NUCLEAR ENERGY: Capitalism’s Disastrous Priority by DiaNuke.org

Chris Williams, author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis, reports on an independent investigation into Japan's nuclear nightmare. (Courtesy:SocialistWorker.org)

THEY MAY not live in castles anymore, but the glass-plated skyscrapers that tower over the great cities of the world, in faceless anonymity, still signify the imperious domain of the ruling elite. It is these places, not the featureless depths of the earth's roiling crust, which were the decisive cause of the triple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant on March 11, 2011.

An independent report by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC), the first independent investigation committee authorized by the Japanese Diet (parliament) in its 66-year history, was released to both houses of the Diet on July 5. The chairman of the report begins with zero equivocation as to the ultimate cause of the nuclear meltdowns, which are still preventing tens of thousands of people from returning to their homes--returns that, for many, are likely never to come:

The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 were natural disasters of a magnitude that shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster--that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.