Glow in the dark games

The 2020 Olypmic games will be held in Tokyo. Finishing third was Madrid. The I.O.C. wasn't convinced that given the economic woes facing it Madrid was in a position to put on the games. That left the choices Istanbul and Tokyo, neither an ideal location. Istanbul would have been the first hosting city from a mostly Muslim country. While that might have been a gesture of inclusion from an event that is supposed to display the best athletes of each country the war going on across its border in Syria worked against Turkey. This left Tokyo the winner.


Tokyo had hosted before and plan to modernize and upgrade the facilities from 1964. Even with that this will not be a cheap endeavor but the committee must have been convinced Tokyo could manage. But there's one little thing, a fly in the ointment, just about 155 miles away from the city is the Fukushima nuclear plant.

After an earthquake and tsunami two years ago the plant has been crippled. It is being called the worst since Chernobyl. There have been problems with honesty coming from the government in Japan. They lowered the danger level and called the situation under control only to have it discovered that not only isn't it under control but it is in fact much worse than anyone thought.  Japan's prime minister told the Olympic committee “It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.” I'm not an expert on nuclear disaster, that needs to be said. But I wonder, while it seems to be true today that there's been no damage done in Tokyo, can he be sure there won't ever be? He also went on the record, as I mentioned above, claiming things were under control at Fukushima, an untruth. Can he be sure and can he be trusted? 

As this Olympic selection was happening the people working at the plant were talking about building a giant ice wall to try to stop or slow the further contamination of ground water and of the contaminated water making its way into the Pacific Ocean. South Korea has banned the import of fish from the Fukushima area. What, if any danger is there to the fishing industry beyond the area directly around the plant? Is there any danger to the area inland? I don't know, but I think Prime Minister Shinzo Abe doesn't know either. The experts are saying in article after article, NPR report after NPR report that they don't know exactly what the long term harm will be or how long it will take to get this under control. While there have admittedly been many different reports about how to fix this with many experts disagreeing on what will work, they all agree the harm will be long lasting, using time frames like millennia. 

While there was no perfect choice for the 2020 games, was this really the best choice?