Meltdowns and Waves – Archive

My name is Alex Holmes, I am a biology major of the class of 2018 at Dickinson College and I am currently taking the course “Meltdowns and Waves: Responding to Disasters in the US and Japan”. This course will focus on four events in particular: The Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown, Hurricane Sandy, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I was inspired to take this course in part because of my interest in nuclear power, particularly the dynamic shift from an environmentalist’s nightmare in the 1970’s to the saving grace of a planet running out of fossil fuels. Is nuclear a safe and comparatively sustainable energy alternative? I also took this course in part for an opportunity to analyze the response and impact of hurricane sandy, particularly since it made landfall in my home state of New Jersey. Fortunately I was more than far enough from the shore that I didn’t have to worry about my home being swept away, but I still saw the storm wreaking havoc in my backyard and my community. One of our primary resources in this course will be conducting interviews with activists, civilians, and experts who participated in some way in the aftermath or destruction of these disasters.