On the Soapbox

The recent disaster in Japan has certainly made me think. First I thought about how lucky I am that it wasn't here. Selfish I know but that that was my first reaction. Following that I felt sorrow for all the victims. All those people just washed away and gone. Entire towns gone. The suffering has to be terrible. The survivors having lost everything and no where to go. I can not imagine the feelings they must be experiencing.
All of that is quite enough to deal with but to be followed with aftershocks and the threat of imminent nuclear disaster. My God have mercy on them all.
Watching the evening news I keep seeing and hearing about the impending probability of a nuclear disaster. They have already said the radiation leakage is as bad as Three Mile Island but not as bad as Chernobyl. The sense I get is it is just a matter of time. Trying to keep the core cool is proving to be a difficult task to say the least. I make no claim to being anywhere near an expert in nuclear power but have studied the basic principles. During my Navy  years we received a lot of instruction in this area. Not good folks !
After seeing the video footage of the area words my father spoke were brought to mind. He was being interviewed by the Newspaper for reasons I really don't remember. In the course of this interview he was asked about Nuclear power. This interview took place in the late sixties or very early seventies. His response was, I saw the devastation the bombs caused in Japan and man has no business fooling around with that stuff. Or at least it was something similar to that.
After reading that article I had a discussion with him about that. I was young,about 18,and at that age knowing it all like you do, I argued that nuclear power was the way to go. An inexpensive (comparatively speaking) source of energy. No longer would we dependant upon oil,coal, and wood. We could just fire up those reactors and generate all the energy we needed for eons if we so chose. I was surprised by his response. Now let me tell you my father was not an openly religious man. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw him in church. I never heard him speak of God. His response was, man should not fool around with certain things. Splitting atoms is one of them. That is best left to a greater power than man. Man in his arrogance thinks he can control these things but he can not. The amount of power released is awful ! He reminded me that he had seen this first hand.
Throughout the following years I have been reminded of these words. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl most notably come to mind. And now this in Japan. The experts are all talking. They shouldn't have built those reactors in an area subject to earthquakes. Hindsight is twenty twenty. The nuclear power groups will try to down play the severity of the situation. The radiation isn't that bad. Yeah.
Bottom line for me is this, I think my Dad was right. Some things are best left alone. Man has become arrogant in the eyes of God. To presume we can control everything that happens is a huge mistake. No matter your religious affiliation, or perhaps lack of one, to not at least acknowledge the fact man doesn't know it all is asking for disaster. Just because we can do some things doesn't mean we should. The proponents will say we are saving the planet by reducing greenhouse gases. Really it is a cheaper way of producing energy to increase profits. Sooner or later you have to pay the piper as the old cliche goes. With nuclear devices, bombs or power plants, the cost may just be too high.