Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Mimi German, Helen Caldicott, Janine Bandcroft Dec. 16, 2013

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

As the birth date of Homo technologicus is debatable, so too the end time of the age will be difficult to determining with any certainty. I imagine post-technopocalyptic sociologists, sitting about the fire asking: "Was it the Industrial Revolution, Capitalist production models, or runaway resource extractive technologies that put an end to the era; a combination of these factors; or, was it something else?"

Could I be there, I would mark on the cave walls with my charcoal stick the date: March 11th, 2011. The day Fukushima blew.

More than a thousand days since the disaster in Japan, four of Fukushima's Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactors are wrecked, with three melting down. The plant is today spewing poison radiation into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean, and so far nobody knows how to stop it.

Listen. Hear.

In fact, Pacific Rim governments have remained unnaturally quiet about the disaster, refusing to either monitor radiation levels, or report findings, (if they have them) to their respective populations.

Mimi German is an Oregon-based citizen activist with the grassroots group No Nukes Northwest, and founder of Radcast.org. Because the government won't move to provide information she deems essential for public health and safety, a network of monitoring stations to keep an eye on radiation levels from California to Alaska has been formed; and, they've have hooked up with like-minded activists farther afield too.

Mimi German in the first half.

And; Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and lecturer, who has for more than thirty years studied, written, and campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their derivatives, delivering impassioned speeches and making imprecations to both the suited and unsuitable politicians and power-brokers overseeing the precarious atomic tinderbox reality of our modern lives. Dr. Caldicott's book titles include: 'If You Love This Planet,' 'Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer,'The New Nuclear Danger,' 'Depleted Uranium: Metal of Dishonour,' and 'If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth.' Caldicott was in California recently to attend the premier of Lawrence Johnston's new documentary film, 'Fallout,' on the making of the Hollywood film based on Neville Shute's seminal book, 'On the Beach,' a tale nuclear apocalypse and humanity's last survivors. I spoke to Helen from her home, and setting of Shute's book, Melbourne, Australia a few weeks ago.

Dr. Helen Caldicott on the beach fifty years later in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good to do in and around our city, and beyond too, in the coming week. But first, Miriam German and what's on our beaches?

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.