 Well, good afternoon everybody. My name is Andrew Gordon, and I'm a professor of modern Japanese history here at Harvard and the director of the Reishar Institute of Japanese Studies. And it's a great pleasure to welcome all of you here for this Earth Day for Japan interdisciplinary symposium on the subject of Japan Disaster Response and Future Assessment. I'll shortly hand the mic over to Hiroko Kumaki, a founder of the Harvard for Japan Initiative, one of the primary organizers of today's event and many other important activities on campus in recent weeks. I also want to acknowledge and thank our other co-sponsors, the program on US-Japan Relations of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs here at Harvard and the Harvard Foundation. And I'm also delighted to welcome NHK, Japan's Public Broadcasting Network, which is here to film this event for broadcast in Japan next month. Since the events, the awful events of March 11, those of us who are part of the Japan Studies community here at Harvard have been moving in three directions at once. It's been a bit overwhelming at times, but in view of the immensity of this disaster, what Prime Minister Kan Naoto rightly called Japan's most severe crisis since World War II, we believe these undertakings are well worth the effort. First, we've been working with several partners at Harvard and elsewhere to create a digital archive of the earthquake and its aftermath because so much of the record of this event has been generated in cyberspace, which is an ephemeral place without efforts to preserve its record. And there's a more detailed sheet explaining this initiative on the table outside. Second, we've committed ourselves to the project of working collectively to make sense of these events and to understand their significance for Japan and for the wider world, both for the short term, the medium term, as well as for the much longer term. And for this reason, we're particularly delighted to be co-sponsoring today's symposium, whose participants with their wide-ranging knowledge and expertise reflect our certainty that we need more than just the community of Japan specialists to be involved at these efforts at understanding. And finally, or more rightly, I should say first and foremost, we've been involved in working since March 11th with an extraordinary group of undergraduates at Harvard who launched the Harvard for Japan initiative. We've been really privileged to get to know we, that is, and the faculty and the staff here, to get to know these students who've been seeking to raise awareness of this disaster here in our local community and also through a growing nationwide, indeed, global network on campuses around the world. You can see some of the other posters from other universities that were raised on the table in the front of the room, in the hallway. And as they seek to raise funds, however modest they might be in proportion to the losses suffered, and there are also tables set up outside for your donations, if you wish, after the event. Today's symposium has two parts. First, we'll have a keynote speech by Professor Michael Sandel, followed by Q&A. Then the second half of our 90 minutes will be a panel discussion with presentations by three experts in fields of critical importance to coping with and understanding this disaster. Dr. Stephanie Roseboro, the director of International Emergency Fellowship at the Brigham & Ulin Hospital. Dr. Oli Hainanan of the Harvard Kennedy School and recently the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And Professor Miho Mazareo of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. And I'll introduce our panelists, these three panelists more fully when we turn to the second part of the symposium. Our first speaker today is someone who it might surprise many of you to learn. May well have less need of an introduction in Japan these days than in the United States, at least outside the gates of our own well-informed campus. But even those who need no introduction deserve an introduction properly. And so please welcome with applause a thank her and her fellow students Ms. Hiroko Kumaki, a Harvard College senior and anthropology concentrator who is herself from Sendai to say a few words about Harvard for Japan and to introduce our keynote speaker. Thank you for your introduction Professor Gordon. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us tonight. In response to the great Tohoku earthquake that struck Japan on March 11th, 2011, the Harvard community has come together to launch the Harvard for Japan initiative. Our mission is to spread awareness of the effects of the earthquake and the resulting aftershocks, tsunamis and nuclear crisis in an effort to raise donations and to provide long-term support for the affected regions. Beginning with Harvard for Japan week, starting right after the earthquake, there have been events and activities almost every day on campus dedicated to Japan relief efforts. We have seen benefit concerts, panel discussions, charity dinners, film screenings and so many other efforts. Thanks to the selfless dedication of each members, Harvard for Japan has grown from a movement within a small group of college students to a movement that encompasses the entire Harvard community and beyond. Today, we have over 100 student organizations across the university supporting our initiative. After a month of activities, donations made through Harvard for Japan have reached $66,000. Thank you. As a student who was born in Fukushima and raised in Sendai, I cannot emphasize how much the heartfelt message of support from the Harvard community have meant to the people in the affected regions. It was actually the night I submitted my senior thesis when I finally retrieved a piece of mind that I came across the news that a huge earthquake has just struck my hometown. I cannot describe how horrified I was seeing the disasters live on the screen, not being able to reach my family and friends and not being able to do anything about it. Fortunately, my family and friends survived the earthquake. However, it has been heartbreaking seeing images after images, hearing stories after stories of my dear hometown Tohoku and its people suffering in an unimaginable scale. Since the disaster, I have received so many messages from all over campus and from all over the world, all praying for the people in the affected regions. I hope earnestly that our strong message that the Harvard community is with you will reach the affected regions. Harvard for Japan would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors. We would like to acknowledge the Edwin O. Raishara Institute of Japanese Studies, the program on U.S.-Japan relations of the Weather Head Center for International Affairs and the Harvard Foundation for offering us full support and realizing any ideas we came up with. I would also like to use this occasion to thank the students who have played a crucial role in Harvard for Japan. All this was not possible without the selfless efforts of the core members of Harvard for Japan, many of them present in the front row wearing the Harvard for Japan T-shirts. I would like to thank Yuki Yamashita and Kato Uchiyama, both seniors in the college for their fantastic web and graphic design. Yui Hirohashi, a law school student for initiating the cross school movement and Midori Takasaki, she's probably outside right now collecting donations. A freshman in the college for her constant support and presence. A special thank goes to Keisuke Ishihara, a student from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences who have been working with me in this effort ever since the very beginning. This week, Harvard for Japan is organizing Relief for Japan Week. The week starts with our members running in the Boston Marathon with our Hope for Japan bracelets. We were both very touched to see many participants wearing our bracelets in the support of our efforts, including the two Japanese wheelchair runners who both won the Boston Marathon this year. Today, to wrap up Relief for Japan Week, we are happy to hold this panel which was initiated by Macy Long, a student from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Today's event is also a part of Earth Day for Japan where universities across the world organize a variety of events relating to Japan Relief. This collective act is organized by U for Japan, U standing for universities, a newly founded global network that currently has 20 student organizations from the US, Canada, China, and Japan. Today, students at Yale, Brown, MIT, UC Berkeley, and the University of Tokyo is organizing events on their campus. Their planned activities for today are displayed outside this auditorium. As one of the leading organizers of U for Japan, Harvard for Japan is very honored to have such prominent speakers for today's event, beginning with our keynote speaker, Professor Michael Sandel. Professor Michael Sandel is the auntie and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard. His latest book, Justice, What's the Right Thing to Do? An International Best Seller relates the big question of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of our time. Professor Sandel has also published other books on political thoughts, which have been translated into 15 other foreign languages. And his lectures have been the basis of television series on PBS, the BBC, NHK in Japan, and EBS in Korea. Professor Sandel's course, Justice, is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online on public television. In Japan, NHK broadcast his Harvard