Decouple5 Maalis 2021

10 Years Since Tohoku & Fukushima feat. Paul Blustein

The Tohoku earthquake which led to the Fukushima accident was the 4th most powerful earthquake in the world since modern measurement and record keeping began in 1900. This earthquake was so powerful that it redistributed earth’s mass sufficiently to shift the earth’s figure axis by 17cm and shorten our days by 1.8 microseconds.

There’s a tendency in the West to forget about the earthquake in our fascination with the nuclear accident in Fukushima. Paul Blustein is a former Rhodes scholar, journalist and writer who has written about economic issues for more than 40 years and lives in Kamakura Japan with his family where he experienced the earthquake and its aftermath. Paul was an early voice of reason dispelling some of the worst radiation fear mongering at the time. He has made a point of supporting the farmers of Fukushima by eating and promoting produce from the prefecture where safe radiation limits are set at 1/10 those of Europe.

In this episode we discuss the lived experience of the earthquake and its aftermath as well as the enormous damage caused by the failure of NRC chairman Gregory Jackzo to correct the record on a modelling error he publisized. This led to suspicion that the Japanese government was suprressing the seriousness of the accident and significantly eroded public trust and exagerated panic.

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