60,000 protest nuclear power in Tokyo

[kristopher]

Japanese urge "farewell" to nuclear power six months after quake

TOKYO | Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:18am EDT

(Reuters) - Sixty thousand protesters gathered in central Tokyo Monday demanding an end to Japan's reliance on nuclear power, six months after the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Japan has banned people from within 20 km (12 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan, which had its reactor cooling systems knocked out by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, triggering meltdowns.

Some 80,000 people have been evacuated from the area around the plant, which is still leaking radiation, in the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986 which prompted the government to rethink its energy policy.

...Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan told Japan's Kyodo News that he had learned that around 30 million people in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures might have had to have been evacuated in a worst-case scenario.

"It was a crucial moment when...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-japan-nuclear-idUSTRE78I1HQ20110919

[kristopher]

1. Kick

[proverbialwisdom]

2. "..US paper Forbes article without photo, title declares 'Thousands march against nuclear power'..."

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/photographs-of-60000-strong-anti-nuke.html

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Photographs of 60,000-Strong Anti-Nuke Demonstration in Tokyo: Japanese MSMs Called It "A Parade"

Looking at this aerial photographs taken by Mainichi Shinbun (one of the better ones in terms of even coverage on nuke issues in Japan; another is Tokyo Shinbun), it sure looks more than 60,000 to me. People who actually participated in the event seemed to have the same impression as mine (on this blog comment sections, and on twitter), that it was far bigger than official number by the police (30,000).

Mainichi quotes the organizers' number of 60,000 people, and also quotes the number by the police (30,000):





Meanwhile, photos from Germany's Spiegel and France's Le Monde, who used the photos from AP and other agencies. Spiegel puts the number at 60,000:





and Yomiuri, who says "more than 30,000 people gathered" (exactly the police official estimate):



Asahi, slightly better perspective but not much, but the article does quite the organizers' number, 60,000 people:



and the US paper Forbes, without photo, says "tens of thousands of people marched", but the article title declares "Thousands march against nuclear power in Tokyo". Thousands??

Many participants in Japan are indignant that their demonstration was called a "parade", as if this was some festival attraction. Well, give the media time to learn. To me, it's amazing that the MSMs like Yomiuri and Asahi covered the event at all, and even had photographs. Asahi and Mainichi sent in their own photographers for the event. (Yomiuri's looks like Jiji Tsushin's photo.) I would take it as a sign that the anti-nuke movement may be crossing the threshold in Japan in terms of the number of people, and the MSMs cannot simply ignore anymore.

Calling it a "parade" and using the lowest official estimate by the police as the number of participants is a classic way to belittle a movement

[proverbialwisdom]

3. Recommended resources.

Here's what I read after 3/11/11:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41vACW6ewuL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
CHERNOBYL HEART by Adi Roche

VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL, The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Keith Gessen (Translator)

http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf (FREE online PDF (349 pages):
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
by Alexey Yablokov (Author), Vassily Nesterenko (Author), Alexey Nesterenko (Author), Janette Sherman-Nevinger (Editor), Dmitry Grodzinsky (Foreword)


Nader on Yablokov study below:
http://counterpunch.org/nader04272011.html
April 27, 2011
Concealing the Consequences
Chernobyl 25 Years Later
By RALPH NADER
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Discussion-on-Nuclear-Crisis-in-Japan-and-the-25th-Anniversary-of-Chernobyl/10737420512-1/
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.118-a500

[SpoonFed]

6. Great line in the Nader link about the Yablokov book...

...that upsets the fantasy modeling by the nuclear industry and its apologists regarding the worse case scenario...

[proverbialwisdom]

4. Arnie Gundersen on CNN: recs http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/ and enenews.com (video on homepage).

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/60000-strong-anti-nuke-rally-in-tokyo.html

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

60,000-Strong Anti-Nuke Rally in Tokyo: How High Was the Radiation Level?

One demonstrator got curious and turned his personal survey meters on from his home in the high radiation Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture to the rally in central Tokyo.

He found that right by the sidewalk where smartly dressed young people were walking by, the radiation level near the ground under a tree was 0.31 microsievert/hour. It was about 30 meters from the Jingu-mae Intersection near Omote Sando, he said.

The Tokyo Municipal government's official measurement is 0.06 microsievert/hour.

On his blog, he called the experience "surreal", seeing the cheerful demonstrators and seeing the high number on his survey meter.

Much as I admire people finally standing up, I wish there were more people like him, armed with personal survey meter and measuring everywhere. Personally, radiation contamination is a more pressing, immediate problem that people can still do something about it, while stopping the nuke plants is a longer-term project.

[madokie]

5. Ten years from now the face of energy will be completely different from today

They'll be a lot more wind and solar and I suspect our lakes used as storage for both especially for wind. Nothing says we can't be pumping water back up into the lakes for later use from the rivers below during times of excess wind. Wave power is coming into its own as is geo-thermal. Yeah ten years from now the face of energy will be totally different from today.