We Are The World... Aren't We????

The years move ahead and it seems we always come back to basic premise that "We Are The World", yet what we do on a daily basis seems to belie that premise. There will always be famines and natural disasters that we can't prevent and our hope is that we will come to the aid of our brothers and sisters on this Earth when they are in need.

What a wonderful goal and ideal to make a better world, a better day. It boggles the mind what could be accomplished if this was our goal. If all the efforts of war were turned toward peace instead - yes, that would be a better day.

While we can't control nature's wrath, we can and should control what man does on this Earth. Shoving our nuclear waste off to some dark corner is not the answer. When I saw this news article that told how the United States Department of Energy was working to get foreign countries to take our spent nuclear fuel, it reminded me of the song We Are The World.

The U.S. Department of Energy came up with a proposal that Mongolia collect, store and dispose of spent nuclear fuel from other countries. Since then, the United States and Japan had been negotiating with Mongolia on the project.

Well it seems now that Mongolia has second thoughts about participating in this program.The Mongolian government informed Japan's government officials and others concerned in late September that it had decided to abandon its plans to cooperate with Tokyo and Washington.

You can read the full story that ran in the Mainichi Daily News Mongolia abandons nuclear waste storage.

The United States doesn't want to store its own spent fuel and now it seems others countries are not so keen on taking the stuff as well. The simple answer would be to close down nuclear power plants and stop producing spent fuel. It is going to have to happen some day and the sooner the better. Closing down nuclear power plants is a lot like trying to stop a speeding car, it takes time and distance to come to a complete stop. The brakes need to be applied now before we reach that bend in the road up ahead.