FP’s Peter Foster: The Gulf War

Peter Foster  Mar 29, 2011 – 8:50 PM ET

One difference between Japan’s nuclear meltdown and the BP blowout in the gulf last year is that Masataka Shimizu, the chief executive of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which controls the Fukushima Power Plant, has been conspicuously absent from the media. Perhaps he sees no need to offer himself up for the kind of abuse that was hurled at BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward. He knows that his job, like that of Mr. Hayward, is toast. Otherwise, however, there are all too many similarities between the incidents in terms of hysterical media coverage, inept regulation and politicized response.
Lawrence Solomon has pointed out in this space that fear of radiation has caused more hardship than radiation itself. Read more