Is the pacific ocean really that radiated?

[too-open-minded]

Is this all true?

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/28-signs-that-the-west-coast-is-being-absolutely-fried-with-nuclear-radiation-from-fukushima

[overtone]

Nothing at Fukushima could threaten "all of humanity for thousands of years".

 

That list is long on comparatives and superlatives, and short on the absolute numbers that are the key facts. The Pacific Ocean is a very large body of water. Meanwhile, every bad thing that happens to sea lions or salmon on the California coast is not evidence of harm from Fukushima.

 

The first thing that is going to happen here is the discrediting of every alarmist claim on that list, and the next thing will be the attribution of that kind of irresponsible panic to every attempt to get Fukushima monitored properly and nukes in general more reasonably evaluated and costed out.

[John Cuthber]

"Is the pacific ocean really that radiated?"

No

"Is this all true?"

No.

 

It's scaremongering nonsense.

 

Overtone,

 

Fukushima is being monitored.

[too-open-minded]

Well then please in the name of science! Please discredit all the claims on that list, I am arguing with a good freind who manages a page on facebook that posts this stuff. He listens to Alex Jones..... Please descredit these lol

[Phi for All]

Well then please in the name of science! Please discredit all the claims on that list, I am arguing with a good freind who manages a page on facebook that posts this stuff. He listens to Alex Jones..... Please descredit these lol

 

Sign #2 - The sea lion deaths mentioned are sea lion pups. I've read that the cause isn't known but radiation from Fukushima is not suspect, since it would cause more than just infant deaths.

 

Sign #4 - In the linked report, this disease was reported in a single school of about 100 herring. That's hardly a good enough sampling for the claim "fish all along the west coast of Canada". Over-generalization and vividly misleading.

 

Most of the other claims look like a regurgitation of actual facts that, when presented in a list like this that contains so much misinformation, make these facts look alarming. They aren't, really. Most of the levels of radiation and cesium-137 levels are completely within the ranges expected and pose no extraordinary short or long-term threats. It's alarmist to claim that 300 tons of contaminated water per day is still being poured into the ocean when the levels of that contamination are within safe limits and entirely expected. "Contamination" is one of those words that's qualitatively bad if it isn't quantified.

[overtone]

 

 

Fukushima is being monitored.

The plant itself, to a degree - although notice that they are still being surprised by stuff they hadn't noticed happening for weeks sometimes, they can't explain their findings sometimes, they haven't found the cores yet, and so forth.

 

The fates of the radiation emissions, the exposure regimes of the potentially affected people and places, etc, are not. They are being estimated from landscape averages and stochastic models built on unrealistic assumptions, with erratic spot checks.

 

They do not know, for example, how much of the leaked radioisotopes from the tanks has been picked up by sediments or bottom living organisms even in the nearby ocean, let alone along the shallower places of the plume tracks. Nor do they have an accurate, data based picture of the actual shapes and fates of the various plumes in the three dimensional Pacific Ocean. There has been to my knowledge one serious attempt to measure exposure regime in some of the potentially affected people - dosage badges on hundreds of schoolchildren living nearby, being worn for several weeks or months and read regularly. That began quite a while after the main event and the time of most dangerous exposure risks, does not measure ingestion via food and water and kid stuff etc, but it's better than nothing. It is nowhere near the effort necessary to earn the label "monitored" in general.

 

 

 

Most of the levels of radiation and cesium-137 levels are completely within the ranges expected and pose no extraordinary short or long-term threats. It's alarmist to claim that 300 tons of contaminated water per day is still being poured into the ocean when the levels of that contamination are within safe limits and entirely expected.

Although I agree with the assessment of the OP as alarmist and misleading, it is also misleading to pretend that the leaks reported are "entirely expected" and "within safe limits". They were not expected whatsoever, and no one knows what the safe limits are for continuing leaks of unknown fate and unpreventable source. We hope they are safely diluted etc, but we don't know whether they are or not.

[John Cuthber]

The plant is where most of the radioactive stuff is, so it's the sensible place to monitor.

On the other hand this "dosage badges on hundreds of schoolchildren living nearby, being worn for several weeks or months and read regularly. " is practically pointless.

Measuring exposure doesn't help people much- it gives reassurance, but that's all.

On the other hand, if the authorities were not pretty sure the levels were harmless, they would have done something else.

Those badges are a political sop to the paranoid rather than a means to gather data.

 

I'd happily go swimming off that coast (give or take the natural hazards like sharks).

[overtone]

 

 

The plant is where most of the radioactive stuff is, so it's the sensible place to monitor.

They don't know where most of the emitted radioactive stuff is, because they haven't been monitoring its travels or fates.

