The Natural Lesson About Events in Japan

[AKDavy]

The lesson of Japan isn't about the shortcomings of certain designs of nuclear reactors, or that automobile production can be stopped when a single part only comes from a single source and that source is disrupted, or that catastrophic events can overwhelm emergency services (Didn't we learn that ourselves during 9/11 and Katrina?). And it isn't any sort of economic lesson about world markets and major economic powers and oil supplies. It isn't even about disaster capitalism. The lesson is that Nature is objective. It cannot be bought. It cannot be influenced by fear. It doesn't respond to public opinion polls. It doesn't listen to "leaders." Nature doesn't care what happens in Kyoto, Rio, Montreal, or Copenhagen.

What the U.S. must learn (and I'm sure it will insist on learning the hard way) is that nature cannot be legislated. Lobbyists can twist scientific conclusions; school boards can legislate Creationism as equal to evolutionary biology; Congress can subvert efforts to turn good science into good policy and regulations to address real environmental problems. But ultimately Nature will decide things.

The laws of Nature cannot be legislated or ignored. The complexity of ecosystems cannot be taken for granted. Our dependence on Nature cannot be prayed away; and the capacity for self destruction of a species that has acquired the ability to destroy itself while retaining a dominant world view and social hierarchies developed thousands of years ago by goat herders with one foot still in the Stone Age cannot be underestimated.

Nature is in charge. We do not "conquer" mountains. We do not "defy" gravity. We are specks. Nature did fine, probably better, without a human presence for most of natural history. We will not be judged by Nature because Nature doesn't judge, it just selects those most in tune with the environment for survival.

As a general rule, biologist reject the notion of "group selection." But I can think of no better case of a group being selected for extinction than the human species. It's happened at the local level, and now that humans have infested the planet it can happen at a global level.

Humans have no importance in any cosmic sense. Our only importance is self importance. We will not be missed.

[marions ghost]

1. Nature

Is In Charge. People get deluded by all our amazing accomplishments and forget. But when you go through a natural disaster you learn this without question, and forever. I have been through one and I know it is a turning point. If only more people could understand. Keep talking AKDavy--you are right, but it's a message many don't want to hear, no matter if we destroy the Gulf, the oceans, the farmland, the ground water--everything. Nobody will want to believe it.

So in the case of man-made disasters ie. Fukushima-- you start looking for who to blame. In this one, there's a lot of blame to go around. it is a lesson for all, not just the Japanese.

[AKDavy]

4. Don't you think that a lot of "manmade" disasters

are really just cases of us failing to respect the laws of Nature? For example, we decide to gamble that a quake with a 1/1000 probability won't happen during the thirty-year life of a nuclear reactor, yet the total probably of a devestating quake is 30 x 1/1000 = .03 = 3%.

Manmade disasters are often nothing but playing poker with Nature. And it doesn't help that Congress thinks 2s, 4s, and 7s are wild cards.

Ultimately, Nature determines the half-lives of the radionuclides we play with, and how living tissue reacts to those elements.

I've done a lot of incident investigations in my career, and I once had an engineer working on a project in Interior Alaska's North in February tell me, "I was hoping that it wouldn't get below -30F." In Interior Alaska? In February?? Really???

[marions ghost]

5. Even I can do that math

& yet very intelligent people gambled and lost here. A lot of scientists and engineers (not to mention politicians and business types) are capable of too much wishful thinking. You can talk all day long about your risk assessments but in the end it just boils down to

:wtf: ARE YOU CRAZY?!!!!

Putting (how many reactors is it?--ten at Fukushima and how many more on the coast?)--on the biggest fault on the planet!?! This stuff is too dangerous to be going...duh and oops...after the fact. The nuclear industry needs to be downsized. The shark has been jumped. :grr:

[nc4bo]

2. I think TPTB would create an app. for that, if they could.

Perhaps they already are doing just that.

But I agree with this post so K&R!

[orwell]

3. Nature...

...bats last.