Evolution of Nuclear Environments: From Forbidden Gardens to Nuclear Landscape Monuments
From Firenze University Press Journal: Ri-Vista
Linda Grisoli, DiAP Dipartimento di Architettura e Progetto, Sapienza Università di Roma
JieXi Goh, RMIT Alumnus and Landscape Architect, North Borneo (Sabah), Malesia
Anthropocene
The discovery of nuclear energy marked a new era for humanity. Nuclear epic officially began in the first forty years of the twentieth century (Sertorio, 2008), with the experiments carried out by a group of scientists under the leadership of Enrico Fermi1, nicknamed the “Pope of Physics” (Segrè & Hoerlin, 2017). Fermi’s pioneering research, together with America’s most secret Manhattan Project, changed our world. Nuclear power overtook the geological epochs in which natural processes were the main agencies of change on the Earth’s surface, becom-ing the symbol of a new era, called ‘Anthropocene’. The age of Anthropocene can be perceived as a time-space production created by nuclear power, demarcating a historical age of humans’ uprise over other living beings. Sadly, with great power at hand, humans had changed their own living environments, as quoted by Gan in (2017, p. 2), “it is an age where humans are willing to turn things into rubble, destroy atmospheres, sell out companion species in exchange for dreamworlds of progress.” By uncovering the mystery of the atom, man acquired ideologies of control and dominion over the ‘other’. From energy generators to military development, despite the different functionalities of these high-tech nuclear inventions, emblems of our dark-est achievement in the control of natural forces (Di-eterle, 2002). Nuclear production cycle in the USA, for instance, on the one hand, had protected several areas from the threat of urbanization, while fulfilling consider-able energy demands; on the other hand, it resulted in radioactive waste, in addition to catastrophic ep-isodes like Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents, con-taminating the entire ecosystems around the re-gions condemned as ‘ecocides victims.’
Nuclear Landscapes
This new era of Anthropocene saw the birth of nu-clear landscapes, carrying the physical scars of pro-longed military exigencies that sought after nucle-ar power. The failure and mistakes from interna-tional nuclear weapons testing, nuclear energy pro-duction and nuclear disasters are now embedded in our environment (Alexis Martin, et al., 2016) and our cultures. Nuclear disasters, defined by Funabashi (2012, p. 65) as “man-made calamities because of technological failures”, have caused the death of both people and natural habitats. However, nuclear disasters are not only that of Fukushima and Cher-nobyl, but all those human errors related to nucle-ar production which soon present similar collateral effects: what seemed predictable becomes unpre-dictable and uncontrollable with serious implica-tions on ecology as well as on human health.Nuclear landscapes are born; vast insalubrious, ar-id, desolate, remote, and inhospitable areas. Often abandoned, along with toxic debris, but still strictly off-limits. Though fascinating to some, these des-olate places are a serious ecological injury. Nuclear eco-cemeteries, as nuclear test sites, like Hanford site (fig. 1), Washington, were nicknamed. The orig-inal features of several habitats have been razed. Soils, sediments, and groundwater were affected by nitroaromatic pollution, and refined by-products, while uranium-processing operations resulted in ra-diological contamination. These territories are demarcated by the invisible presence of radionuclide, a matter that pertains to agencies and materialities far beyond humans’ con-trol. It travels through waters and grounds; gets in-side plants and animals; imperceptible to the naked eye even as humans learn to find its traces (Gan, et al., 2017). Radiation is not absent present, radiation is far too present, exceeding the corporeal capacity for self-healing. (Rush-Cooper, 2019).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rv-13291
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/ri-vista/article/view/13291
