Fukushima – A Global Threat That Requires a Global Response

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant – April 24, 1989

In April, 1989, with a delegation of U.S., (then) Soviet and European scientists, I visited the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the surrounding area, including the now dead and radioactive town of Pripryat a few miles away. Like fools, for several minutes we stood within 500 yards of the plant. The year before, I was in a place called Hiroshima.

All that is a quarter of a century ago.

For years we have lived in the shadow of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant that made plutonium triggers for atomic and hydrogen bombs. A massive local peace movement – one of the most `creative’ and militant movements I have every seen, closed Rocky Flats. Nancy and I were, in the end, only a small part of that, but we were, like so many people in the Denver-Boulder area, a part of it. Now Fukushima. From Hiroshima to Fukushima, a very dangerous place for all living things, but one that is not on the radar of many people.