lectures last year in a popular 12-part television series called Hakune-tsu Kyo-shitsu. NHK also aired three additional programs, Hakune-tsu Kyo-shitsu in Japan, based on lectures that Professor Sandel delivered last summer at Tokyo University's Yasuda Hall. A number of professors at Japanese universities have begun to incorporate the discussion-based style of Professor Sandel's lecture in their own teaching, and some have been featured on NHK's educational television. In the fall of 2012, Tokyo University will launch a new course in its general education curriculum inspired by Professor Sandel's Justice course. Professor Sandel's new project is a televised series of video-linked global discussions among students in Japan, China, and the US. The first episode on the ethical and global implications of the earthquake disaster in Japan was aired on NHK earlier this month. His remarks today will focus on that discussion. It is a true honor to have Professor Sandel today at our panel. Please help me in welcoming our keynote speaker, Professor Michael Sandel. Well, I want to begin by thanking Hiroko for that very warm introduction, and not only for that, but I want to thank Hiroko and the student leaders of Harvard for Japan for a magnificent, inspiring achievement. And I wonder, most of them you can identify by the shirts that they're wearing, but can we ask all of the students who have been involved in Harvard Japan to stand up so that we can recognize all of you? And thank you. What you have done, the students of Harvard for Japan, you have, in the wake of this disaster, gathered us together as a university community, and you've directed our attention to two questions. How can we help and what can we learn? You've already helped us see how we can help with the funds you've raised and also the awareness that you've raised, an awareness that needs to continue, and thanks to your efforts will continue that Harvard and universities across America, even after Japan and the disaster may begin to fade from the headlines. And the reason the awareness will continue is that you are reminding us that we need also to ask what can we learn? And that's one of the purposes of this symposium that you have organized. And so we're going to learn about a lot of lessons from this series of events. And it's a learning together with experts and citizens in Japan as well as experts and citizens who care all across the world. We're going to learn today about nuclear energy and emergency medicine and the architecture of cities that lie at fault lines. I would like to propose another question, a third question to add to our deliberations. I think we should ask not only how can we help and what can we learn? But will this event change us? Will it change the way we understand ourselves? In our relations to one another, in our attitudes to nature and to technology, people in Japan are already beginning to ask, will this event change the way the Japanese people view themselves? And I think we've seen a certain pride, a justifiable pride in the Japanese people at the response that they have displayed in the wake of the disaster, the dignity, the civility, the restraint. We have debates in this country in the aftermath of disasters like the Katrina disaster. We have debates about whether there should be laws preventing price gouging in the wake of disasters. In Japan, as far as we know, there's been no looting, there's been no price gouging. No need for debates about price gouging laws because there hasn't been any. Will this event change the relations between Japan and other nations? That's another question worth asking. And will it change the way all of us respond to tragedy and misfortune that occurs to what we usually think of as other people in distant places half a world away? Now this last question raises a large question of political philosophy because one of the great questions really of our time, the time that's described as a global age, is whether it will be possible to expand the reach and the scope of human concern and of global identity. Will it be possible to gradually work our way to a deepened sense of global citizenship and shared global responsibility? Or will the weight of particular identities and national identities reassert themselves once the period of immediate sympathy and attention has faded? Adam Smith in his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, asked a question. He said, he put a hypothetical. Back then too, they started often philosophizing with hypotheticals. He said, suppose that a great distant empire, he used the example of China. Suppose the great empire of China with all its inhabitants was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake. How, he asked, would a person of humanity in Europe who had no connection with that part of the world be affected upon receiving the news? That was the question that Adam Smith asked. And here it was his answer. He said, such a person would, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune. He would make melancholy reflections on the precariousness of human life. And maybe too, if he was a businessman, he would enter into speculations about the effect of the disaster on the commerce of Europe and on the trade and business of the world. And when all this fine philosophy was over, Smith said, when all these humane sentiments had been expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure with the same ease and tranquility as if no such accident had happened. And then he goes further, Smith says. That person would sleep soundly at night. But imagine that some trivial personal misfortune, befell that person. The loss of his little finger, that would keep him up at night. But provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of 100 million of his brethren half a world away. And Adam Smith said, that's sort of the way we are. We're not very good at projecting sustained sympathy. Half a world away. So this brings me back to my question. Will this event change us? And in particular, will the outpouring of support and sympathy for Japan in the wake of this disaster, will it be ephemeral? Will it fade with the headlines? Or might it be the germ, the beginning, of a greater, deeper, sustained engagement across cultures and across national identities? Now, I'm not sure what the answer is to that question, but I think the answer is it depends. It depends on whether we are able, and by we I mean all of us, but for that matter the global community, whether we are able to go beyond sympathy and instead find a way to build from that sympathy and fellow feeling a kind of engagement, public engagement, a reflective public engagement across cultures and across societies. So one way of sharpening the question is to ask, will these events, might these events be an occasion for developing a greater sense of global community? And that I think depends on whether we can gradually develop a global public discourse. Because unless there is more than sympathy, a kind of reflective public engagement about the meaning of these events, about the nuclear question, about our attitudes toward nature, about the way we build our cities, about the way our social and international relations are understood, unless we do that, then sympathy alone will be, I think, as ephemeral as Adam Smith thought it had to be. What might it look like to begin to reflect together in public about questions that matter, including questions that arise, hard questions in the wake of the disaster? Well, as Hiroko mentioned, I've been involved in a small experiment along these lines with some students from Harvard and from Japan and from China. Now, we were about to begin this experiment before the quake. Our experiment was to create a global classroom of discussion on ethical questions, hard philosophical questions and political questions. And to see what would happen. And then the earthquake came. And so we shifted our attention to the hard questions, the ultimate choices, we call them, raised by the quake. And about a week and a half ago, we gathered, we gathered with the help of high tech video linked connections to discuss some of these questions. We discussed the sense of community that was displayed in Japan in response to the disaster. How distinctive was that? How different from individualist ethics that prevail in other parts of the world? We discussed what should be the future of nuclear energy. Did people think that we should scale back or eliminate reliance on nuclear energy, even if it meant a lower standard of living? Or did people say no, we should try to increase safety and forge ahead, not to sacrifice our standard of living? And there was disagreement. And finally, we discussed this question of global citizenship and global community. We have a brief excerpt of that discussion that we will show, and then I'll say a few more words about it, and we'll have a discussion. I just, who would like to, we used to grow the woman with her hand on the back. The students of Shanghai and Fukutan University. The students of Japan, such as Tokyo University. The students of Tokyo University also appear, they don't run on their own. And then, with the help of 4 experienced guests, we will have a global discussion. We will discuss how to live in the world that has been in place since March 11th. We will go down the path of hope and recovery. Thank you for joining us. My name is Michael Sandel. And in this lecture, I will be talking about the global and the Japan and the Japan. The ethical, global, human and significant and significant and significant and its ethical