Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk: More Evidence of the Same

In 2013 I published a book titled Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk, describing how risks from the disaster were "privatized" as individuals and communities had to assume responsibilities for monitoring and reducing health and environmental hazards produced by the high levels of contamination from the 3/11 disaster at Daiichi, involving 3 nuclear meltdowns.

In 2016, I wrote a book that compared how risk was managed across three disasters - the BP oil spill, the financial crisis, and the Fukushima crisis, demonstrating that across cases individuals and communities were left with damaged eco-systems (social and/or ecological) and concerns about personal impacts.

Nothing has changed. As crumbling infrastructures and climate change wreck havoc upon our lives expect that individuals will be left picking up the pieces from their shattered lives:

Simon Denyer (February 3, 2019). Near site of Fukushima nuclear disaster, a shattered town and scattered lives. The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/near-site-of-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-a-shattered-town-and-scattered-lives/2019/02/02/0dea7886-1e8c-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html?utm_term=.b603d4bbdf41
….But many residents say the central government is being heavy handed in its attempts to convince people to return, failing to support residents’ efforts to build new communities in places like Nihonmatsu, and then ending compensation payments within a year of evacuation orders being lifted.

“We are upset. Everyone is upset,” said Sasaki, the former farmer.

In other towns around the nuclear plant, people have complained that arbitrarily decided compensation payouts — more for people deemed to have been in radiation-affected zones, far less for tsunami victims, nothing for people just a mile outside the zone most affected — have divided communities and caused resentment and friction.

The government is building and fortifying sea walls along hundreds of miles of the Pacific coast to prevent another tsunami from wreaking havoc, but some residents say they weren’t consulted and aren’t happy about being shut off from the sea.