No immediate danger

William T. Vollmann

The first volume in a timely series about climate change and energy generation focuses on the consequences of nuclear-power production through the events and aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. "The first of two volumes of William T. Vollmann's magisterial reckoning with the most important issue of our time. In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling everything from poverty to violence to American imperialism as it has played out on the U.S./Mexico border. Now he turns to a topic that will define generations to come--the human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger, the first volume of Carbon Ideologies, by laying out the many causes of climate change, from seemingly beneficial agricultural practices to the manufacture of the steel and plastics we all depend on. The justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort and the quest for continued economic growth obscure fundamental questions: What is this thermodynamic work for? How wastefully are we performing it? Vollmann offers the quantitative tools to compare fuels, emissions, human activities, and the harm they do. Can we avoid global warming and still satisfy energy demand? One way forward might be nuclear power. To study this issue, Vollmann recounts multiple visits he made over seven years to the contaminated zones and ghost towns of Fukushima, Japan, beginning shortly after the tsunami and the reactor meltdowns of 2011. He measured radiation and interviewed tsunami victims, nuclear evacuees, anti-nuclear organizers and pro-nuclear utility workers. Vollmann found that the safety of many localities, even after decontamination, may remain questionable for decades. And yet nuclear power, like its kindred energy 'ideologies,' remains on the table in Japan. How could anyone still support it there? Because radiation, in the repeated phrase of the Fukushima people, is 'invisible.' Addressed to humans living in the 'hot dark future' and featuring Vollmann's signature wide learning, sardonic wit, and encyclopedic research, No Immediate Danger, whose title co-opts the reassuring mantra of official Japanese energy experts, builds up a powerful, sobering picture of the ongoing nightmare of Fukushima."--Dust jacket.