and significant. In Japan, I think there was much more of a sense that the people could rely on each other and everyone was willing to make a sacrifice and to help, and you know, you're still seeing it at the nuclear power plants that people are willing to go out there and to help their fellow, you know, citizens and do what they need to do. It's similar to flying an airplane. Airplanes are dangerous. They're inherent risks in flying. But just because certain times airplanes break down and there are terrible disasters as a result, that doesn't mean we stop using them. Certain, sometimes they're the only means to the end. And nuclear energy is the same. I think what distinguished the problem of nuclear power is that the scope and the scale of the crisis is different from like airplane or other technologies. From this crisis, we know this nuclear leak actually affect China and also America. So I think it needs word's attention and word's effort. The philosopher Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau wrote, it seems that the sentiment of humanity evaporates and weakens in being extended over the entire world. He was suggesting that human sympathy and concern can't be global, can't be universal. In this age where communication is at the heart of the matter, I think that it is possible to sympathize with countries a half a world away. And I think that it's important to note that in the case where there's a natural disaster, I think that sort of brings us together as a community. I am a little bit skeptical about whether we can really move towards a identity of universal or global citizen, as we call. I felt a lot of pride in the humans that weren't looting, that weren't hoarding and in kind of finding out information like this of things going on in Japan, of actions of the Japanese people, of people that were acting as heroes, things like this. I felt a human pride. And... Goodwill around the world, from these words and buzz, thank you very much. Well, you can see my Harvard students new-found Japanese language abilities. I wish I had learned how to speak Japanese and how to speak Japanese and how to speak Japanese and how to speak Japanese I wish I could bring that guy with me everywhere I go. I'd be a lot better off. Well, you... This is a sample of our experiment and we're going to continue it, including taking up topics well beyond the disaster. And we're going to see... We don't expect necessarily to find clear lines of cultural difference nor do we expect agreement. In fact, judging by the first round of this experiment, there was some disagreement within the student groups in given countries and there was much agreement across the student group. So, what we want to do is not so much engage in a sociological experiment, but to see whether we can begin to create maybe a prototype of a global classroom. And if it's possible to create a global classroom where students reason together and argue and disagree and reflect and listen and learn from one another on hard ethical questions, political questions, philosophical questions, then maybe maybe it will be possible gradually to develop a kind of global public square where it will be possible to deliberate in ways that we are not accustomed to doing across national and cultural boundaries. So, let me end before we take some questions and have some discussions by going back to the question that I want to put before us, really, discussion, will this change us and will it change us in a way that points toward a greater sense of global citizenship, shared responsibility and engagement? In 1755 there was a devastating earthquake in Lisbon and that earthquake did change the way people saw themselves. It changed the character of Western culture, philosophy and civilization because what was debated in the mid-18th century after this devastating earthquake in Lisbon which was followed by fires that created even more damage and huge waves that destroyed ships in the harbor. The debate that followed and it was a debate entered into by Voltaire and Rousseau and Kant and Leibniz the debate was about what is the meaning of this? Is an earthquake an expression of God's wrath? A punishment for sin or an apocalyptic warning? Or is an earthquake a natural event to be explained by science? And so there was a great debate about the meaning of the Lisbon earthquake because it came at a moment when the Enlightenment was beginning to unfold. Our question is whether in a similar way the earthquake in the disaster in Japan may have a significance in virtue of its moment our moment. There was an age of Enlightenment. Ours is at least an incipient age of globalization. But the global aspirations the aspiration to global citizenship have been halting and uncertain. And I think the reason they have been is that it's very difficult to create or to constitute or to nurture a sense of global identity for all of the reasons that Rousseau and Adam Smith pointed to. And yet as the participant in the discussion said, Rousseau didn't know about YouTube. We now are living in a world where it's possible to be in very immediate contact with the tragedies and disasters, not only the tragedies and disasters, the thoughts, the sentiments, the feelings, the reflections, the arguments taking place around the world. Rousseau didn't know about that. Neither did Adam Smith. So maybe this disaster will come to play the kind of role in reshaping the way we think of ourselves in relation to global community. Because it came just as the Lisbon earthquake came just as the Lisbon earthquake came at a time of enlightenment ferment, so this disaster has played itself out and been seen and understood by the world at a time of unprecedented advances in communication and information technology. But the technology alone will not be enough what will be required to make of this a moment that vindicates aspirations for a greater sense of global citizenship and to be our willingness and ability to think together reflectively about it and about its significance. Thank you very much. But this is really to provoke discussion and questions, so the floor is open. Who would like to begin? Yes. Thank you very much for an interesting talking. While you were talking I couldn't help thinking about other recent disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti or the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean which in some sense were even more devastating than this disaster as bad as this one was. And I was just curious to hear a little bit of your thoughts on what the difference between those disasters and this one is is there a difference and should there be a difference? Thank you. Well, in terms of helping and coming to the aid to alleviate human suffering a disaster is a disaster and it shouldn't matter where or when it happens. When it comes to the question of drawing some meaning from a disaster that depends very much on something we can't answer yet. It depends whether this really does prove to be an occasion for a greater kind of global engagement. It depends on whether all the people wearing shirts saying Harvard for Japan will help us the rest of us direct our attention and our sustained engagement into a longer term project. And we don't know the answer to that yet. And for that the scale of the disaster is not what counts. The number of lives lost will not decide the answer to that question. 15,000 people lost their lives roughly. We don't know exactly in the Lisbon earthquake. There were other more devastating earthquakes where 100,000 lives were lost did not have the effect for human self-understanding that the Lisbon earthquake did. So we will have to see and it depends on us. Who else? Yes, please. Thank you for a very interesting insight. What I'm talking about is a suggestion rather than a question. Please. The decision of Japan is more time than we have expected. It's a long, painful time we need to overcome. So what do we need? Of course, money is good. More money is welcome. But more than that we need wisdom. We need to collect wisdom from the world. For example, Harvard is the center of wisdom in the world. We need wisdom of the better corporate governance. Maybe that can contribute to the better corporate governance of the power companies in Japan. And Kennedy School has a crisis management best practices. Crisis management should be elaborated in Japanese government more. And also the economic department has better solutions for our future fiscal situations, fixing problems. And we have many problems in the wake of the disaster. So my suggestion is you are the best person who played pivotal role to set up something like a registration committee inside Harvard to collect whole wisdom. Then send those wisdom to Japan into companies, into building of Japan. This is my pope. You can make it. Yes, well I love the idealism of that suggestion. And I do think that Harvard and other universities do have a role to play and a global responsibility and a civic mission to contribute what they can in the way of teaching and learning. I think I would conceive Harvard's contribution different in one respect from your suggestion. Well, in two respects. First, the idea that Harvard would gather its faculty and generate wisdom to send over to Japan I think is not the way to think about it. What I would rather see is for Harvard students and faculty to join together in deliberation and discussion and joint studies and research with students and faculty members in Japan to work together to develop maybe a shared wisdom in a range of suggestions and possibilities. So