¹ The title was taken from my email correspondence with Mutō of August 27^th, 2015. She goes on to say, “it deepens our anger and sadness, and then allows them to mature; only after that will the perspective for a future be born, I believe.” She repeats this point in the interview.

² For more updated information about the legal case, see Norma Field, “To Despair Properly.”

³ Uno moved to Fukushima in 1999. She began to participate in the Fukushima network for the abolition of nuclear power plants in 2010. She became the chairperson of the association for the abolition of nuclear power plants, which was founded to demand the termination of nuclear reactors that were in operation for 40 years in Fukushima. Immediately after 3.11, she and her family evacuated from Fukushima, first moving to Kyushu and then settling in Kyoto. She continues to be active in various anti-nuclear and 3.11 related movements, working together with Mutō. She authored Mewo Korashimasho, Mienai Hōshanō ni (Let's look closely, the invisible radiation). She and Nakasatomi Satomi, her spouse and a constitutional scholar, organizes a monthly study group at a café in Shintanabe, Kyoto, with locals and evacuees from Fukushima to share experiences and knowledge.

⁴ The Chernobyl NPP accident of 1986 led to the formation of the environmental rights movement and development of citizens' rights to environmental information, which eventually resulted in laws of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in the 1990s. Based on these laws, some legal scholars argue for the development of national and international law that will further ensure environmental human rights and processes of rehabilitation of ecological systems. In the case of Fukushima Daiichi, under the existing Abe government, debates leading to the installation of such laws protecting human and environmental rights have been absent.

⁵ In July 2011, Hirose Takashi, a writer, and Akagi Shōjirō filed a criminal complaint against Tepco executives who underestimated the seriousness of the nuclear disaster and mislead the public, and the scientists who denied any correlation between the nuclear disaster and illnesses such as thyroid cancer and heart attack by spreading the myth about the nonexistence of the danger of radioactive exposure. Hirose and Akagi also insisted that the disaster caused many deaths based on the fact that there were some farmers who took their lives out of despair and a number of elderly patients who lost their lives during the evacuation from hospitals. They expressed their concerns about the detrimental effects of radioactive exposure on Fukushima children who had been misled by Tepco and nuclear scientists working for the company and the government to remain for several months in areas heavily affected by radiation from Fukushima Daiichi after March 11.

⁶ For Mutō's whole speech, see speech and the youtube video.

⁷ As a radiation risk management adviser appointed by Fukushima prefecture after March 11, Yamashita lectured numerous times on radiation mainly in the prefecture. ^□ He claimed that radiation exposure of 100 mSv/yr was safe by arguing that when people were exposed to radiation does of 100mSV or more, the possibility of getting cancer increased only to one in ten-thousand people. He also reiterated that the radiation dose was equivalent to that of receiving 10 times the dose of one CT scan. Since CT scans are used for medical diagnosis on a regular basis, he argued, there is no danger involved in the Fukushima case. He made himself infamous and a focus of public criticism by stating that radiation affects only those who are concerned about its effects, but “not those who live with smiles”; adding that those who like to drink are rarely affected by radiation. He continues to serve as the advisor at Fukushima Medical University to this day.

⁸ Concerned scientists such as Koide Hiroaki have been advocating the necessity of carrying out thorough epidemiological studies. But the existing government under the Abe administration and TEPCO have shown no interest in conducting or sponsoring such research.

⁹ In 1941, Nippon Polydor released a song called “bakudan kurai wa tede ukeyo” (use your hands to catch mere bombs), state propaganda contributed by Eguchi Yoshi (music) and Fujita Masato (lyrics).

¹⁰ Rokkasho (六ヶ所村) is a village in Kamikita District of northeastern Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. As of September 2015, the village had an estimated population of 10,726. Since the 1970s villagers of Rokkasho and environmentalists opposed plans to operate Japan's first large commercial plutonium plant in the village by focusing on the threat of a large-scale release of radioactivity. The facility in full operation is designed to separate as much as 8 tons of plutonium each year from spent reactor fuel from Japan's domestic nuclear reactors. As of 2006 Japan owned approximately 45 tons of separated plutonium. Construction and testing of the facility were completed in 2013, and the site was intended to begin operating in October 2013; however this was delayed by new safety regulations. In December 2013 JNFL announced the plant would be ready for operation in October 2014. In 2015, the start of the reprocessing plant was postponed again, this time to as late as September 2018. Since 1993 US$ 20 billion has been invested in the project, nearly triple the original estimate. A 2011 estimate put the cost at US$27.5 billion. Consumers Union of Japan together with 596 organizations and groups participated in a parade on 27 January 2008 in central Tokyo opposing the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Over 810,000 signatures were collected and handed in to the government on 28 January 2008. Representatives of the protesters, which include fishery associations, consumer cooperatives and surfer groups, handed the petition to the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

¹¹ Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which, when eaten by the local populace, resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and human deaths continued for 36 years, the government and company did little to prevent the pollution. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be named as having “dancing cat fever”. As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized as having Minamata disease (1,784 of whom had died) and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso. By 2004, Chisso Corporation had paid $86 million in compensation, and in the same year was ordered to clean up its contamination. On March 29, 2010, a settlement was reached to compensate as-yet uncertified victims

¹² The Sendai Nuclear Power Plant is located in the city of Satsumasendai in Kagoshima Prefecture. The Kyūshū Electric Power Company owns and operates it. The plant, like all other nuclear power plants in Japan, suspended operation since the nationwide shutdown in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. However, despite nation-wide protests, it was the first plant to be restarted on August 11, 2015.

¹³ Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a peace camp established to protest siting of nuclear weapons at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began in September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the decision of the British government to allow cruise missiles to be based there. The first blockade of the base occurred in May 1982 with 250 women protesting, during which 34 arrests were made. The camp was active for 19 years and disbanded in 2000.

¹⁴ The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton, is a story about a Little House that originally lived in the country, but as the years go by the countryside transforms into an urban city. What was once green grass and natural surroundings turned into large skyscrapers and loud train stations. The Little House grew shabbier and shabbier with each passing day. Soon enough, the Little House disliked living in a developing city, and “returned home” to the countryside.

¹⁵ Iitate is located outside the nominal 30 kilometres (19 miles) radiation exclusion zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Japanese government initially announced that it was safe for the residents to remain in the village after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 30 March 2011. Many people in the nearby towns and villages in the radiation exclusion zone evacuated to Iitata, being misled to believe in the area's safety. However, as a result of wind patterns following the disaster, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, its operational criteria for evacuation were exceeded in Iitate. On 22 April 2011, a more than a month later, the entire population (over 6,000 people) of the village was ordered to evacuate by the government. In early June about 1,500 residents still remained, but by August only about 120 residents, mostly elderly, continued to live there. In 2012, according to an official survey, some 1,743 former residents began experiencing growing frustration and instability due to the nuclear crisis and an inability to return to the lives they had lived before the disaster. The Iitate case represents many tragic cases in which Fukushima residents were not only forced to move several times but also exposed to radiation for a substantial period of time as a result of the Japanese government's utter lack of evacuation planning and Tepco's cover-up of vital information about the scale of the crisis. Many children and their parents who are the victims of radioactive exposure continue to live with anxiety and fear. Kamanaka Hitomi's documentary “Little Voices from Fukushima” (2015) follows their stories.