Content related to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Despite decontamination efforts, some farmers in Fukushima are having trouble bouncing back because of widespread skepticism around claims of safety. The local economy is shifting to include green technology, but it remains to be seen if Fukushima can ever shake its stigma. While the government would like to put the accident in the past, there are some who don’t want it forgotten or excused.
I was hesitant to join an Exclusion Zone tour but not because of radiation: I didn’t want to seem like an insensitive tourist gawking at a disaster. I ultimately went so I could speak with the people who lived there and share their stories. Here is what we heard from people who lived through it – it was both sadder and more hopeful than I expected.
Fukushima is absolutely safe for tourists. In fact, you will absorb far more radiation on the flight to Tokyo than on the ground in the exclusion zone. The image of danger comes from the fact that some places are still closed to the public because of contamination, but cleanup efforts continue (with an expected ¥30 trillion price tag over a 40-year initiative).
When I told friends we would be touring the Fukushima Exclusion Zone, some people were horrified and asked why we would expose ourselves to “that kind of radiation.” Years of misinformation in pop culture and news media have created a general public with such a skewed idea of what happened in Fukushima that many believe it was a second Chernobyl. It wasn’t.
In addition to little being known about nuclear energy in general, there is also little commonly known about the events that took place at Fukushima Daiichi in days following the March 2011 earthquake. A string of failures that seemingly never should have happened in conjunction with each other resulted in the evacuation of 160,000 people and radioactive contamination that is still being cleaned up today.
On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit 80 miles off the coast of Sendai, a city in northeast Japan. The earthquake and resulting tsunami caused major devastation along the coast and critically damaged a nuclear power plant, putting Fukushima on the map and changing the face of the global energy industry. This series details my experience in visiting the exclusion zone nine years later.
For years I have wrestled with the moral quandary of weighing my love of travel and seeing beautiful places in the world with the knowledge that continued air travel to those places will likely hasten their destruction. That knowledge has not stopped me from traveling (at least not yet), but it does result in more frequent pangs of guilt every time I board a plane.
Roughly forty percent of the energy used in the United States goes to power buildings (heating, cooling, lighting, etc.), and nearly half of that energy is used by commercial buildings. Businesses can play a huge role in combatting climate change, starting with improvements in their own facilities. However, before you start saving kilowatts, the first and most important step is examining your organization’s culture.
Individual action and political action are valuable components of fighting climate change, but they are not enough. Energy efficiency related to building operation offers a huge opportunity for savings, as well as a positive impact on the climate. This week I will shamelessly talk about what I’ve learned in my job and the economic, environmental, and health benefits of exploring energy efficiency in your home.
Last week got off to quite a start with Greta Thunberg shaming the world’s adults into taking action for the climate at the United Nations. I was amazed by her speech, her poise, and her bravery, but I was saddened by the fact that she had to be there in the first place. What can we do to answer her call to action?