NH #727: Life in Japan’s Ongoing Radiation Disaster Zone – Good Idea? (NO!) “Return to Fukushima” Author Thomas Bass

This Week’s Featured Interview:

Piles of bags containing radioactive topsoil scraped from all over Fukushima, still awaiting removal.

• Is it possible to live in a nuclear exclusion zone? Thomas Bass‘ just-published book Return to Fukushima captures the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster, chronicling the resilience of people navigating life amid radioactivity. The book is based upon his visits to Fukushima in 2018 and again four and a half years later – and the difference was dramatic. 14 years after the triple nuclear meltdown began, Return to Fukushima chronicles the problems and deceptions by Japan, TEPCO, and the nuclear industry as they attempt to continue to cover up the true nature of this ongoing disaster.
  
  Thomas Bass is the author of eight books; a contributor to the New Yorker, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Smithsonian, Wired, and other publications; and Professor of English and journalism at the State University of New York in Albany.
  
  I spoke with Thomas Bass on Monday, June 2, 2025.

Links from Interview:

To purchase Return to Fukushima, go to:

• https://orbooks.com/catalog/return-to-fukushima/
• https://www.mcnallyjackson.com/book/9781682195109

Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter

Why the Golden Dome is another “insane” Trump obsession that won’t work.

LINKS to Linda’s other work this week:

• Donald Trump’s Fool’s Gold
• A Superhighway to Nuclear Hell

And There Is Hope – A Solar Benchmark:

LINKS:

• International Uranium Film Festival Winners – full list
• Veterans for Peace “Splashiversary” – June 14, 2-5 pm, Humbolt Bay, CA.
• The Terrible 13: The Worst Safety and Security Violators in the US Nuclear Power Fleet by Edwin S. Lyman, Director, Nuclear Power Safety, Union of Concerned Scientists
• The NRC’s new Mission Impossible: Making Atoms Great Again
• Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries