Almost as a necessity, man needed to defend himself from invasion, oppression and attacks. This partly and passively stimulated the development of arms and weapons up to the current hoard of sophisticated arsenals of annihilating contraptions that national armies possess. The need to exert political power and dominance seems to be an even better motivation today for this phenomenon resulting in the so-called never ending arms race. Over the years, weapons have metamorphosed with human orchestration from simple projectiles like stones and pebbles to sophisticated weapons like the atomic bomb.
Should an accident happen, many of us are ignorant about are the subtle effects of less threatening forms of nuclear energy which power our washing machines and our plasma screens to binge on the next game of thrones episodes. The result of emitted ionizing radiation or nuclear waste will manifest as an immediate detriment of our health after a catastrophe should we be within the impact zone, or expressed as long term damage to the earth itself making it less habitable for future humans. But of course nothing can come in the way of me finding out what happens in the next season of game of thrones with Khaleesi and her dragons. The technicalities of how my screen is powered is not exactly what society has conferred upon me to dabble with. My role is to worry and investigate how people get sick and why they in fact do so; after which I think I earn the right to watch Khaleesi ride her dragons oblivious of the magic of nuclear physics that makes my viewing fun.
If fear and the feeling of insecurity are some of the several major driving forces that fuel the development of these arms, the need for cheaper sources of power to satisfy our growing population is responsible for the over-reliance on nuclear energy as a source of electric power. These twin emotions and the illusion of cutting down costs form part of the problems that the presence of these super arms/energy sources have caused the world today.
Many families, cities and countries are more or less in a constant state of fear alien conquest from nations who are not in their golden list of allies. Even allies are not completely trusted these days as evidenced by the interesting spying and counter-spying that flooded the media not long ago with the phone conversations of world leaders being eaves dropped upon. It is well known that this fear contributes to poor economic development because such countries spend much time, energy and money in trying to upgrade their security systems and defend their national territories at the disgraceful expense of social welfare.
Although I am far from claiming to possess expert knowledge on running a country, I am at least aware that the basic necessities of life are obvious to every sane individual. This is true from the neonatal human stage of life up to the complex societal organization in which humans find themselves; and on which many state decisions made are implemented. Considered as a single topic ,it might seem that we forget that society is itself made up of individuals who have basic needs to be met first and do not care about who has the most nuclear war heads across the border. Hunger can really re-organize the priorities of human ambition back to life’s most precious necessities. This could be why sages, like the great the Buddha, Ghandi, Mandela have often dared to go through periods nutritional abstinence and eschew the extra comforts of life even if for only short periods. It is not surprising that they often returned with crystal clear clarity on the human condition. But these are only individuals hand-picked from huge societies. What about the rest of us? It is easy to wave aside time and money meant to improve our social welfare for experiments on the latest new war contraption after having a meal of caviar and vodka. That culinary combination does not seem to help in deciding the opportunity cost or forgone alternative as economists would always advice us to consider in the face of multiple competing choices. Yet many of these state decisions are casually made over dinner. Fear has led to poor economic development because countries that spend so much on defence almost always score poorly on health, social welfare and other important human development indices. I hope that this trend changes with the fresh set of sustainable development goals we have just set.
Beyond arms and as a result of the availability and perhaps low overall cost of this technology, most of the electric power consumed in the developed world comes from nuclear energy. The dangers of a nuclear power plant failure is known to all. Little wonder, they are rarely sited near major cities. The Japanese have been known for being very careful as individuals and as a society; yet, there are situations which are beyond the control of even the most cautious societies as evidenced by the Fukushima nuclear plant melt down in 2011 triggered by both tsunami and earthquakes. Undoubtedly, there will be biological expressions of such disasters several decades to come as cancerous tumours in the lives of citizens. No matter how safe we are able to keep the exploitation of nuclear energy at bay, the unpredictability of force majeure should motivate scientists all over the world to bring to lime-light the numerous technologies for renewable energy that remain in the shadows of their laboratories despite their feasibility and put an end to the seemingly false mirage chase for renewable energy that we have been made to engage in and cling lazily instead on the now obviously failed predictions of the 1950’s, that nuclear power would be extremely cheap which easily garnered much public support at the time; no one wanted another experience of the great economic depression and nuclear energy was the way out; all in the hope of cutting down the running costs and stimulating cheaper local production in industries. Many developing nations lacking anything near the precise spick and span vigilance of the Japanese now dream of building nuclear power plants as if it is an extra feather on their national ego instead of looking just around them and transforming the renewable energy that abounds into power for their economy. What is most shocking is the paradoxical absence of the necessary skills and equipment for diagnosing cancer early enough; yet these nations are eager to tinker in the devil’s workshop.