that's not to decline your invitation for involvement but it's to suggest that the nature of the involvement be reciprocal and deliberative rather than dispensing wisdom. The other difficulty with distilling Harvard wisdom in dispensing it is something that strikes me every time I go to a faculty meeting where I notice often not everyone agrees but I think it is important that we work together think and study and learn and deliberate together over the long term and that that can be a contribution. By the way, a contribution not only to Japan and its challenges but also a contribution to our own learning and deeper understanding of Japan and of technology and of science and of society and of the world. At the very back, the woman at the very back, yes. Thank you. I was very touched by the idea of global concern and citizenship and how to forge it. So I have a question of whether academic discourse based on logic rationality reason is the better way to go about that or something that targets emotions and feelings would be better at spreading sympathy and empathy because the man who lost his little finger suffered because he felt the pain directly and I feel that many times what stays with us more in the long term are emotional emotional stuff instead of logical things. Right. Well, let me put a question back to you. The discussion, the exchange that you saw in the video clips in the experiment that we did. Does that count as logical and rational what you saw or did that also include feelings and emotions? How would you describe the discussion and the way? Well, I felt that in such a classroom setting people were less willing to open up it did involve both feelings and emotions but still I feel like there are better ways to address to dive into that arena experience. Right. There are different views about this enterprise this kind of discussion and some people view philosophical discussion as just a matter of logic and reason that tries to free us from feelings and emotions and according to this view of philosophy the ultimate aim is to win through to a kind of reason that leaves all of our emotions, our convictions our feelings behind and corrects for them. I disagree with that view of philosophy the kind of philosophy at least that I do is political philosophy moral and political philosophy the kind of philosophy that has to do with human things and human relations and obligations and duties and in that part of philosophy at least I don't think it's possible to separate logic and reason on the one hand and sympathetic understanding on the other the best kind of political philosophy and this goes back in the West to Socrates involves dialogue argument listening disagreeing and what you listen to and what you disagree about include reasons and also passions and convictions so the kind of global public discourse that I'm suggesting we aim at doesn't aim for a sterile reason that leaves people's convictions and cultures and traditions and passions and feelings behind but rather a way of reflecting on those traditions, passions, reasons convictions that lends itself to reflection, to deliberation I think that's ultimately what what citizenship is about I agree with you I think that we should not separate these two domains but I think the best philosophy and the best philosophical engagement the best public deliberation connects those two domains of human experience rather than separates them who else? we have time for one more okay yes, go ahead go ahead all right I thought of information as really important then people in Japan are using Twitter then they know what time tsunami is coming and what they need but some of them are false information like false wrong information like some people write wrong information on Twitter do you think it's a good idea to believe such information like information on Twitter and internet Facebook it depends who's written the tweet but no, I don't think that you should necessarily believe what you read on Twitter that's the short answer but the broader, I think you're raising a broader question about the role of social media and new communications technologies in public discourse especially at a time of crisis an emergency and I think we've seen in the wake of this crisis that social media and the internet have been a very valuable they've been very valuable tools in fact Harvard for Japan organizes its self on Facebook isn't that right, Hiroko? so what you read there you should believe but the broader point is this these new techniques of social media and instruments of of information technology can be great tools for good but they do not themselves constitute the basis for a shared global community they are just plumbing or wiring they are the machinery that can if used properly provide an arena can provide a forum for social and political organizing for communicating with loved ones during a time of emergency and also I would say ultimately creating a place, a forum, a space for a new kind of global public discourse but all of that is a social and educational and political project that the existence of these new media and technologies cannot provide that's why it really is up to us to take advantage of these new media in responding to this moment in a way that makes this tremendous sense of fellow feeling and solidarity a rare moment of global solidarity that makes it more than a moment that makes it an occasion for building something more enduring and based on what students here, Hiroko and her team Harvard for Japan have done I'm optimistic I think that we can do it thank you very much Professor Sandel for a fabulous presentation I'm looking forward to seeing future episodes and also the full version of that one and I think this is a really important undertaking it's a very nice segue from the first to the second part of today's symposium that was posed in the question from Mr. Tamuro and your answer about the dispatch of knowledge and ideas because indeed I think that was in the conception of the students who pulled today's event together so we now have we're now turning to three people who in diverse areas of expertise have thoughts and ideas to offer that deal with both the immediate coping and the longer term thinking through of the issues posed by this disaster and I believe in the spirit of mutual I'm positive in the spirit of mutual engagement and learning that was in your reply so let me introduce maybe the panelists can come up to the front and I'll introduce the panelists I should say that we wanted to have about 45 minutes for each session we do have we've paid the rent on this room until 6 p.m. and although I don't think we'll keep you here that long but I do want to think of this second session is running till about 5 45 45 so we can have a full discussion and of course if anybody has to leave free to leave but let me then turn to the introductions and I'll introduce all three panelists each will speak and then we'll have a discussion we're joined from my left towards the end of the table first by Dr. Stephanie Roseborough she's the director of international emergency medicine fellow program at the Brigham Women's Hospital and an instructor in emergency medicine at the Harvard Medical School and she's been involved with as a faculty member with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative where she trains professionals in global health and in humanitarian work she's been involved in helping emergency helping develop emergency medical care in places as diverse as Bhutan, Fiji, Nepal, Japan, Germany, Serbia, El Salvador, Ethiopia and Israel and the Palestinian territories she's led a team to improve rural health, public health in Uganda most recently in 2010 she helped establish the field hospital for survivors of the earthquake in Haiti Dr. Oli Hainanan is right now a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School before that he spent 27 years at the International Atomic Energy Agency and his last assignment there from 2005 to 2010 was Deputy Director General of the of the agency and also head of the Department of Safeguards and he's led teams to do international investigation of nuclear programs of concern in many places in the world from South Africa, Iraq, North Korea, Syria to Libya and I saw him speak on CNN in the early days after this disaster and I wish all of CNN's guests had been at the caliber of Dr. Hainanan. Finally the last speaker will be Professor Miho Mazarejo of the Graduate School of Design in the field of Landscape Architecture she's recently or is completing a book with a title that is immediately relevant to our issues in discussion Preemptive Design Disaster and Urban Development along the Pacific Ring of Fire this book features case studies on infrastructure design, multifunctional public space and innovative planning strategies in earthquake prone regions this summer design work on disaster prevention has been exhibited in museums in several museums and she is currently collaborating with various international NGOs on projects and this fall 2011 you'll be interested to know on disaster preparedness at the Graduate School of Design so thank you all and I'll turn it first to Dr. Rose Barrow Thank you Mr. Gordon and I want to say thanks to the Harvard for Japan group for inviting me to speak today it's really a pleasure and an honor to be here with all of you I also want to start by giving my sympathies to the families of the people who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy and to the people who remain affected in the disaster area to share that my thoughts are with you during this