Abstract
"The Progress of material, artificial civilization casts society into darkness. Electricity is discovered and the world is darkened." Shozo Tanaka wrote this in his diary just before his death. This entry cuts to the essence of Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power accident. When Japan eked out a victory in the Russo-Japanese War and began to electrify society in earnest, Tanaka asked if there exists a philosophy that uses electricity as a symbol of civilization. In the face of serious mineral poisoning brought on by the rapid modernization of the Ashio Copper Mine, he stressed the importance of morality to control technology from the perspective of nature and life as opposed to overreliance on knowledge. The unprecedented nuclear power accident that occurred along with the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake has infused Tanaka's warnings with new relevance. Crisis and uncertainty remain today twenty months on. Over 160,000 people are forced to live as refugees. Radioactive contamination of vast swaths of Fukushima Prefecture should cause alarm and has caused anxiety for our children's future. A mountain of unresolved problems remain, including employment, compensation claims, health care, migration, radiation exposure to workers, and disposing of contaminated soil, making Tepco's Fukushima nuclear power accident the gravest pollution disaster since the Ashio Copper Mine Incident and the Minamata mercury spill.
