Friday, September 16, 2011

Potentially Radioactive Lumber to Be Promoted with "Eco-Point" Incentive?

Seiji Maehara, who lost his bid to become the party leader and the prime minister of Japan, has nonetheless landed on a very powerful party position as the chairman of the DPJ's policy bureau.

He went to Fukushima, and after visiting with the evacuees from Iitate-mura, he disclosed his party's plan to use the "eco-point" system for residential housing to promote timber from the disaster-affected area.

Aggghhhhh.

What is the "eco-point" for houses? Well, if you build or renovate your house with energy saving features and alternative energy features (eg. solar panels) the government will give you "eco-points". Then you can use the points at participating stores and buy whatever you want to buy with the points.

Maehara is saying the government may entice builders to use the lumber from the disaster-affected area with "eco-points", even if the potentially radioactive lumber has nothing to do with energy saving.

Iitate-mura's major industry is forestry. Iitate-mura's mountains and forests have been contaminated with whatever fell on them - radioactive cesium, plutonium, strontium. No one has tested them (if someone did, he's not saying anything), but the contamination should be an order of magnitude bigger than the radioactive firewood from Rikuzen Takata City in Iwate Prefecture.

If Mr. Maehara has his way, the contaminated trees are to be cut from the contaminated mountains and hauled out of the mountains, disturbing the contaminated soil and dead leaves, and made into lumber in a village with high air radiation level and sold all over Japan with "eco-points", in order for the rest of the Japanese to help the villagers.

This is "socializing the cost" to the extreme.

From Sankei Shinbun (9/17/2011):

民主党の前原誠司政調会長は17日午前、福島市を訪れ、東京電力福島第1原発事故で避難した福島県飯舘村の住民が暮らす仮設住宅を視察した。住民との対話で前原氏は、原発事故に絡む不適切な発言で辞任した鉢呂吉雄前経済産業相について「皆さんの気持ちを踏みにじった。与党の一員として心からおわび申し上げたい」と謝罪した。

Seiji Maehara, chairman of the policy bureau of the Democratic Party of Japan, visited Fukushima City in the morning of September 17, and visited with the residents of Iitate-mura in their temporary houses. They evacuated to Fukushima City after the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant accident. In the dialog with the residents, Maehara apologized to them about Yoshio Hachiro, who resigned the post of Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry after his inappropriate remarks concerning the nuclear accident. Maehara said, "His words trampled down your feelings. As a member of the ruling party I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart".

 視察は、東日本大震災の本格的な復興予算となる平成23年度第3次補正予算案に被災地の要望を盛り込むのが目的で、前原氏は住民から要望が相次いだ放射性物質の除染作業の迅速化に関して「3次補正で思い切った予算を計上したい」と応じた。

The purpose of his visit was to incorporate the demands from the disaster-affected area into the 3rd supplementary budget plan for the fiscal 2011, which will be the budget for the recovery in earnest from the March 11 earthquake/tsunami disaster. Maehara responded to the decontamination request from the residents, by saying "We want to appropriate a large sum for the effort".

 また、被災地の木材などを使って住宅を建設した場合、「住宅エコポイント制度」を活用できるよう検討していることも明らかにした。前原氏は対話後、県庁で佐藤雄平知事と会談。佐藤氏は「政府の復興基本方針がまだ形になっていない」と国の対応の遅れを指摘し、復興基金の創設を求めた。

He also disclosed that he [or his party] is discussing the possibility of utilizing "residential eco-point system" if residential houses are built with lumber from the disaster-affected area. After the dialog with the Iitate-mura residents, he met with Governor Yuhei Sato. Governor Sato pointed out the slow response by the national government, and urged the creation of the recovery fund.

 前原氏は午後、宮城県へ移動し、村井嘉浩知事らと会談。がれき処理状況も視察する。

Mr. Maehara will go to Miyagi Prefecture in the afternoon to have a talk with Governor Yoshihiro Murai. He is also scheduled to survey the debris clearing operation.

To the right-leaning and the US-favoring (and nuke-favoring) Sankei, Maehara is a darling, WikiLeaks or not.

"Oh it's just outside of the trees that is radioactive. In lumber, there will be no radiation, it's safe" will be the mantra. "Don't you want to help the victims of the accident?" will be another.

My answer: so what? and no. Not through buying their radioactive goods.

Iitate-mura's so-called "decontamination" of farmland and houses is expected to cost 200 billion yen, or US$2.6 billion. Part of the "decon" bubble, as Iitate-mura's "decontamination" is to be done by the national government and its researchers (as if they know anything about radiation decontamination on a massive scale), with the help of large general contractors.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Japanese media is printing that the leaves have contained all of the radiation from the tree.

kintaman said...

I am completely finished with buying ANYTHING from Japan. Japan, to me, is finished. I cannot trust the government of this country to do anything right or tell the truth so I will, as painful as it is for me with my Japanese heritage, no longer have anything to do with it. If people of Japan cannot stop this by standing up to their corrupt government then they are truly finished. This is a sad era for Japan in history and the traitors have made themselves known.

Anonymous said...

The best part is, Japanese politics has always worked this way. Except now everyone's watching. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Do people not understand radioactive timber from their forests would turn into radioactive wooden products for themselves? Can't believe it.
Dear blog's owner, there's a mistyping after
"From Sankei Shinbun (9/17/2011)" - there should be "chairman". Thou your neologism is not bad at all. ==Elena==

pat said...

Anyone with any sense should pull out of japan now.
The contractors want every yen they can get, and the
government wants to pretend everything is fine.