difficult time and in the months to come in my work as an emergency physician here in the United States I of course see patients in a hospital in an emergency department but like all emergency physicians who are in the United States we are all trained actually in disaster response as part of our normal specialty training in my case in particular as you just heard from Mr. Gordon I specialize in international emergency medicine and in that capacity help to build emergency care systems around the world which includes helping to improve disaster response in many countries I also work a lot in humanitarian crises in international disasters and have had the opportunity to see many such disasters all around the world in all of my time I have never been to a country that was more prepared for exactly the kind of disaster that Japan faced than Japan and I think it's important as we look at this disaster to remember that because Japan was so well prepared there was a much larger disaster that could have happened that was actually averted if you think back to the earthquake in Haiti for example the earthquake many people said was a huge natural disaster I would submit that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon but the disaster in Haiti might well be characterized as man made because of the lack of proper preparedness in Haiti Japan doesn't have that kind of problem in Japan there are very strict construction rules about the way buildings are built as you all know so a large earthquake like the one that struck Japan usually causes little in the way of loss of life as it did indeed in this case the lives lost by the actual earthquake were very very few Japan also does a better job than almost any country in the world with its public education and its drills for disaster preparedness including the drills for tsunami readiness there is a lot of disaster response planning at both the national local level which goes a long way toward preventing huge effects and Japan also has an enormously robust tsunami early warning system which was of course put into place even in this disaster and it's important to remember that because of all of these safeguards much larger losses of life than we saw could have been the case even so it's certainly the case that not all disasters can be completely prepared for even in a place like Japan earthquakes in general in the world of disaster response are well known for producing very large medical needs because of crush injuries because of falling buildings people have severely broken bones there is brain damage but in Japan's case this was not the case because of Japan's preparedness so in fact the medical needs that are often very large in other countries that suffer disasters we did not actually see in Japan most of the medical need that was experienced after the disaster had much more to do with filling in for overworked physicians who were already in place in the medical facilities that were already there but also there were long term chronic care needs in Japan elderly people who have high blood pressure or diabetes and needed their chronic medications many of these medications were of course missing afterwards so most of what I'll be talking about today does not really have to do with a medical response to Japan's disaster some doctors were needed but that was not the primary need there is no such thing as a perfect disaster response it's impossible to plan for everything and I think this disaster more than any other is a very good example of this the earthquake happened but the real disaster was the tsunami that followed as we all know and in preparing for the tsunami Japan was also prepared with various structures which I'm sure my colleague will speak about but the tsunami was the thing that really overwhelmed Japan's disaster preparedness plans and was of course the main cause for a loss of life in Japan almost 15,000 people are dead and almost another 14,000 still missing according to the latest estimates these are not small numbers they're very large and it's small comfort to say that a larger crisis was averted Japan has done an enormous job responding to this tsunami there have been evacuation centers set up and that are housing many thousands of people and right now they're quickly moving into a resettlement phase and within a month I think many of the people who are currently settled in the evacuation centers moving into more temporary shelters and more permanent homes I think as we think about things that we can learn from the current disaster response a couple of things do come to mind Japan certainly could teach the whole world about proper disaster response however the information that we are getting from disaster responders on the ground in Japan do bring up a couple of areas for learning for the challenges of the future the first has to do with the decision making that needs to happen in times of disaster response many of you I think are very familiar with the very strong consensus based method of decision making that traditionally is part of Japanese culture and that actually gives Japanese culture much of its strength there is a tradition of people coming together around a certain decision on a daily basis and many people will decide what to do and everyone will agree before moving forward on a day to day basis in the business world and in daily life this kind of consensus based decision making is extremely important and a great source of strength however disasters are not everyday life by very definition and the disaster response systems require not only preparedness but also a different way of thinking about how we make decisions decisions have to often be made much quicker and the consensus method of making decisions that work so well in a lot of Japan's decision making works a little bit less well sometimes in these disaster scenarios and it makes it more difficult for the response to happen as quickly as it needs to do so I think that's one of the things that my colleagues who are Japanese disaster responders are telling me that they're understanding from their field work they sometimes feel like their hands are tied when the higher ups either in their organizations or in positions of leadership in the government are trying to wait on the consensus rather than taking a strong decision strong leadership in those times can be very difficult because no one wants to make a mistake so I think looking toward the future addressing that particular challenge one of the things that I think will grow out of this particular response is a different kind of thinking around the kinds of leadership and kinds of decision making that will be needed in future disaster response that there I think needs to be a way of suspending the everyday and allowing a different kind of mindset to take place for the leaders who have to do this kind of response it's very very difficult to do that but I think it's one of the challenges for the future the other thing that I've been hearing from my colleagues in the response on the ground and the affected prefectures are that the public communication has been a little bit challenging the people who are in the disaster affected area have a great need for up to date information about the response the planning for the recovery phase and in particular as I'm sure we'll hear from Ali they have a great need for knowing the details of radiation risks especially in the Fukushima Daiichi area my colleagues have told me that there has been a lot of confusion created sometimes because of a lack of information coming very quickly traditionally in disaster response work the rule is that information needs to be quickly transmitted to the public and in the most accurate truthful way as possible even if it is negative information or information that some might find worrisome by transmitting the information this way quickly and truthfully you actually have the fear and worry that people may otherwise have one of the things that a friend of mine who was in the Fukushima area told me was that in the initial days following the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster the public was getting very confused about what they were being told to do and when in fact they should have been staying in their homes many people actually went outside and walked toward the Fukushima Daiichi plant in order to try to figure out for themselves exactly what was going on and what the risks would be and as there is always a sense of chaos in disasters it's always going to be a little bit confused but when the risk to the population are very high the needs for quick, accurate public communication and education are much in need and it's critical that these things be done and so I think that's one other place where there can be some learning as we enter the rebuilding phase the effects of the disaster of course will remain for many years it's a common myth in disaster response that as soon as the cameras fold up and go away the idea goes home the disaster's over in fact the people of the disaster affected areas in Japan will be dealing with the effects of this crisis long after our students in the Harvard for Japan group have graduated and moved on to their careers I have a great deal of hope though for the people in the disaster affected area because of Japan's history of dealing with disasters Japan has a long history of dealing with things that most countries have never had to even imagine dealing with and time and again Japan has come out with great strength has done more than most other countries in learning from the disasters that