Japan - Making capital from disaster

I have been amazed at the way that various groups have sought to make capital out of the growing disaster that is the Japanese earthquake situation.

The prize today is awarded to the crass nuclear supporter who telephoned Radio Five to try and counter the equally naff green energy bloke. One was putting forward ideas about green 'safe' energy in the form of wind turbines, wave machines, hydro-electric dams and solar power whilst the other was asking silly-arse questions about the number of people who had died in pursuit of coal in the Chines coalfields each year. When the green protester couldn't answer, the "I design safe nuclear power stations' wally answered his own question! (What a plankton)

In return, Mr 'Green Energy' argued that nuclear energy wasn't safe and pointed to Chernobyl (1986), Three Mile Island (1979) and the like. Of course, having an earthquake wasn't the cause of either of these but why not expand the topic to cover the area we want to talk about?

Meanwhile, two thousand bodies have been washed up in the Myagi and the expectation is that there will be some ten thousand deaths from that area alone and the earthquake has caused around half a million displaced people. All this tragedy and then we find people using it to promote their often-well word arguments for and against nuclear power and more incredibly we find CBNC's financial pundit, Larry Kudlow, telling people that, "The human toll caused by the widespread death and destruction of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami was worse than the toll on the economy 'and we can be grateful for that!" Obviously he doesn't have an Japanese relatives!

Turn on the TV and you'll find the same pictures of exploding reactors, office workers rushing from a shaking building and a bloke sitting on the roof of his house as it floats away from Japanese shores. Not only that but there's the promise of being able to watch footage of the world crumbling for those who have survived if we stay tuned to their channel. Be the first to witness the destructive force of an aftershock which is expected by be around an eight on the Richter scale.

I tuned on to a Christian radio station to hear a woman switching her views about the earthquake being God's judgement on a fallen world and the birth pangs of the end-times.

What ever would we do if we couldn't have the odd tragedies to give us the ability to demonstrate the paucity of human nature, we'd have to go out and start a war somewhere!