Anonymous said...

Better build houses using concrete… errr.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@elena, thank you. LOLOLOL

@anon at 1:09AM, concrete may be mixed with radioactive ashes from sewer sludge plants. Lose-lose situation.

Anonymous said...

Mental illnes can be a terrible thing to see.

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking a 50 mile radius planted with non indigenous Conifers,Araucaria araucana offers a useful addition to the afforesters arsenal,though not the Bunya-Bunya pine.

Anonymous said...

Cunninghamia Lanceolata is another,uses could be restricted exclusively to coffins and charnel houses.

Anonymous said...

The 50 mile exclusion zone could be forcibly leased in perpetuity from the refugees by the Japanese government for afforetation.

This socialises the financial cost and reduces the spread of materials hazardous to the Japanese.

Anonymous said...

I break it down further,planting begins fifty miles out and then your radioactive sludges and burnings are stabilised as a concrete wall a few miles in as the geology dictates,planting continue over many years heading further towards the source.

This provides a means of containment and enterprise,it's the sane thing to do.

Anonymous said...

BUT this political minnow will NOT get his way.

Anonymous said...

"The best part is, Japanese politics has always worked this way."

Precisely! Many years ago we read Van Wolferen's "The Enigma of Japanese Power" and tut-tutted at dysfunction and corruption in the system but for the most part didn't give much further thought because it didn't seem to affect us directly.

Well, with Fukushima the dysfunction and corruption have become something of a matter of life and death and, as EX-SKF so ably relays day in and day out, the response of the system has been: more of the same.

This is what has driven me to give up on Japan. If the powers that be here had responded to the Fukushima catastrophe in a manner that indicated some awareness of the problems that caused it and an ability to learn from them there would have been cause to hopeful about Japan's future. As it is, perhaps not.

Anonymous said...

6:18 AM

I agree but the issue here is that all this events are affecting to other nations and citizens who used to live there and move out too.

Remember that Japanese Government when the Americans got to Okinawa in WWII, they told they own citizens to commit suicide better than to get captured... and family fathers obey this orders and ask their own sons to kill themselves.

This history has been erased from textbooks and ellite do not consent to talk about it...even do their own citizens remember all about this.
History is repeating itself

Japanese people hide very well under they KATA, to those who do not know them.

In Fuku.case it sounds like the ellite want to clean up they own race as hitler wanted to do...

Anonymous said...

The guy is looking out of his window,kinda half expecting but also half dissapointed that so far Mosura has not shown up to do battle with the Atomic brained Tepco machine monster that is currently gobbling up Tyvec boil in the bag offerings and beaming mind control waves at TV comfort women.

Anonymous said...

12:10,
Parodies in blowing bubbles, parody in regulation now need to measure radioactivity, parodies in morality now "Don't you want to help the victims of the accident?" .

All folded into 'Why do you still trust the govt.? It is because of them we do what we do.'. 'Don't you feel guilty because of what we do?'.

Anonymous said...

Hmm,the Danse Macabre

Anonymous said...

(cr here)

If Mosura is busy elsewhere, then all the people better just rise up and retire this govt themselves.

Rather than wait so long they aren't healthy enough to do it, citizens should weed out the corporate/govt psychopaths:

move the culprits out of their mansions in safer areas, and move the nuclear refugees in.

TEPCO and all the past/present in govt who supported nuclear plants, and, this year's Radiation Coverup minions (like, those school administrators !!) can hand over their bank accounts and go live onsite.

You said it, kintaman:
"If people of Japan cannot stop this by standing up to their corrupt government then they are truly finished."

What a waste of a land, and of future generations' health.

Meanwhile, the whole Northern Hemisphere is getting more and more fallout and bioaccumulation; spreading the harm to everyone.

Anonymous said...

And the burning of radioactive debris. Somebody on enews said Neptunium was in the rainwater in Maryland, east coast U.S.


And yes, Danse Macabre, they do it.

tony roma said...

these madmen,these lunatics seem so normal in cheap corporate suits..
one gets the feeling they have already organized,new homes in one of the chinese ghost cities.
if Seiji Maehara stays come the day of judgment i hope he and his like will be torn apart.
The Danse Macabre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcm1DYtGPNE

Anonymous said...

In your article pic Seiji looks like he just got wind of a stray anonymous fart.

Anonymous said...

Laprimavera, do you think Maehara and his ilk really want to spread radioactivity around Japan? If not, how do you think they justify (to themselves) what they are saying?

It seems that all the elites are seriously out of touch with reality. Seriously: Kan helicoptering around Fukushima, breathing in the radioactive fumes; the head of TEPCO "apologizing" by saying "sorry, we've damaged our image and lost your trust, but don't worry, we'll soon put it right with a massive PR campaign!" They are like kids who've watched too much TV and just cannot grasp the severity of the situation.

As someone commented here earlier, perhaps this is how Japanese politics have always been, only now it's all out on public view. It's a seriously disturbing sight.

Anonymous said...

The Japanese philosophy is that a shared burden is a lighter burden for everyone. In the West, a shared burden is extending misery to more people.

If this was a virus outbreak, Fukushima pref. probably would have been isolated and cut off from the rest of country rigorously to avoid spreading the disease. Rationally speaking, this also needed to be done here. Nothing goes out, total quarantine except for people wanting to migrate. No goods.

Politically impossible.

Unknown said...

I think that the radioactive lumber was not good for our health. we must not tolerate this. American Lumber Wholesale Shipping

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