A short film from Brian Rich, Dial “M” for Meltdown, documents the little-known story of nuclear power’s history in simple pictures. From the creation of nuclear weapons in the US to nuclear power plants all over the world, this story is one to be told.
Dial “M” for Meltdown. from Brian Rich on Vimeo.
Through photos, drawings, and video, here the complex is made very clear. Here, the film makers have described the process of nuclear power, and the protective measures we have tried to build around it. The designing engineers resigned in protest over safety issues with the early commercial reactors, the Mark 1 from GE, a clear warning sign.
We haven’t harnessed nuclear power really, it is not living in the way a horse that can be broken is living. But somehow the nuclear industry harnessed us for a time.
When enough of us see and understand what’s been happening
to create nuclear power, the people’s power will be harnessed. Then I have a
feeling we will have no mining for uranium, no more sales of nuclear power
plants, no more builders of nuclear weapons. No one will work there.
I fear nuclear radiation as my worst nightmare, because as a geneticist I saw how it is so clearly associated with causing mutations. Scientists use irradiation to cause new inherited mutations in all kinds of living things in the laboratory.
My father was exposed to high levels of radiation in the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Japan, in clean up there. Both his grandchildren have inherited genetic disorders, the first in our family history as far as I know. Mutations among the grandchildren are how mutations are first seen in many families. Radiation causes mutations in just this way, the mutations are hidden in the children, like me, and then appear in the grandchildren.
We are a long time from seeing the real effects of nuclear radiation damage from recent disasters that will be inherited. Our grandchildren will see them, and we will tell them the stories of…
- 1945 Nuclear bombing, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Japan by the US
- 1986 Nuclear Meltdown, Chernobyl, in the Ukraine, USSR
- 2011 Nuclear Meltdown, Fukushima, Japan
Germany has said “no” to nuclear power this summer. It’s just a matter of time. What about us? Will we say “no” while we’re still alive to say the word?
Please leave a comment to share your experiences and views.
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7 responses to “Truth is My Worst Nightmare – “M” for Nuclear Meltdown”
Armineh Helen Ohanian-Jennifer, thank God for educated and well informed people like you, and thank you for trying to open our minds. I have had back surgery and a massive neck surgery with a rod and fusion. You can imagine the amount of XRays and CAT scans that I have gone through and still do. I have a horror to think about the harm the radiation from those machines must have done to my body. However, there are no other safe means to detect medical problems. Do you see any new methods or inventions in the near future?
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Jennifer, you continue to broaden my scope of reality. Thanks for writing this post. I hope that many readers will reflect on this.
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I read the post again and it leaves my breathless to think that this is not mainstream news especially in the Pacific Northwest. I live between two giant facilities that are probably 20 miles apart in a population of perhaps 800,000 in the surrounding area. The power plants serve a 7 or 8 million person greater metropolitan city. They are on a great lake. Rochester is across on the other side. Yes I know fear and in this land it is business and government agenda.
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I was alerted to this post at an odd hour in my day so by way of an excuse I will respond in detail tomorrow. Specifically as an addendum to Cynthia’s remarks, British Columbia a Canadian Province on the west coast north of Washington State is renown for it’s salmon stocks. They have recently begun testing for radiation levels as a result of the latest Japanese meltdown. Additionally to J.J.’s post, I have friends in Holland who still talk of the horrors of present day fallout from Chernobyl in livestock. Finally in a recent Herzog documentary whose focus on the discovery of forgotten caves in France, which are historically stunning (cave art/early man) ends with a long shot of the geography revealing a sprawling Nuclear Plant within ~10 miles of the site.
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From my first nuclear power protest, in California in the 70’s, to now, I have been against it. It angers me that others with money make these decisions for everyone. I have never wanted nuclear power plants built. And yet, here they are. It seems especially stupid to have one here in Arizona, where photons rain down on us absolutely free.
Notice how we don’t hear anything about the disaster in Japan anymore? Who’s hushing that up? I’m not an expert on radiation, like you, Jennifer. But can pouring a mountain of dirt, or even concrete on those power plants contain them?
Thought provoking post.
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