BNE is reaching out for urgent help with a project to support important work being done in Fukushima, Japan. Get behind this if you’re able. Here’s the good word from BNE:
Hi everyone, as you may have noticed we are starting a new campaign to raise money and awareness for Fukushima, Japan. I’m sure that us putting our new tees up for sale before clearly explaining our goal must have confused people, but things changed last minute and it is what it is. Despite the confusion, tees are still selling, thanks for the support!
After 3/11, I of course felt for Japan. I can speak Japanese, have a lot of friends all over the country and even co-own a couple businesses out there. Like many others, I also donated to the Red Cross. I was also asked to donate artwork to a benefit show in NY, both pieces sold. Thank you to whomever bought them. At the moment, these big foreign NGOs have pretty much all packed up and left. However, hard times for the people of Fukushima have just begun. The people are being ignored by TEPCO and are receiving very little help from the Government. Despite widespread protests, nuclear reactors are being re-started. This is basically like rubbing salt in the wounds of the people.
To make matters worse, another magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely cause a catastrophic radiological fire at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s troubled Reactor 4. This would involve nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident. Tokyo would likely have to be evacuated, and a worst case scenario could be the end of Japan with major global consequences.
After the re-start of the nuke plants, I felt that many people, including some of my own friends and acquaintances in Tokyo, had forgotten about Fukushima. Now is a perfect time to do something in support of the victims of this horrible tragedy. I reached out to friends in Japan who have good relationships with a few passionate professors and researchers at Fukushima University. Most notably, Prof. Koyama, who is pretty much the top agriculture guy in the country. He regularly advises the Japanese government in matters related to agriculture. Prof. Koyama is currently working to create a map of Fukushima’s true radiation levels. He is working on this with only a few other people and realistically he needs twenty more specialists like him on this job. Again, the government isn’t helping much.
Originally, we planned to raise money to hire an operator to run two whole body counters at the University. A whole body counter is a machine that measures radioactive material in humans and animals. Ten minutes before we were about to launch this campaign, our U.S. office got a call from Fukushima informing us that they received an automated machine, the first and only of it’s kind in Japan. Even Prof. Koyama knew nothing about this until the night before it arrived.
Prof. Koyama has now advised that the best possible use for any money we raise, would be to help a group in Oguni Village called “Let’s Bring Back Beautiful Oguni”. They need to start by measuring the contamination levels of their water supply. Oguni village is the most heavily radiated area where people are still allowed to live. They probably shouldn’t be there, but they cannot afford to leave. TEPCO and the government (pretty much the same thing) are not doing anything to help.
We are working out the details with “Let’s Bring Back Beautiful Oguni” and Prof. Koyama and should have everything up on this site within a week.
Fortunately, Prof. Koyama is not the only person in Japan with balls, Prof. Kodama of Tokyo University is also working passionately and is not scared to call out the government’s incompetence or bullshit. Check out this video.
Our goal is to raise $30,000 for this project to support this important work being done in Fukushima. Please buy a tee or make a donation. If you want to wait until we finalize details and post them on this blog, cool, but please do not disregard the urgency of this situation. –BNE.