Saturday, March 17, 2012

Ministry of the Environment Ad on the Train Featuring Mountains of Disaster Debris

This is what the train commuters in Japan have to look at, paid for by the taxpayers whether they like it or not. Its aim is to appeal to the guilty conscience of the Japanese who dare refuse to help out.

What the Ministry and Goshi Hosono don't tell you is that there aren't many people living right next to these mountains of debris in the disaster affected areas in Miyagi and Iwate. There are a few temporary storage locations where there are schools right next to them (I don't know what they were thinking), but they seem to be the exceptions. They don't tell you either that many local municipalities want the debris to remain there.

But the Ministry of the Environment won't bother to tell you that.



Someone on Twitter made a good observation. In Japanese, the Ministry of the Environment is "環境省". The first two characters mean "environment", and the last character means "ministry". However, the last character also mean "to eliminate". So, the Ministry of the Environment is to eliminate the environment. Kind of fitting.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Japan has a free press, they must step up to call this out for what it is - a propaganda campaign meant to manipulate public perception. It is much harder for the other side of the argument to get a fair voice when the power and wealth of a government is shouting this nonsense. I have seen many before and after pictures of parts of Tohoku that show clean up is happening. Of course it is not complete, and of course there are going to be places where debris is being stashed while more urgent priorities are addressed.

Japanese public must be given the chance to see this media campaign for what it is - corrupt officials seeking to channel government money to their cronies in the waste management and transporation businesses. Only in this case, their greed also has the consequence of exposing new areas of Japan to low-dose radiation. Low dose radiation that a significant number of scientists believe is not completely safe.

This spreading out of waste is unnecessary, wasteful and harmful. Further, it is an insult to the Japanese people, who have already suffered great anxiety and psychological abuse from the powers that allowed this nuclear disaster to happen in the first place. These emotionally bankrupt politicians are blind to the fact that they are adding more hurt to the psychological misery their prior policies have already inflicted. Instead of inflicting more stress and emotional suffering, a caring human being would be going out of their way to avoid actions that would cause additional stress and suffering. These politicians are sociopaths and should be removed from office as expeditiously as possible.

Darth3/11 said...

link to the picture is broken...will check back later.

Anonymous said...

Darth's comment should not be construed as ignoring the well written comment from Anonymous. I doubt the two are related.

Anonymous said...

The people of Japan calling the politicians sociopaths. LOL .
The idiom Pot calling kettle black immediately comes to mind!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 7:59PM: Sounds like hate speech. Comment should be removed.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 7:59PM, please tell us your experience in your own country.

@anon at 8:01PM, I don't think it is hate speech.

Chibaguy said...

Do you know how annoying it is to see this on the train in person? This first showed up a week or two ago on the trains and every time I see this it is like a slap in the face. The city of Chiba accepted the debris. Idiots!

Anonymous said...

I can't believe I am fleeing Japan to get away from all this and some numbnuts wants to bring this nightmare to Australia. Two words. NO WAY!
There was an article today in The Age about how an ex-minister of the Howard Govt wants to bring Fukushima soil to Australia. No doubt to dump on native lands.
I am gobstruck.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 8:28PM, do you have the link to the article? That's just insane, but that's also proving the point that "it's all about money".

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 8:28PM, never mind, I found it.

Anonymous said...

Bring it on over...

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/166053/20110620/tennessee-nebraska-radioactive-oak-ridge-safe-threat-nuclear-waste-energy-german-incineration.htm

Anonymous said...

The bulk of the debris resulted from the tsunami, and at the estimated 22.5 million tons, it is only about 1.5 times of the debris resulted from the 1995 Great Hanshin, according to the JP Ministry of Environment.

See Mainich News here:
http://goo.gl/gJA2W

I lost an aunt in the 1995 disaster. My brother from Osaka pedaled an old bike for 3 days (because all rails, highways, telephones between Osaka and Kobe were knocked down). He found her apartment building totaled, as well as the entire city. It took a few weeks to find the bodies of the apt residents because no roads meant no equipment to bring in.

Anyway, in the 1995 disaster, no one was forced or offered to accept the debris from Kobe. The people in Kansai area (western Japan, namely Kobe and Osaka) handled the clean up and recovery pretty much on their own. No central government pushing other so do anything or even helping out much.

So, what is different this time?

By forcing every community all over Japan accepts and burns the debris from Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, and Eastern Japan -- which everyone knows radioactively contaminated, the JP government can essentially wipe out 'clean areas' from the national landscape. That is actually a great thing for them.

By eliminating possible 'control' environment and population (clean population and clean regions), the JP government is rendering it impossible for scientists and medical researchers to conduct sound research and analysis of radioactive effect down the road.

This also helps the JP government to limit and deny future liability payment to Fukushima nuclear victims. They can say, "see, your radiation exposure is not so much different from Okinawa, etc. you were never in higher risk than the people in other locations..."

Of course, some politicians are motivated by greed and power. Looks like this is the case of Australian government.

Darth3/11 said...

So how does this poster square up the JR poster campaign that lasted for months and just got taken down after 3/11/2012? I'm referring to those faux-natsukashi/nostalgic weird retro posters of pretty girls from the 1950's in pigtails smiling and eating huge apples held in both hands....and the others...encouraging us to "Visit Tohoku".

Which is it, JR propaganda machine: utter raving disaster or spotless fun in the sun?

My annoyance is fueled, I guess, by my horror of the plot underway to cover Japan in a sheen of (hopefully) mild radiation. Just to insure that "No one is to blame". Utterly despicable.

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