We can’t anticipate all the possible outcomes of every human activity, this is just a simple fact. Each action in every moment cascades through endless time, generating effects. Some effects are obvious to all, others are extremely subtle and beyond ordinary awareness. Effects can be large or small, long-lasting, exist only for the briefest moment or get greater over time; we live in a dynamic non-linear universe where the overlapping and intersecting effects of myriad actions generate new patterns of their own. It is said that omniscient beings observe this occurring and for them there is no past, present or future, just a continuum. We ordinary beings, distracted by our worries, attachments, enjoyments, emotions and so forth cannot realize continuum and thus remain confused and ignorant about most everything happening around us.
This truth notwithstanding, from time to time we do see things clearly; we know. This knowing is natural, and without it we could not survive; it abides in every living thing, though manifests in as much variety as life itself. It predates intellect and is one essential quality of life’s primordial intelligence. It includes the basic wisdom of fear, a specific type of knowing that insures survival.
Fear can be our greatest ally or most powerful enemy. When an ally, fear keeps us safe; we naturally recognize situations that are life-threatening. Burning buildings, floods, violence; we need not think about how to react but can rely on the clear intelligence of fear. When fear is used as a tool of manipulation, stimulated by the words of others, its clarity is lost but not its power. Artificial fear, the fear of imaginary outcomes, affects us precisely because we are ordinary beings easily confused.
When the first atom bomb was dropped, humanity’s natural reaction was fear. Everyone recognized that a terrible weapon had been unleashed upon the world, one with far greater destructive power than any weapon known before. As nuclear technology advanced, the weapons became far more destructive and fearsome, but in other sectors of our society nuclear power held the promise of great profit. Used to boil water, the heat of nuclear fission is long-lasting, produces no polluting smoke, and is readily available. What had appropriately been an object of fear became an object of profit.
In the intervening years, hundreds of nuclear power plants have been built. Almost all have operated without serious incident. However, the nature of nuclear power is that a single accident can be enormously devastating. Chernobyl was one such accident, and now the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is another. Such an accident is exactly why we fear nuclear power. We rightly recoil at the prospect of contaminated food, fish, land, water, and atmosphere; ironically, the 1954 Japanese movie monster Godzilla awakens due to radioactivity in the ocean. No longer a metaphor, the destructive monster of nuclear power has been unleashed on Japan where the basic sanity of fear was overwhelmed by an international corporate rush to profit.
The knowing part of us envisioned this 21st century Godzilla. Fear warned us and told us nuclear power was a mistake. No satisfactory radioactive waste disposal solution has been developed. Life-threatening nuclear power plants built ocean-side on earthquake faults should never have been approved or built. Now the innocent will pay a terrible price for the greed of others.