The possession of sophisticated arms stimulated unnecessary wars between clans in prehistoric times and does so between countries today. Simple disputes which could be settled through adequate dialogue and diplomatic manoeuvres have been left to the nozzle of the gun or the payload of missiles. More countries now feel that they cannot negotiate with “inferior” countries over disputes and prefer to use brutal force when resource sharing is in question; in this case, let’s say some cheap energy source. This is fuelled by a feeling of superiority which is due to the confidence inspired by the sophisticated arms in their possession which they bring to the negotiating table (mentally). One would not expect that as experts taking decisions for the rest of us, they have forgotten that the only items needed to effectively negotiate is a genuine handshake and a warm heart.
Despite the fact the nuclear energy poses the greatest threats to the peaceful existence of humans today, paradoxically, some experts are of the opinion that the spontaneous possession of nuclear warheads by many countries have invariably contributed to world peace indirectly; authors like Yuval Harari Noah have argued in his book Sapiens affirming this point of view. The health hazards that nuclear energy pose to the world are unimaginable and is a clear case of dining on the devil’s table. Although nature has always resiliently overcome several human and non-human disasters as is evidenced by people living through Hiroshima and life rebooting even after a meteorite strike annihilated life millions of years ago, it is our duty as humans that we do not bear in our hands, the reins that will direct the planet to an irreversible gloomy degradation of human life.
On the one hand, we have reached a point where enough energy can be harnessed to wipe out life as we know it by accident or by intention; on the other hand, we have enough technological know-how to generate the energy we need through renewable sources as has been proven by countries like Germany which produced 31% of its energy from renewable sources in 2014. Denmark is even more ambitious and aims to generate about 70% of its energy from completely renewable sources by 2020.
Science has delivered again as faithfully as it always does. It is a matter of choice now, choices which will influence policy and policies which will determine the future. This time, it rests on all of us to decide what hand we will play with the cards we have viz-a-viz our long-term individual, global and planetary health. With wonderful agreements recently signed during COP21 for better environmental health, the time has come when our actions should speak louder than the beautiful rhetorics delivered by world leaders that we cheered to in Paris last year. It is now our responsibility to transform those agreements into a greener planet for everyone. The more money that is spent in the machismo-like arms race instead of on basic necessities like healthcare and nutrition only raises the pertinent question of whether a sickly population can defend itself or better still, what is left to defend if your citizens are sick anyway?
With rays from the sun and the generous force of wind currents, the founding thinkers of science would be disappointed to find that modern man lazily relies majorly on nuclear energy as a source of power to the detriment of living life forms now and more so in the long term. All science is useful but not all science is necessary for a “juicy” life experience; especially not when we waltz with plutonium under the full spotlight of free solar energy that we could very easily transform to power our plasma screens for the next series of game of thrones.
After the Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima and more recently, the near-nuclear accident at the French Flamanville nuclear power station only last week, we can no longer afford any more of these disasters or near-disasters as a species. And although the director of the prefect’s office, Olivier Marmion reassuringly confirmed that the explosion occurred outside the nuclear region and therefore posed no environmental risk, an earthly environment permeated with nuclear particles intentionally or through accidents is not something we can manage or would enjoy dealing with. Having numerous purported “causes” that clog the field of investigation for health scientists researching various cancerous tumours, a world with less plutonium to play around with means that we would be closer to establishing the causation for this chronic disease by eliminating one sure culprit.