Fukushima Turns 13 in an Ever-More Nuclear World

March 11, 2024

On the thirteenth anniversary of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, two prominent American scholars discuss the event itself and the current socioeconomic circumstances of the individuals impacted by the nuclear catastrophe.

Speakers' introduction
• Useful information links
Jotaro Wakamatsu's poem

Fukushima nuclear disaster
CNIC-Citizens Nuclear Information Center (Japan)
Simplyinfo.org (“The Fukushima Project”)
Fukushima Prefecture Map showing “transition of evacuation designated zones” 
Fukushima Daiichi Accident (Account by the World Nuclear Association, a pronuclear group)
Concrete melted off ‘pedestal’ for damaged reactor in Fukushima (November 30, 2022)
Minna-no-Data Site (Collective data site of citizens’ radioactivity measuring labs with principal focus on soil)
The Mothers' Radiation Lab in Fukushima
Fukushima Radiation: Will You Still Say No Crime Has Been Committed? (ebook translated and co-edited by Norma Field and Matthew Mizenko)
From Fukushima: To Despair Properly, To Find the Next Step (Norma Field’s extended introduction to an interview with activist leader Ruiko Muto)
Webinar: Nuclear is Not a Climate Solution -4 Mari Inoue (A partial recording of a webinar hosted by the Affected Communities and Allies Working Group on March 9, 2022. The recording explains the underreported impacts of the ongoing nuclear crises in Japan).

Thyroid cancer, children, health
Area Dose–Response and Radiation Origin of Childhood Thyroid Cancer in Fukushima Based on Thyroid Dose in UNSCEAR 2020/2021: High 131I Exposure Comparable to Chernobyl (T. Kato et al, MDPI, 2023)
The 3-11 Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer
3.11 Children’s Thyroid Cancer Lawsuit 
311 Thyroid Cancer Family Association Launch Press Conference (12 March 2016, in Japanese)
A lab of their own: How Fukushima moms led charge for radiation data (March 2023)

Hanford and Downwinder connections
The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice (Trisha Pritikin, University of Kansas Press, 2020); Pritikin’s Downwinders youtube channel
Downwinders youtube channel
Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework (modeled on Hanford TRIDEC)
3/11 Fukushima-California Connection (12-minute excerpts from award-winning documentary, SOS - The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power's Legacy)
Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West (Sarah Alisabeth Fox, University of Nebraska Press, 2018)

Fukushima-Hanford
Hanford Challenge What is Hanford?     
Oregon experts weigh in on contamination beneath Hanford's 324 Building
Rumble on the River #2 - Debunking Nuclear as a Climate Solution
Russell Jim - Voices of the Atomic Project

Taxpayer giveaways for "advanced nuclear" reactors at Hanford:
House Bill Analysis 2024 establishing the development of renewable energy for Washington revolving loan program and account.
HB 2089 is the Capital Budget bill that gives $25M to Energy Northwest to build up to 9 Small Modular Nuclear Reactors at Hanford.
HB 2120 allows the city of Richland to give a property tax exemption for a nuclear fuel manufacturing facility by extending the normal opportunity to provide a tax break by four years to companies expanding the nuclear fuel facility in Richland more time to get through the lengthy nuclear regulatory process.
Guide to new nuclear reactor boondoggle at Hanford in 2024 WA capital budget, suggested comments 2-19-24.pdf

Radioactive water dumping 
#Stop TEPCO Global Postcard Action (Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-free World)
My Fish is Your Fish (16-minute documentary by MISA4ThePacific, the Marshall Islands student association for the Pacific)
Don’t Contaminate the Oceans with Radioactivity (International forum, December 2, 2022)
Exploring Tritium Dangers (Arjun Makhijani, PhD, 2022)
Japan must cease Fukushima dumping and establish independent oversight body, says Japanese nuclear power expert (Interview, The Hankyoreh, February 21, 2024)
Messages of moms from towns housing Fukushima Daiichi, Okuma and Futaba 
The Dangers of Tritium by Ian Fairlie (November 3, 2021)
Webinar: Don’t Nuke the Pacific. Protect Our Ocean. (July 22, 2022.)