they've had to live through and I think that while what we can look forward to is the people of Japan needing support from the international community and experts and one another for the next 5 to 10 years I think that the ultimate outcome will be an even stronger disaster response and planning system than Japan has had before which is actually saying quite a lot since they're already at the top of the world in that matter so thank you very much so thank you for inviting me to talk here actually I start to tell a little bit about my background because this 27 years which I spent in the IAEA most of the time I spent in Japan and actually I was even living in Japan for a while. IAEA has a small office in Tokyo at Iidapashi and I live myself in Sirokanen and traveled practically all nuclear installations in Japan with the exception of 102 in the south and I have been in all of them also during earthquakes so couple of times when I was I think one was, bigger one was when I was in Tokai reprocessing plant when there was a bigger earthquake and I saw how well Japanese facility operators were prepared for that and when the earthquake hit how they went through the checking lists and didn't rely only on the instrumentation but send teams the facility to make sure that everything was under control and I agree fully with Stephanie that Japan will master this disaster which is a different kind and there's this old Japanese saying that fall down 8 times but get up 8 7 times but get up 8 so I'm sure the government and the people will do it this accident or disaster isn't different in that sense and this is because of the Fukushima you have an earthquake there's a lot of damages people get killed and rescue operations take place but the earthquake in a way it's over but because of Fukushima and the trouble which we have there it's unfortunately not over this Fukushima will be there for a while and I give you actually a snapshot what took place what happens next and what happened there is we had this fairly large earthquake 9 on the Richter scale actually this nuclear installation kind of survived that earthquake they orderly shut down buildings got damaged but no substantial amount of radioactivity escaped what made the problem was the tsunami which followed that earthquake in Fukushima which brought the water all the way up to the reactors killed all the electricity power supplies power supplies were already were fallen before but any diesel generator which was there in the basement got flooded by water they had designed for that purpose backup battery systems but once you get water to the batteries they discharged and they were without electricity which is an important to maintain the cooling of the reactor and that was the beginning of the disaster at the same time all the infrastructure around Fukushima was broken as well there were no bridges there were no roads there was no services coming if they brought some diesel generators in place they were able to do some of it but they didn't have oil for 24 hours and then they were not able to provide oil because the oil refineries were broken roads were broken cars were not available so this contributed to this thing which happened nuclear power plant Fukushima the biggest reactors they are about 1000 megawatts 1000 megawatts is a big amount of energy so the size of the reactor roughly when you make this round thing here and pull it out this is where this 1000 megawatts comes and 1000 megawatts is almost like 1 million microwave furnaces put to this space and this one you need to cool when the reactor shuts down since it's all metal so the heat doesn't dissipate so you need to pump water to remove the heat and if you don't do it the fuel gets hot like it got this day normally the temperature is something like 300 centigrade or it's almost 600 Fahrenheit I'm proud that I talk about Fahrenheit because I come from Europe we only know centigrade so it's normally 300 centigrade but it went during early days of this accident to 400 and then comes another phenomenon because it starts to melt if there is not water and then the temperature may go up to 3000-4000 Fahrenheit and that's what started to happen so there was not enough water in the reactor then the fuel started to melt and when it melts then it forms the zirconium cladding which is their warm hydrogen and this hydrogen was the one which caused these explosions on TV in three different occasions this is one of the first part of accident when you come to this situation but they had no way to escape it so this caused then the big release of radioactivity actually came more on these explosions than immediately after but what the government did good in the beginning is that they evacuate people fairly quickly from the 10 kilometers zone they were asked to leave on the next day and this is a huge difference if you compare what happened in Chernobyl in Russia where the people stayed and were living there without even knowing drinking water drinking milk and getting on top of that the radiation outside we didn't have that problem in Fukushima and we will not have it so that I think is a good news to keep you to the emergency preparedness of the Japanese government and the decision which was done at that point of time so but the situation is not over actually it's still very serious and it's a fragile because there are a lot of temporary arrangements in place this fuel is still kept tried to be good it's now much less I think it's around 200 centigrade but you have to get below 100 before you can control it but they can't do it why they can't do it because first of all the whole bottom of this reactor is immersed in a highly radioactive water so they need to get the water away so that they can put new pumps that was the first plan now they realize that they can't do it they have to build additional pumping capacity there bring additional pumps they will take this construction work about 3 months and during that 3 months they have to take this radioactive water away purify it so that the people can start to work and build inside the reactor and then it may take another 3 months before actually the normal temperature is there and then we can start to think about the normal living on those sites and people can perhaps come to close closer to the place so this situation will continue unfortunately in my personal view until the end of this year and that will have a lot of consequences for the people and they have to do still many other things remove the radioactive debris find a place they have a problem where to put the things you have seen a lot of complaints from neighboring countries that Ketko has been pumping water to see actually they didn't have any other alternative they were in a catch 22 situation because you had to choose between bad and worse you had a lot of highly radioactive water where you need to put it somewhere you didn't have a space so what you do you put this less radioactive to see hoping that it gets diluted can it still release radioactivity actually yes there are still small releases but they should go away by in three months time when they get these extra containment any powerful earthquake may cause a trouble still one has to be honest on that most likely it will not come any more to this kind of catastrophe which was around I think it was 15, 16 or March when we had these explosions and have a local impact still and then with the time available let's look which are the lessons learned and here I want to quarter SA in idleness was a Kengo a Japanese poet who wrote in the 14th century that the most precious thing in life is its uncertainty and it's here these things are very difficult to predict you can't predict an earthquake you can give a kind of estimate that it should but you cannot say that in one hour time or five minutes time we have it so we need to think the whole approach for the nuclear power I think somewhat differently I agree most important thing anyway is the communications and I think that here was a lot of failures there were failures I think on the facility operators but I understand their hands were full they had at the same time on the first two days actually they had accidents in Fukushima and they didn't think this kind of total disaster so they had a lot of trouble so they didn't have time to communicate then government realized pretty much on the information which they get from the from the operator and I think also IAEA failed a little bit in its mission I'm hard on that but IAEA the job I think goes beyond just transmitting information which it gets from the government IAEA in my view should add its own independent assessment say is it true which are the implications which are the unknowns and which are the consequences of those unknowns so that people can figure better that the member states can think what are the consequences not only to Japan but their own citizens who are in Japan plus that once they know this information they can also render better perhaps help to rectify the situation bring the expertise which they might have which Japan may not have bring additional resources and we have to think also these guys who were working there they work 24 hours a day 7 days a week and a month you lose your creativity with the time when you are in this kind of situation it's important that it's a little like in a medical you get a doctor opinion so here you need also some other opinion so I think they were slow in getting member state help and the internal response it started to come and I think they got good people US and during the first week team from here