From Chernobyl to Fukushima Daiichi in no easy lessons.

As we await the outcome of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi, quite a few observers have been thinking back to Chernobyl, which occurred 25 years ago next month.

The Long Half-Life of Chernobyl, by Felicity Barringer (New York Times)

... There are sparks of recognition that drive home the similarities, too — for example, the selflessness of the Japanese plant workers laboring in the radiation danger zone, described by my colleagues Keith Bradsher and Hiroko Tabuchi in Wednesday’s newspaper.

Personally, as I try to filter lessons from these two differing, but still similar instances of present-day mankind poisoning mankind's future, the book "Annals of the Former World" by John McPhee keeps tugging at my attention.

The book is about geology, mainly, and my reading group tackled it last year. One of the points that has stuck with me is mankind's general inability to fathom deep time. Obviously, evolution makes no sense if God created the world 6,000 years ago. It assuredly does in the context of millions of years of time, during which continents can move great distances, and yes, apes can turn into people.

Deeper time is what it will take to make places like Chernobyl safe again (go here for recent photos), and yet as a society, we still demand and take environmental shortcuts every day, even when we know better. The firemen in Japan and the Ukraine knew better, in the sense of duty posing clear hazards, and they did their jobs, anyway.

I wonder when the little people in all of us will understand that sort of impulse.

http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/