Japan's Earthquake

The earthquake in Japan brought tragedy to millions of families, and a sense of humanitarian responsibility to the rest of us. It allowed all of us to contemplate the impermanence of human existence, all the while being thankful for the blessings in our lives.

In the days that followed, it also allowed for reflection on the mistakes and virtues of our preventive actions and our response afterwards. Of them all, nuclear energy has been the most passionately discussed. The failure to stabilize several nuclear reactors reduced the confidence of our ability to control nuclear energy, and perhaps rightfully so. After all, a nuclear disaster would bring catastrophic calamities that would eclipse the earthquake. Some have suggested that we simply stop building these reactors on any fault lines and shorelines. While being out of water's reach would have prevented the Japanese nuclear crisis, Chernobyl demonstrated that man also holds the potential to cause a meltdown and cause widespread radiation.

The discussion to force a replacement seems in place. While many Americans have taken this discussion to reintroduce the need for increased oil and coal production, we should instead be concentrating our efforts on renewable energy sources. We each have our preference as to which should be most prominently used, they are all varyingly inefficient. This should spur our enthusiasm, rather than diminish it. For improvements to materialize, we need to conduct research. An easy first step would be the annulment of the $2 billion tax-breaks that we give to Canadian oil companies. After all, they made $8.4 billion in profit last year. Let's stop pretending that their financial security is dependent on our willingness to pay them.

We must learn from every tragedy, and this could be one of the many lessons that were meant to change us.