and then a friend came so that's it and then the last two minutes which are the technical immediate things which need to be done I think that one has to look how is this emergency cooling and backup power and all these ones those need to be looked not only in Japan but in all 440 reactors which are operating all over the world we need to go also to look the design of the reactors did they really systems work the way they were supposed to work there are short term thinking there is a long term thinking because we only know at the end when these reactors will be open that what really was the consequence of this earthquake and those reactors won't be open I think in next five years it will take that long time before you really can look what is there we need to look the location where these kind of installations are perhaps the size emergency preparedness emergency response and I would end up by saying that this is a crisis but every crisis is an opportunity this is an opportunity for nuclear industry to go back to the basics and see is this the way we were handling can we be better and it's now up to then to prove that the nuclear energy can be used in a safe and a secure manner thank you I tried to prepare a presentation without slides but I'm from the design school and so I first I would like to thank the Harvard for design group and Macy long for inviting me to this event I would also like to send my deepest condolences and sympathies to the people who are suffering from the nuclear earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan as tragic and as difficult as the recent events have been we cannot forget that we owe the Japanese people for what they have taught the world in terms of disaster planning and urban reconstruction when I speak about resilience I always have Japan in mind their investment into the Japanese concept of both side which is disaster prevention in research institutions universities government agencies nonprofit organizations has been incredible and all of these agencies have also been the greatest contributors in international earthquake aid so I'd briefly like to present two inspiring studies case studies born out of the Kobe earthquake they're at two ends of the spectrum in terms of scale and after this I'll bring up some discussion topics on the comparative studies that I've done to bring out to all of you some questions for the future this is the Miki disaster prevention park and research center this 202 hectare site the Miki Fector operates every day as a sports center firefighting academy and research center and yet each and every space transforms into another function during the emergency to choreograph rapid deployment of emergency supplies just to take the example of the stadium designed by AXS Sato architects the approach to the stadium is designed for truck access to the loading docks you can see all of that here the interior field and running track is designed for supply and distribution and organization area the 5000 square meter space underneath the stadium seats stores blankets, food, medical packs blue tarps, temporary toilets and the list goes on this is an example of a bull psychoan, a disaster prevention park at a prefectural level this is Matsumoto district and it's a very different scale project and this district in Kobe city 80% of the buildings were destroyed by fire as you can see by the red the zone the pre-earthquake seven meter road was blocked by debris so firefighters could not access the site after the earthquake the district was informed that the road needed to be widened to 17 meters but the community didn't want to widen the automobile lane for concerns of increased traffic one of the 70 new Machizukuri Kyongi Gai which is a neighborhood development council that formed after the earthquake discussing with a city-assigned expert they designed the street to maintain the 7 meter automobile lane but to add 3 meters of sidewalk on one side and 7 meters of sidewalk on the other side they also rerouted a water supply from the Suzuran Dai sewage treatment plant to act as secondary water source should another earthquake damage the city's water mains of course there are other benefits as well but because it was a precedent setting case it took 160 meetings and over 6 months and finally in 2003 8 years after Machizukuri Kyongi street was finally completed but I find these as well as many more projects which developed in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake to be an inspiration as to how we build back our everyday infrastructure and the duality of disaster mitigation and preparedness the Japanese are obviously not new to the overlap of prevention and mitigation during the reconstruction process every dollar spent on emergency safety planning saves 4 that amount in post disaster costs according to the multi-hazard mitigation council I'd like to conclude with a series of discussion topics of comparative studies and precedents that I've found in earthquake and tsunami prone cities along the Pacific ring of fire obviously every country is different disparate cultures politics, economies and densities but I've extracted a few questions based on examples to emulate and also some that reveal missed opportunities the first topic is public action building community, trust, ownership responsibility and empowerment and vending the knowledge into public infrastructure and building on the human capital there are a lot of amazing cases from Kobe, cities in Chile Ache and here in New Orleans and so first is to acknowledge that organized communities are often very capable of creating and implementing innovative solutions people are our infrastructure so what are some of the mechanisms and frameworks to support these ground up efforts and pilot projects the second one is communication and conveying risk I firmly believe that it needs to be a communication and coordination issue before it becomes a zoning issue because zoning issues are often perceived to be a very top down approach they're struggling with that right now in cities in Chile just like they did in Banda Ache how can we improve the way that we communicate risk the direct relationship of risk to the relationship of site selection and property ownership the third issue is a multi-sector and multi-disciplinary approach in reconstruction the tendency is to focus on the number of buildings constructed as a measurement of achievement 140,000 houses and 5,000 schools all sectors the media, the government and NGOs are responsible for this but there are so many dimensions of reconstruction that are often almost entirely left out this slide shows five of the aspects that in my field I teach in terms of building in redundancy and aspects of preemptive design they all speak to embedding disaster preparedness and infrastructure into everyday spaces of each neighborhood and so the regional assembly resilient housing, evacuation routes and evacuation park and then a coastal forest is one example from Banda Ache what are the other mechanisms we can put in place what are the opportunities in trying to find the overlaps where one solution can address two or three issues all at once from different fields the last issue is ecological process to give you some context on the ideas I'm going to present I'm currently working with a very small consortium of students and faculty from the US and Japan including Shunkanda from MIT, Hiro Tokobayashi from Keio and we're teaming up with Yoshihiro Hiraoka from Miyagi University to work on short and long term projects from specific communities in the northern Miyagi prefecture in our discussions we've discussed that thinking about ecological processes as a multifunctional infrastructure is essential for example creating barrier islands for shoreline protection which can also support regional aquaculture oyster and fish habitat and biodiversity all which were a big part of the regional livelihood and economy before the tsunami another example of this is the desalination of farmlands along affected coastlines using willows, poplars or sedges which can also help build coastal forests that protect against future flooding which can also provide a renewable resource such as biomass and biofuel how can ecological processes be reclaimed and support both economic growth and mitigation it's important to remember that in all actions and initiatives that we are undertaking at the moment that the immediate construction of buildings, roads and bridges cannot be separated from the reconstruction of economic and ecological systems and at a larger scale the big question is how can we develop new methods and more flexible patterns for the urbanization and development of coastal environments within areas of imminent flooding tsunami and earthquakes thank you all for really fabulously interesting and important presentations we have time now for a few questions and if you could indicate to whom you would like to address your question I'd appreciate it I see right here so obviously with Japan's energy needs and it's dependent on nuclear power it's not going to be able to get rid of it and likely we'll have to rebuild it and continue exploring ways to continue using nuclear power but do you see the going forward the building of new ones and maintaining current ones is it better technology or is it better implementation that is going to be the solution to maintaining a safe nuclear power usage I think in a short term it will be fixing the current one bringing some additional measures and I already saw that the Japanese government have asked power plants to go to see this backup