SCARIER

Theres The Rub
Scarier

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:36:00 03/16/2011

Filed Under: Disasters (general), Nuclear power

THE FIRST thing I found scarier than the earthquake itself, or even the devastation it wrought, was how we reacted to it.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read about how local drug stores made a killing in Betadine from people rushing to buy it. Even drug store employees themselves apparently bought some, "just to be sure," as one of them put it. The panic-buying was caused by a text message, presumably based on a BBC report, that said there would be radiation fallout from the explosions in Japan's nuclear facilities which would reach countries like the Philippines. Applying Betadine on the throat would help fight it off.

Well, first off, I don't know that you can stop hoaxes by prescribing penalties for it, however your sense of oppression makes it tempting. Finding the source is next to impossible. This is a country that can spread text messages with the speed of gossip, and the reliability of one. You can only appeal to the pranksters to rediscover some decency and stop being a nuisance if they cannot be a help. At the very least, it shows callousness in the face of tragedy, a capacity to make light of other people's sufferings. At the very most, it does a lot of harm: You never know what a panicked people can do, especially Filipinos.

Our levels of gullibility are particularly high in that respect. You have only to remember how we too started using gauze masks after Americans did in the wake of 9/11 with the anthrax scare. That one you can indict the Bush administration for, the systematic manufacturing of paranoia to gain support for the subsequent invasion of Iraq. If we can buy the notion that the world's terrorists can spread poison in our air—as though we aren't already doing quite a good job of it by ourselves, just look at Metro Manila's smog—we can buy the notion that Japan's nuclear irradiated air can blow all the way down to us.

The way we rush willy-nilly in the face of gossip, indeed the way some of us even think to push gallows humor to deathly lengths, I am profoundly thankful we never went nuclear despite the power outages we have experienced again and again, despite the power crisis that has loomed before us again and again. I am profoundly thankful the Westinghouse plant has been mothballed, though I still think we ought to make the Marcoses pay for that. Nuclear power is a power that can be as much a source of wholesale destruction as it can be a source of wholesale construction. It can as much scorch a country's earth beyond its darkest nightmare as meet its energy needs beyond its wildest dreams.

It is power that may be reposed only in the hands of the most capable governments, in the hands of the most disciplined people. Can you imagine the current nuclear crisis in Japan happening in a country other than Japan? As I write this, a third explosion has already rocked another nuclear plant, and radiation is leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi's four reactors, which the prime minister himself has said could "impact on human health." Some 140,000 people have been told to stay indoors as Japan faces its worst nuclear catastrophe ever. You can see the fear and anxiety in the faces of the citizens. The only reason the world isn't being filled with dire apocalyptic warnings is that somehow it believes the Japanese government and people will see their way through it.

Can you imagine even a minor version of that happening here? The human disaster would be worse than the natural one.

The second thing I find scarier than the earthquake itself, or even the devastation it has left behind, is how the world has reacted to it.

So far most of the reports I have read have depicted the earthquake and tsunami it spawned as though it were just one of the natural disasters that befall humankind every now and then. Unfortunate, but they happen. I know you have to exercise every care and responsibility in treating events like this: Nothing is accomplished by wild doomsday theories that just panic the world. But I don't know why we can't also stop to take a serious view about the state of the planet.

Earthquakes do happen. But when they happen with the frequency and ferocity that they have been happening over the last decade, then it is time to look more deeply at what is causing them. When they happen moreover along with hurricanes and tornadoes across the United States, killer floods in India and China, droughts and frost where they have not happened before, then it is time to wonder if we have not pushed this planet to dire extremity.

Yes, we. The last time I looked at the global warming controversy, those opposed to the theory that it is being caused by carbon emissions were saying that, yes, we are on the brink of global warming, if we have not already slid into it, but it is not man-made, or not entirely so, it is something that happens to this planet every several epochs. Certainly, the contribution of carbon emissions to it is minimal. All we can do is mitigate its effects while still allowing countries to continue to produce at the scale that they do using the cheapest—and dirtiest—means to do so. The survival of the world's populations depends on it.

That is not unlike the tobacco lobby continuing to controvert the finding that tobacco causes cancer despite the preponderance of evidence it does. That debate should be over except that the tobacco companies have turned it into one where you get to dispel your doubts only once you get the Big C. The debate on carbon emissions should be over as well—or at least you would think the world would have decided by now to err on the side of caution—except that the detractors have turned into one where they are proven wrong only after the planet is past saving.

It doesn't get any scarier than that.

--
Antonio L. Buensuceso Jr.