Arnie Gundersen Discusses The Fatal Risks Of Fukushima Fuel Pools

Letter to Stephen Hawking:

Hello Stephen,

The guiding thought is: Have we annihilated ourselves already, but don’t know it? Old hat but maybe pertinent.

I thought it was topical given latest events from Japan. I’ll try work out the other implications: if all mathematicians are annihilated, is there still mathematics? etc.

On to the plot:

We live in interesting times, and so on.

Today I imagined a debate taking place between, say, the best of Oxford and the best of Cambridge on the real state of human affairs as an alien would see it in her spaceship whirling above this planet and how we might frame a question of the greatest and earth-shaking pertinence to everything going on right now, as we all purport to see it.

(No, not What is Truth? [I had that as a Grade 10 History question]).

Now, a very important email was sent from Buckingham Palace up to the aforementioned observer-ship chosen requesting advice on a suitable question – but was very-kindly returned to the sender for the following reason:

The alien did not want to come up with THE question and would prefer to leave it to the inhabitants below. (It seems she had studied the earth-culture for some time and concluded it was completely illogical – nuts even).

In fact, the alien had observed that there were quite brilliant minds among the inhabitants but that individual brilliance was insufficient to save them from certain annihilation. That, though countless examples of utter brilliance manifested themselves in journals and writings and books and on
the back of envelopes, in universities and Zen monasteries and thinktanks and goodness knows where else (taxi drivers, prostitutes) and though they patted themselves on the back with so-called Nobel Prizes and whatnot, in the end they lacked the collective wisdom necessary to prevent doing themselves in with radioactive particles (the ionizing kind).

“They certainly were a bright lot, but ultimately they were completely stupid.”
(—-alien lady)

It turns out she had prognosticative equipment on board that gave clear video on future events based on an extrapolation of all immediately-and-far-off-occurring past events. She could see humankind on both a broader scale and yet, like I Dream of Genie, still zoom in on particular events, like regional wars and so forth, so naturally the Palace was interested in what she could see from her vantage point). The Queen had actually met secretly with the creature and was surprised by her appearance – an ordinary english girl but with a couple of small discrete tentacles that sometimes extended from the back of her head but normally covered by her beautiful and flowing locks.

As it happens, while she was having her morning cup tea up in the ship, reading the Sunday Times and nibbling on dried lizard tidbits, a huge earthquake happened on earth and a series of nuclear reactors blew up causing all manner of inhabitant-made particles to spread far and wide – in the air, on the wind, in fish, birds, pollen, used cars, people, animals, mushrooms, wild boar, deer and grasshoppers. They also dumped a lot of it in the ocean where the the phytoplankton which starts their food
chain live.

Cesium, as the inhabitants called it, (134 & 137) was the main culprit and the spread of it, among the other thousand or so isotopes (like Americium, Iodine, Strontium, Uranium) was causing noticeable genetic and other
aberrations in the ape-like creatures there – such as feminization, decreased fertility, birth aberrations and so on. They would throw bits of these things at each other in war as well, causing problems that you’d have to measure in the billions of their earth years. It all began spreading in food in the northern parts then went south through their trade and transportation systems. Seaweed, rice, vegetables, fruit (even people) – everything was affected.

In any case, a special telegram was dispatched from the Palace and the super-brilliant alien-lady read it and gave it a bit of thought.

She knew about the reputation of Cambridge, and Oxford too, and was quite aware that certain things had to be said in a certain way. She also knew that, among their shenanigans, and due to these reactors other particles, “buckey-balls” and “hot particles” had escaped. The apes went about their daily lives, but some of the particles had lives measured in billions of years. It ended up that the monkey-like creatures and the plants and animals on the planet actually went completely dead and the video showed it quite clearly. But, she went along with the game.

The question she proposed was:

“Have we destroyed ourselves already?”

Both the Yays and Nays would have to prove their point.

(It turns out the aliens, with their prognosticative video-machine were mildly amused, amazed even that all the monkey-things lay dead down there. They blinked thrice or more to each other before finishing their pizza and zooming off into hyperspace).

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Kindest Regards and Best Wishes
b.c.
Vancouver Island, B.C.