power supplies and I know that in certain cases they are moving them away from the coastline and put it very separate from the power plants these sort of things but then inside the reactor it's a very radioactive so you really can't see much of the inner parts you have to live with those which are and if they are not safe then you better close them down and I think they have to go now through this process and as I said there are probably two steps here first step is to do the immediate assessment the second step is then to see inside the reactors which will take time so maybe one a year up to five years from now then you can see what else needs to be done which perhaps will have the biggest impact on the future designs of reactors and then I think that one has also to look what size of reactors how much but the problem is really that modern economies need a lot of energy and this is not the problem of Japan the energy actually the problem is in places like India or China where the whole development is based on energy and India is going to have in next 50 years 40 nuclear power plants and still after that I think it's something like 5% of the electricity in India but if they do that away they have very big difficulties to bring something in place and the only one which is there in a foreseeable future is coal but it has a lot of disadvantages it's not only CO2 emissions but it's also heavy metals and anything which these power plants emit so we don't have very much of choice in let's say in 10, 20 years scale yes in the middle I have a question for Stephanie so you mentioned about the importance of the prompt release of the information even though the information can be bad but I sympathize your argument but at the same time I understand the government reaction and the TEPCO's reaction this time of their hesitation to release the bad information probably and the reason is that sometimes they know how bad it is but they don't know how to save the people who would be affected so maybe they need to evacuate very soon but it takes time to send people to help them to evacuate in that case they may hesitate to release the information because they want to prevent the panic so what would you think in that situation what is the best way to release information that's a very good question because it's an interesting problem always when you have a situation like this I think the question to ask is what do people do in the absence of information the Japanese people didn't panic like people would panic in other places but some of the people from what I've been told from the people that I know who are on the ground were panicking a little bit inside in the absence of information people tend to make up the information that they think is relevant to the situation I think it's very understandable that this was a difficult situation for the Japanese government and for TEPCO the information is sometimes a little unclear even to them but I think what would have been most helpful is for them to release the information along with a clear set of instructions for the people also to hear the information from a number of different sources can sometimes be good because people need a little bit of reinforcement sometimes but I think when you're thinking about when to release the information what information to release it is important that you accompany the information with instructions or a plan even if the plan is something like it's a bad situation or we have incomplete information we don't know exactly yet what we're going to do but we're working on it and we'll let you know as soon as we can because I think the worst thing is no information because people will make up whatever information they think is accurate and then everyone's acting on something different thank you I want to take advantage of the chair's position to ask of Mihail Mezarel that came up in my mind something I've been very concerned about is actually the question you pose to all of us but I'm guessing that you have a notion of an answer of these questions you pose to us the first point you raised moving forward so that communities can innovate and unleashing the potential at the grassroots from the ground up for innovations rather than top down is an extraordinarily important issue and others have been saying we hope that happens we're concerned that it might not in a way it relates to Michael Sandel's point about will we change will we change how we do things if moving in that direction hasn't always been the norm but can you offer a few thoughts on that question you raised sure one is to point back to Judy Incai that was the project that I showed previously that in Kobe there were 70 new ones that were created after the earthquake and essentially that structure was that the neighborhood would select one leader within their group and then the city would allow them to choose and in some cases assign an expert one or two experts to have discussions on how they wanted to change their neighborhood and as you know they were extensive but I think because of that there was a lot of interaction and there was a lot of back and forth and opportunity for those ideas to be expressed and some of them did get built I think another is the role of the university that we've been talking about now there is a good case study here from Harvard with the Broadmoor neighborhood run by Doug Allers at the Kennedy School that he was involved in where the university helps facilitate ideas that are generated from the community so then it's more of a situation where the community has ideas of what they want to do and then as a university you could say well that you can do and this is some of the mechanisms that we can place in order for you to do that and then of course money is an issue and how that's distributed is not my field of expertise but then I would turn that over to other people in this room okay well maybe time for one more question yes in the back again thank you for the discussion this question is for Mr. Hanonen so you said that you need to analyze the situation with the nuclear power plant and then you said that they would also probably keep the nuclear power plant try to fix them and have them run again well how do you see this affecting I guess a global move towards renewable energy as opposed to nuclear because I know Japan relies pretty heavily on nuclear but since they're on this fault line they could also use geothermal and also with kind of fixing the nuclear power plant creating these more safety measures having like manual secondary safety measures there's always something that you will never predict and like you said there's always an essence of uncertainty so there's always going to be something that you won't predict and something will probably affect it and then we'll be in the same exact situation so how do you see this changing an effort in Japan and also in the rest of the world thank you I think it will change but these things don't change overnight you need to have a technology because these are when you produce electricity you need to produce a lot of it and I don't think that we are ready for that or technology is not yet there but just to make one point sure I don't think that Fukushima power plant will operate perhaps never again I think that's the case I think you can write them off at least the first four reactors and then the other two which survived this I think there will be a heavy discussion whether they really can be restarted but this one I leave to the Japanese to sort out and can nuclear power be safe yes it can be safe is the coal power safer well for this kind of kind of disaster yes but it has quite a few casualties during the year because of the emissions so these are very difficult to compare and people hesitate to talk about it but I think as I said crisis is an opportunity and I think this is a good good time to revisit this and see how the societies will be built so that they are safer well thank you very much we've kept you about already 20 or so minutes over our time Professor Sandoval do you have any last thought or comment to make in relation to any of the yeah fuck well I would first like to thank our moderator my friend and colleague Andrew Gordon for leading us through this symposium we've been convened to as a university community here at Harvard we've asked and discussed how we can help what we can learn and how this will change us I've learned a great deal listening to this panel and been struck by the way in which we as a university community committed to teaching and learning have ourselves a lot to learn from this experience a lot to learn about disaster planning about the nuclear industry and the nuclear future and about emergency medical care as well as about the broader social and political and human questions with which we began so it occurs to me that in so far as Harvard can make a contribution it's really to share in the teaching and learning that comes from this experience I love the slogan on the t-shirts Harvard for Japan but listening to the symposium today I think in a way our conclusion is that here we are also engaged in a project of Harvard with Japan thank you all very much well this concludes the symposium I want to thank you all for listening I'm sorry we couldn't entertain every question that wanted to be asked but we'll be having other events as Professor Santel said this is a process of continued learning and dialogue I've met new colleagues through this I have been learning an extraordinary amount and will continue with future events this semester next year and after thank you