On 16th June 2011, Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation company famous for Spirited Away, Ponyo, and many other films, hung a banner against nuclear power on its rooftop.
The banner says ‘Studio Ghibli wa Gen-Patsu Nuki no Denki de Eiga o Tshukuritai’, which means ‘Studio Ghibli would like to make films without Electricity from Nuclear Power.’
According to the studio, this banner is Director Hayao Miyazaki‘s idea. As you can see though his films, he is very keen on the environmental issues. Last September he took his Totoro character goods off from the shop at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Energy kan, the place to promote the safety of Nuclear Plant.
British media is not broadcasting the disaster in Japan as much as it used to, things are not looking very good. The telegraph mentioned about ”The discovery of a rabbit born with no ears close to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant “.
What is more scary, when this person uploaded this film footage on YouTube, people who saw this clip are posting negative comments and trying to take this footage down and saying this footage is fake. Finally Sankei Newspaper confirmed this footage is genuine.
There is a very heart breaking news article Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think on ALJAZEERA website. Please have a read.
I found this film footage on YouTube, Fukushima Nuclear Plant Accident -Koriyama-city citizen’s worry. This footage shows after the accident lots of children in Fukushima area have bad nosebleed and they got diarrhoea much more often. Same thing happened to people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, when the atomic bombs were dropped during World War II.
If you are not living in Japan, You might think ‘Well we are OK because we don’t have earthquakes and tsunami.’ Sadly that is not true. According to the newsletter of Councillor Ray Davies, there is a possibility of the danger of Oldbury and Hinkley Point – which is not very far from Cardiff. He says already Bristol Channel suffers from low level radiation leaks from these two extremely old nuclear power stations.
Ray Davies represents the council on the British/Welsh Nuclear Free Forum. If you are not sure where the nuclear plants are in the UK, please have a look on Wikipedia.
Yes we do need the electricity for our daily life. But, if anything happens to your nearest nuclear plant, What do you do? It is easy to say ‘Drop everything, Evacuate’, but what happens after? Where do you live? How do you earn money? How do you make a plan of your life?
Next time when you turn on the light, or watch telly, or use any electricity, please have a think where that electricity comes from? How it is made?
I hope people will learn something from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and now Fukushima.
This is my personal opinion and, as a person born in Hiroshima, I do feel strongly that I have to speak up and tell people how dangerous nuclear power is.
Eiko Meredith
