Toward a Seedless Home: The Ongoing Breeding of Seedless Fruit
Text / Lu Yirong. Homepage image / Alf Altendorf
On the morning of June 14, I was walking past the intersection of Zhongshan South Road and Qingdao East Road, waiting for the red light to turn green, on my way to the first interview of the day. Beside me appeared a very familiar figure, standing under the traffic signal with breakfast in hand, taking bite after bite. She was Cui Suxin, secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance.
I went up to say hello, and Cui Suxin said, "It's rare to be able to eat a proper breakfast."
Before the 14th, the Green Citizens' Action Alliance had launched an action to surround the Legislative Yuan and monitor the review of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant budget. The overnight sit-in on the evening of the 12th lasted until noon on the 13th, and the 14 billion budget passed without surprise, with the Kuomintang's full support and the Democratic Progressive Party's nominal opposition. That day, anti-nuclear groups also went through a fierce struggle.
After the powerful earthquake in Japan on March 11, a nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and nuclear safety became an issue of global attention. Although the Taiwan government, under various pressures, leaned toward not extending the operating licenses of the First and Second Nuclear Power Plants, it still refused to budge on the Fourth. The passage of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant budget on the 13th actually revealed that the Taiwan government did not take the Japanese nuclear disaster seriously at all, and that ordinary people also lacked too much awareness of the crisis of a nuclear disaster, which was why stronger public pressure to revoke the budget could not be formed.
After the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, the Japanese Government Relaxed Radiation Standards
After the Japanese nuclear disaster occurred, the Japanese government began revising various testing values, leading people to mistakenly believe they were still in a safe environment.
Liu Li'er, a writer living in Japan, said that the current radiation standard for drinking water has been raised to 300 becquerels per kilogram for adults and 100 becquerels for young children. Fish caught in the waters near Fukushima contained as much as 4,000 becquerels per kilogram, and in order to cover up the problem of excessive radiation levels, the Japanese government quickly announced that the standard for seafood was 2,000 becquerels per kilogram.
In addition to drinking water and marine life being contaminated, agricultural products and livestock farming were also affected. "Even if the cows ate last year's pasture grass, the radiation level in their milk still exceeded the standard. And the long-renowned Shizuoka tea was also contaminated by radiation." In the past, "place of origin" itself was a mark of excellent products, but now it has become a stain that people avoid at all costs. In order to reduce the radiation content in products, products from various places had to be mixed together for consumers to buy.
The sales restrictions and consumer panic caused by the radiation leak made farmers around Fukushima miserable. On March 24, a farmer in Fukushima, Japan, hanged himself because the government required people not to use certain vegetables, which severely affected his sales. When his family faced media inquiries, they said the nuclear power plant had killed him.
The Fukushima plant is still releasing an amount of radiation every day equivalent to that emitted when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and because radiation continues to accumulate, the area within 60 km of Fukushima is currently unsuitable for human habitation. Although the Japanese government dug up the contaminated topsoil, there is simply nowhere to put this soil. Ordinary citizens may face 240 millisieverts of radiation contamination per year, and in the coming years, symptoms of cancer or illness caused by radiation will also appear in large numbers.
Social Inequality Under Nuclear Power
One month after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Liu Li'er, who lives in Tokyo, Japan, said that because radiation levels in drinking water exceeded the standard, everyone could only buy bottled water, or put water in bottles and let it sit for a longer time before using it. They usually did not dare open the windows and could only hide at home. Many people fled Tokyo after the nuclear disaster and, finding no reason to return, simply left for good. But not everyone could move freely. The arrival of a major disaster highlighted differences in social class, and those who could not leave became the first victims.
Like Taiwan's nuclear power plants, most Japanese plants are built in rural areas with serious outmigration. These places may not have the large number of job opportunities that big cities do, but they have beautiful coastlines, rich ecosystems and simple, honest residents. As a result, the group that uses the least electricity has to bear the risks brought by the energy process.
Kamiseki Town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, and Zhudao, a small island floating in the Seto Inland Sea, are just such a place. Zhudao, with a population of only 500, is a typical small fishing village, with an average age of around 70, only a few children on the whole island, and one elementary school. Directly opposite it, only 4.5 km away, a nuclear power plant is about to be built, making residents worried.
In 2007, Chen Jionglin, now executive secretary of the Green Alliance, went with Cui Suxin to the area to film a documentary. The local anti-nuclear movement had already continued for 30 years, and whenever the power company prepared to go there for construction, residents would drive fishing boats to block it. "We stayed there for half a month and conducted in-depth interviews with many residents. When we were about to leave, several elderly men and women saw us off at the pier, holding food for us to eat on the road."
