky calls Fukushima “a nuclear war without a war.” It’s an “unspoken crisis of worldwide nuclear contamination.”
Tens of thousands of children have confirmed thyroid abnormalities. They reflect the tip of the iceberg. Children are especially vulnerable. No radiation dose is safe.
Karl Grossman wants planet earth made a “nuclear free zone.” We barely made it through the last century without a “major nuclear weapons exchange,” he said.
Nuclear energy in all forms is unsafe. Safe, clean, renewable solar, wind, geothermal, and other energy sources are readily available.
Admiral Hyman Rickover (1900 – 1986) was the father of America’s nuclear navy. In January 1982, he told a congressional committee that until a few billion years ago, “it was impossible to have any life on earth.”
“There was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life, fish or anything.” Gradually the amount subsided. “Now, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible.”
“Every time you produce radiation, (a) horrible force” is unleashed. “In some cases (it’s) for billions of years, and I think the human race is going to wreck itself.”
“I am talking about humanity. The most important thing we could do is start having an international meeting where we first outlaw nuclear weapons to start off with. Then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too.”
“The lesson for history is when a war starts, every nation will ultimately use whatever weapons are available. That is the lesson learned time and again.” “
“Therefore, we must expect, if another war, a serious war breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form. We will probably destroy ourselves.” Widespread contamination acts in slow motion.
Disturbing reports explain. In early April, around 120 tons of contaminated water leaked from Fukushima’s No. 1′s underground storage tank. It contained an estimated 710 billion becquerels of radioactivity.
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Article: 1097 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: (dave “who can do? ratmandu!” ratcliffe)
Subject: Radioactivity: No Immediate Danger? addressing our nuclear illiteracy
Summary: species annihilation–omnicide–is the ultimate human rejection o life
Keywords: our monoculture is a form of suicide; diversity gives us survival.
Date: 25 Jun 1995 21:33:42 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Lines: 414
Species annihilation . . . means a relatively swift (on the scale of civilization), deliberately induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction, and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act that requires a new word to describe it: “omnicide.” It is difficult to comprehend omnicide, but it may be possible to discern the preparations for it, and prevent its happening.
Excerpts follow from the 1991 article (starting 98 lines below) appearing in Ms. Magazine by Dr. Rosalie Bertell, on the no-win situation we, as the curators of Mother Earth, find ourselves in with the man-made radioactive materials created over the past fifty+ years. If we are to be successful in reversing this terminal radioactive poisoning of our home so the seventh generation of human’s yet to-be-born may also enjoy the gift of life and it’s challenges, we MUST inform and educate every person we come into contact with about the true facts of nuclear techonology and it’s lethal and terminal impact on all life on earth for all time.
– ratitor
We are now in a no-win situation with radioactive materials, where it has become acceptable to have cancer deaths, deformed children, and miscarriages. The “benefit,” oddly enough, is not the medical benefit, nor electricity–it is nuclear bombs. The same set of regulations is used for all three industries–energy, medical, and military–and when it comes to the bottom line, the cost benefit ratio is calculated on the basis of preventing a ten-megaton blast on London, Paris, or New York; the final judgment becomes what is needed for “national security.”Now nuclear power proponents have again mounted a synchronized international campaign to push nuclear reactors as a “solution” . . . [T]he reactor is only one small part of the nuclear fuel cycle. It cannot function without the large supporting network of mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, waste disposal, decommissioning, and the web of transportation linking these steps. Claiming nuclear production of energy is “clean” is like dieting but stuffing yourself with food between meals.
What are the alternatives for industrialized countries? A case study of the Federal Republic of Germany using 120 different energy efficiency improvements demonstrated that the nation could maintain its standard of living with a 70 percent reduction in end-use of energy. A 1983 study at M.I.T. Energy Laboratory in the U.S. concluded that improving energy usage by one percent a year caused no social strain and could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050.
Promoting nuclear technology raises false expectations, usurps money better spent in energy efficiency, and substitutes emissions of radionuclides for emissions of carbon dioxide. The intelligent customer will not substitute one pollution for another, but will rather eliminate both by more efficient energy use. . . .
The unmasking of the human species’ terminal illness must involve dealing with violence: personal, family, city, national, and global. Some violence has been renounced, for example, a father’s right to kill his child: but other forms of violence still are seen as “socially useful,” for example, torture, imprisonment, killing children by sending them to war, and of course epidemic violence against women.
If, as a society, we are able to break out of this phase, it will be due to the careful building of a consensus in various social and political groups, which make an impact on the national power structures from within and from without. As they become more international in their thinking and acting, these groups are developing the infrastructure for the global village. Women, who have not become so unnaturally separated from their instincts, need to assume social roles for idea input, facilitating consensus decision-making, and seeing to the equitable implementation of plans and sustainability of the society’s work.
In a special way, women attend to the birthing and dying within society, and we have now turned this concern toward the process of species death–or the birthing of a new way of conducting human affairs that might avert such a death. The inclusion of women and a feminist perspective in the idea, decision-making, and implementation sectors of society is vital for species survival.
This implies for males a general reduction of power over other human beings and a playing down of masculine values, including conflict and violence within nations, workplaces, and families. Although men have always said they go to war for the sake of the women and children, it is apparent that men are willing to hurt or kill women and children in order to go to war, thinking they are serving their nation. There are beautiful aspects of nationalism that we can keep, like customs, language, lifestyle, food. But there is no reason why we need to raise standing armies and kill people who don’t agree with us.
We have much of the infrastructure in place; we have global communication, we have transportation, we know the way to cure most diseases, we have one and a half times as much food as we need for the global population. What we are talking about giving up is the right of a nation to force its own people to kill others, whether internally or externally. That is a very simple thing. Yet if we could do that we could begin to organize on the basis of a global village that would not only respect diversity, but be glad of it, because survival comes from an ability to cope with many changing situations, an ability to share when one part of the world has abundance and another part has need.
Our monoculture is another form of suicide; diversity gives us survival.
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