A focus on personal health
has become more popular recently. More people are willing to spend the extra
cash on organic and non-GMO food; yoga has become a popular exercise to
decrease the stress of everyday life and it seems like many prioritize fitness
in general. I’m not an exception to this – I’m borderline obsessed with making
sure I’m eating a whole food, plant-based diet, as much as possible. If I do
eat something processed my anxiety gets so high that I almost convince myself
that I will get cancer from it. And my
obsession doesn’t stop with nutrition. I’ve completely rid my cosmetics and
personal hygiene items of any scary, hard-to-pronounce chemicals that can wreck
havoc on health. Basically, if it’s not good enough for me to eat, it’s not
good enough to put on my skin either.
I almost started to believe I
was truly a healthy person… until I realized how everyone and everything on
this earth are connected. Herbicides and pesticides, air pollution, superfunds,
the list is endless. So many toxins everyday surround us and
they’re finding their way into our bodies through the water and soil.
I have spent so much time focused on quality skincare and organic food that I’m
totally blindsided by one of the largest threats – nuclear waste.
Into Eternity was honestly like watching a horrifying prelude to another
installment of The Chernobyl
Diaries. The documentary focuses
on storing nuclear waste underground and whether or not that’s even
possible. Nuclear waste lasts for up to
100,000 years so in order for it to be safely stored underground – out of
sight, out of mind – it would have to go that long untouched, and nothing in
human history has been undisturbed for that long.
The particular site in
question is called Onkalo or “hiding place.” Into Eternity is unique because Director Michael Madsen attempts to
narrate towards future generations. This trait ultimately connects to another
troubling fact – if Onkalo has to withstand 100,000 years, how will people of
future generations learn about its dangers? Call me a “Debbie Downer” but it
almost seems inevitable that someone is going to mess with it and unleash havoc
on all of Finland (or the world?). And even besides human intervention, the
underground wasteland has to endure 100,000 years of earthquakes and other
natural disasters. Madsen interviews several different people throughout the
film and while there are no answers, the one thing that remains universal is
that the dangers of Onkalo are frightening, worth addressing, and in the end a
complete mystery.
Blind, an emotional Japanese short film, makes me think of
what nuclear sites like Onkalo have in store for us in the upcoming years. The
video follows a man throughout his everyday activities – the only peculiarity
being that everyone is wearing gas masks. The man encounters a little girl who
takes off her mask, exposing stitches on her neck. The stitches made me think
that the toxic air the girl has been inhaling into her lungs since birth were
the cause. The film ends with a powerful message, “turning away from today’s
reality will blind our future.”
Another YouTube-found video
exposing nuclear issues is “A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear
Explosion Since 1945” by Isao
Hashimoto. The video documents nuclear explosions around the globe from 1945 to
1998 and keeps a tally of each one. It was unsettling, to say the least, to see
just how frequently and widespread these explosions are. The end tally is 2,053 explosions. Obviously the video
isn’t up to date which may the most unsettling thing about it.
If I could describe Kristen
Iversen’s Full Body Burden in one word it would be: real.
I wasn’t a fan of the futuristic fantasy world created in The Year of The Flood so it was refreshing to be welcomed into Iversen’s
quaint hometown of Arvada, Colorado. However, Full Body Burden isn’t
just Iversen’s autobiography into her childhood. She does welcome the reader
into her family’s lives: her father the lawyer, her mother the stay-at-home
mom, her siblings and the family pets. But she also talks about a nearby
nuclear plant, Rocky Flats, where many local fathers found employment. This
contrast in narrative left me intrigued; it added mystery and a touch of
intense journalism. I also really enjoy the “Pleasantville” sort of aspect – wholesome
family residing in a picturesque neighborhood but in reality there are secrets
brewing behind closed doors.
Rocky Flats was actually
responsible for nuclear accidents that clouded the air of nearby cities and
caused cancer, birth defects, and poisoned water supply. Iversen finds herself
ill due to the “full body burden” of living near Rocky Flats. She eloquently
relates the dangers of toxic waste to the dangers of keeping secrets; “My family
never talks about feelings … It’s hard to take something seriously if you can’t
see it, smell it, touch it, or feel it.” For those who weren’t experiencing the
effects of Rocky Flats first hand, it was easy to criticize and ignore the
signs.
Iversen also comes clean about secrets within her family. As
stated previously, they never spoke about feelings. That sense of secrecy applied
to her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s addiction to prescription pills,
far from the “Pleasantville” image previously created. In an interview with the
website Read It Forward, Iversen
states how talking about such private topics in the novel actually brought her
clarity about the circumstances.
Perhaps one of the most frightening things about nuclear
explosions and toxic waste is what Iversen says about Rocky Flats – “We weren’t
supposed to know … and now we’re supposed to forget it ever existed.” As seen
in Isao Hashimoto’s video, nuclear
explosions happen all around the globe. A site similar to Rocky Flats could be
in our own backyards and yet many of us continue to live as if our health isn’t
being threatened everyday. Our homes are becoming a wasteland of nuclear
toxins. So, when will we begin to educate our neighbors and ourselves? When
will we begin to address the secrets?
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