Fall-out

The air is getting crisp. Warm days have become cool days. Autumn is leaving and winter is coming. Change is peeking out from the shadows.

Autumn is my favorite season. It is a break from the heat and humidity of summer. It’s dryer than spring, and it’s full of beautiful colors. I think Japan has one of the best autumns because of its countless temples filled with maple trees making the early night time darkness a bright and vibrant red.

Fall colors at Kodai-ji, Kyoto.

Night is now reaching temperatures in the single digits, and winter will have its cold clutches on the Kansai region soon enough. Riding my motorbike after 5PM, when the sun sets, is like sipping lemonade in a walk-in freezer. For those of you who’ve never done this, it means it’s very cold!

It’s been 10 months since the Tohoku disaster. The region is slowly picking up the pieces of the destruction left in wake of the tsunami. Unfortunately, those pieces are being shipped to other regions of Japan. Already Tokyo is burning debris from Tohoku. Granted, this debris is being tested for radiation and if it has a low enough reading it will be shipped.

It’s great the country is coming together to help out, but the problem is that much of the debris does have radiation, even if it is a miniscule amount. In an unprecedented moronic move by the Japanese government, shipments of contaminated debris will be brought to Osaka to be burned! Now I’m not a radioactive expert, but I know for a fact that burning radioactive garbage will release other radiation into the air, unless proper air filtration is introduced. What is the government thinking?! Radiation should not be spread, even if it’s just a “little bit.” It should be concentrated at its source. No one really knows how much radiation is bad for you, however almost everyone knows that radiation is bad for you. The safest move is to keep radiation levels as low as possible.

Many Osaka residents are opposing the decision to burn debris from Iwate prefecture. I don’t blame them. So far the government has been pretty spotty on the facts of the whole Fukushima situation. At first it may have been in their best interest, but it has created public unease due to many people thinking they are not being told all the facts or simply being lied to.

Nuclear Protesters in Kyoto

It’s a sad situation. Tohoku can’t handle disposing all the debris alone, and the rest of Japan cannot be contaminated. If science and the government is accurate and forthcoming with concrete facts, which I personally believe they have not been, then I can see the logic behind shipping debris for disposal. But as it stands now, I personally am opposed to the idea to possibly contaminate a relatively contaminate free area with one of Japan’s highest population densities.