Truth is My Worst Nightmare – “M” for Nuclear Meltdown

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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