The image of the elderly watching them leave stayed in his heart. For Chen Jionglin, there may be hundreds of reasons to oppose nuclear power, but letting a group of elderly people who have lived there for generations enjoy their remaining years in peace and preserving a beautiful environment for them is more politically correct than anything else.
But not every place opposes nuclear power with the same full force as Zhudao.
For example, between the Oma Power Plant and the Higashidori Power Plant in Aomori Prefecture, an "intermediate storage facility" is planned to be built to hold spent fuel rods. Most local residents support this plan, because the local compensation payments for nuclear power are astonishingly high: one reactor can bring more than 240 billion in compensation, plus tax subsidies from the local government.
Oma is located at the northernmost tip of Japan's Honshu Island, facing Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait. Oma's bluefin tuna is famous throughout Japan, while Aomori is a major agricultural prefecture in Japan, and Aomori apples, exported in large quantities to Taiwan, China every year, are especially favored by consumers. But few people associate facilities such as nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage sites with Aomori. Just like Gongliao in the northeastern corner of Taiwan, with its beaches, bright sun and music festivals, few people think of the nearby Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Nuclear Power Is a Question of Survival, Not a Blue-Green Question
Although the severity of Japan's nuclear disaster is increasing day by day, the level of attention in Taiwan society is not high, and nuclear policy still seems stuck at the level of politically opposed discussion, unable to rise to the "survival" issue that concerns everyone. Also because public attention was insufficient, the 14 billion in additional budget for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant entered the ruling-opposition consultation process just like that, and was voted on on the second-to-last day of the Legislative Yuan session.
The Green Citizens' Action Alliance, which has long cared about nuclear energy issues, launched an action to surround the Legislative Yuan, went to the Legislative Yuan on the 12th for a sit-in vigil, and stayed throughout the 13th to monitor the parliament.
On the evening of the 12th, Gao Qingnan, former chief executive of the Yanliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Rescue Association, who was imprisoned 20 years ago because of the Yanliao 1003 incident, also came to speak. He said, "It is because we failed to successfully oppose nuclear power 20 years ago that you now still have to take to the streets for this matter." After speaking, he bowed deeply to the students sitting in at the scene. Seeing that the anti-nuclear activists of those years are now over 50 and already have grandchildren, while the anti-nuclear movement seems to be marking time, one cannot help but feel a sting in the nose.
The Green Citizens' Action Alliance's opposition to the 14 billion in additional budget was not groundless. Cui Suxin said that Taipower had not clearly explained at all what the 14 billion was to be used for, and the more than 30 billion in additional budget used previously had also not had its detailed use published. This kind of reckless budgeting, with the whole public footing the bill, made civil society groups angry. Not to mention that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project repeatedly ran into problems, making Gongliao residents worry that once it operates, an accident is only a matter of time. Rather than continuing to invest funds to subsidize this nuclear power plant, jokingly called a "kit car," it would be better to stop early in exchange for the safety guarantee of the people of Taiwan.
Early on the 13th, residents of Gongliao took tour buses north to support the protest. At 9:30, the tour buses slowly stopped in front of the Legislative Yuan, and the elderly residents slowly got off. Cui Suxin, microphone in hand, welcomed the residents, saying, "Thank you to our residents for monitoring the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project for more than 20 years and safeguarding our nuclear safety." The Gongliao residents not only came with protest flags, but also brought the local deity, the Aodi Mazu, to monitor the parliament together.
The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant Budget: A Black Box Review
That day the weather was clear, with a scorching sun hanging in a cloudless sky. Everyone was hot and tired, but no one left, waiting for the legislators to be willing to listen to public opinion and delete the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant budget. But before the parliament reached the budget review, it paused for a while, and Kuomintang legislator Wang Jinping, president of the Legislative Yuan, pulled DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming into a small room for a private talk.
This move touched a nerve among the people outside, who feared the two parties would compromise with each other through closed-door talks and sacrifice the rights and interests of the general public. The anger at being unable to enter the chamber and the anxiety over the two parties' closed-door consultation mixed together, leading to several clashes between the people outside and the guards at the gate.
After the parliament was suspended a second time, the budget bill passed without surprise, with the DPP nominally opposing and the Kuomintang giving it full protection. Outside, the day's protest ended with a nuclear disaster drill and an action drama in which people lay down on Zhongshan South Road.
The crowd gradually dispersed. Zhongshan South Road was as busy as ever, and the earlier commotion was quickly forgotten, leaving only the people of Gongliao sitting under the shade of trees eating boxed lunches, staring blankly at passersby. After learning that the budget had passed, they seemed to show little fluctuation of emotion; perhaps disappointment had become the emotion they were used to facing.
But beneath their silent faces was an unspoken persistence, like the cry in Zhu Yuexin's anti-nuclear march from years ago: "Anti-nuclear, anti-nuclear, anti-nuclear, even if it's hard we must go," simply because it is "for our descendants, for life."