 

 

On the other hand this "dosage badges on hundreds of schoolchildren living nearby, being worn for several weeks or months and read regularly. " is practically pointless.

Measuring exposure doesn't help people much- it gives reassurance, but that's all.

It helps anyone who actually wants to have an informed opinion on whether people were exposed to serious radiation hazards in the wake of Fukushima. It does that by providing information, generally thought to be helpful in having informed opinions, and seriously lacking in this matter.

 

Whether or not it will give "reassurance" kind of depends on what the readings will turn out to be, eh? Right now, nobody knows. And finding out stuff you don't know, such as the exposure regime actually experienced by at least some of the more vulnerable people at some belated but still relevant time in the hazard zones of Fukushima (which include some areas between California and Hawaii, btw) is a good first step toward acquiring a small amount of credibility when handing out the reassurances. The nuke industry right now has little or none of that.

 

 

On the other hand, if the authorities were not pretty sure the levels were harmless, they would have done something else.

Those badges are a political sop to the paranoid rather than a means to gather data.

That may very well be - and with such authorities in control, even the most irrational aversion to building things like nuclear power plants becomes a reasonable political stance.

[too-open-minded]

Thankyou guys very much! hopefully this will change my friends mind and I can change him from people who try and spread paranoia and propaganda. I really dislike that kind of stuff because it makes people who actually try and show cold hard evidence of corruption and pollution, well it makes them look like people such as Alex Jones lol.

[John Cuthber]

"They don't know where most of the emitted radioactive stuff is, because they haven't been monitoring its travels or fates"

Others have.

​Do you not remember that when Chernobyl blew up, the West found out about it when routine monitoring in Scandinavia picked it up.

 

"It helps anyone who actually wants to have an informed opinion on whether people were exposed to serious radiation hazards in the wake of Fukushima."

 

No, a bunch of results that all say "not detected" or "nothing above background" don't tell you anything. Technically, it's they are better "informed" but they knew that information anyway. If they didn't know that the monitors will show sod all squared, they would have moved the kids- not labelled them.

 

 

 

"That may very well be - and with such authorities in control, even the most irrational aversion to building things like nuclear power plants becomes a reasonable political stance. "

Indeed, the authorities should have explained to those who wanted their kids "badged" that there's no point- because there's no significant contamination.

But people are not rational about things like that. They want to see "Something being done" even when it's clearly pointless.

So the government does it because it's the easy option.

It's a bit of a waste of money, but I can't imagine any government acting differently (except, perhaps some sort of dictatorship- is that what you wanted?)

[overtone]

 

"They don't know where most of the emitted radioactive stuff is, because they haven't been monitoring its travels or fates"

Others have.

​Do you not remember that when Chernobyl blew up, the West found out about it when routine monitoring in Scandinavia picked it up

So? To this day the exposure regimes from Chernobyl remain unknown even at fairly large scale resolutions - you can find estimates based on landscape averages over areas like "Scandinavia", some chance encounters with contaminated produce, and that's about it.

 

 

Indeed, the authorities should have explained to those who wanted their kids "badged" that there's no point- because there's no significant contamination.

Unfortunately, the cat's out of the bag on that one - everyone in Japan knows they have neither the information nor the integrity to be making any such assertion.

 

 

 

No, a bunch of results that all say "not detected" or "nothing above background" don't tell you anything. Technically, it's they are better "informed" but they knew that information anyway. If they didn't know that the monitors will show sod all squared, they would have moved the kids- not labelled them.

They haven't measured the exposure regime or determined the distribution of potential contamination, so there's no way for them - or anyone - to know what the monitors will show. This remains the only example of an attempt to measure actual exposure regimes in the wake of a civilian nuclear power reactor mishap that I can find - and clearly it's absurdly inadequate to the drawing of any conclusions of safety or lack of harm from the whole event.

 

So all such conclusions are folly - guesswork not even approximately supported.

 

They are not clairvoyant magicians. They don't know what they haven't measured.

[John Cuthber]

Some areas were evacuated, others were not.

Do you really think that they did that without measuring the levels of exposure?

 

Assuming that they are not so bizarrely stupid as you seem to suggest, they have measured the levels of contamination, decided that some areas are still safe for the kids and put badges on them.

It's not clairvoyance we are talking about here, it's measurements.

 

 

And, imagine that I could give you a map of the world, accurately measuring the additional radioactive contamination from Chernobyl on each square metre of the earth's land surface- broken down into individual isotopes.

 

What could you do with it?

 

Now I'm sure it might be an interesting bit of abstract art, but it would serve no concrete purpose.

That's why they didn't waste money measuring it.