Nuclear power is not a climate solution (and efforts to persuade us otherwise)
Smokescreen a two-minute animation video on why nuclear power isn’t an answer to climate change by Fairewinds Energy Education
No Miracles Needed Interview with Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson at Stanford
Nuclear Power is not a Climate Solution an 11-minute animation video by NEIS (Nuclear Energy Information Service, based in Chicago)
“G5” Strengthens Nuclear Ties at Event Hosted by JAIF 
At COP28, U.S. Canada, France, Japan and UK Announce Plans to Mobilize $4.2 Billion for Reliable Global Nuclear Energy Supply Chain (December 22, 2022)

Nuclear weapons, colonialism, imperialism
Symphony B. Fletcher, Land and Labor Acknowledgement (UC Juneteenth 2021: Reparations Panel), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health MPH Candidate 2024 and University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine 2025.
“The consequences of nuclear imperialism and colonialism” (Karly Burch, Marco de Jong, Mino Cleverley, Bedi Racule, Tomoki Fukui)
The United States Is Waging a New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective” (Tricontinental Institute for Social Research)
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Paves Way for Increase in Production of Tritium for Nuclear Weapons, Further Undermining Nuclear Non-Proliferation Norms and Keeping U.S. on Nuclear War Footing (Savannah River Site Watch, February 23, 2024)
The Uranium Atlas: Facts and Data about the Raw Material of the Atomic Age (Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Free Future Foundation, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, IPPNW, 2020)
African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement (Vincent Intondi, 2015)
Ward Churchill* and Winona LaDuke, “Native North America: The Political Economy or Radioactive Colonization,” in The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance, ed. M. Annette Jaimes (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 241–66. *Note from Danielle Endres, “The Rhetoric of Nuclear Colonialism”: I am aware of the charges of plagiarism and academic misconduct against Ward Churchill. After closely reading the report from U.C. Boulder, I found that Churchill's work on radioactive colonization is not indicted in the report. Although Churchill was the first to introduce the term “radioactive colonization,” much subsequent independent research has substantiated the phenomenon. See: Report of the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder (May 2006).

Nuclear Work
Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Gabrielle Hecht, 2014)
Fukushima Nuclear Workers’ Diary: Nine Years Recording the Truth of Daiichi (in Japanese, Natsuko Katayama, 2020)
An Analysis of the State of Nuclear Irradiated Workers’ Labor and Life: An Interview Study in the Nuclear-Dense Region of Wakasa (in Japanese, Kazumi Takagi, 2017)
Network to Think About Nuclear Labor / 被ばく労働を考えるネットワーク (in Japanese)
Exposed work updates (CNIC English)
"Hiroshima, Fukushima and the Japanese nuclear industry" @ Marxism 2012 (Chie Matsumoto, Video, English)
“Nuclear Ginza” (Documentary, Director Nicholas Rohl, 1995, English)

Additional resources
The Big Secret in the Academy Is That Most Research Is Secret (and why it’s hard to win in the courtroom: Kate Brown, AAUP, Spring 2020); see here for statement by lead attorney of Japanese youth thyroid cancer litigation; and here for public testimony by young woman plaintiff
Who’s Who~Kataoka Terumi, a Feminist Christian Fighting for Human Rights (Tomoki Fukui, Nuke Info Tokyo No. 218, January-February 2024)
The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and the Tokyo Olympics (Norma Field’s extended introduction and translation of piece by nuclear engineer Hiroaki Koide contextualizing the Olympics)
This Will Still Be True Tomorrow: "Fukushima Ain't Got the Time for Olympic Games" Two Texts on Nuclear Disaster and Pandemic (Norma Field’s introduction and translation of texts by Ruiko Muto)
Fukushima Fiction:  The Literary Landscape of Japan's Triple Disaster (Rachel DiNitto)
KBoo Radio Interview 2019 (Laura Feldman and Norma Field)
3.11 TWELFTH Anniversary of Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Events and Actions