Nuclear fallout from Fukoshima nuclear reactor???

[NoShitThereIWas 0]

After a grim conversation with two neighbors about our exposure to the several radioactive isotopes especially on the central/southern California coast in addition to Washington state and a measuring device in Tucson AZ, I am wondering if anyone has the inside scoop on this.

My neighbors who are two highly educated people think that this radioactivity may be what wipes out most of humanity and that within 5 years many of us will be sick, dead or dying of cancer. There is a lot about it on the Internet, I have tried to make sense of EPAs graphical data, ironically one of the measuring sites is in my hometown of Anaheim, CA.

I have done a lot of reading and research and people who have bought the Geiger counters are measuring large increases in radioactive aerosols in their atmosphere as far east as Maryland just recently. I know we aren't able to trust what our government tells us. They could care less about the "little people". Please respond by posting educated, factual data. Is this the end of the world as we know it???

Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires."

Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

[quade 4]

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/29/fukushima_radiation_set_to_hit_the_u_s_by_2014/

There are three possibilities;

1) As your friends have said, we'll all be dead in five years and "they" are keeping it secret from us.

2) There is nothing to worry about.

3) The truth is somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'm fairly certain the correct answer is #3. Would the world be better if Fukoshima had never happened? Unquestionably. Are we all going to die in five years? I'm almost 100% certain that's not the correct answer.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[turtlespeed 226]

quade

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/29/fukushima_radiation_set_to_hit_the_u_s_by_2014/

There are three possibilities;

1) As your friends have said, we'll all be dead in five years and "they" are keeping it secret from us.

2) There is nothing to worry about.

3) The truth is somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'm fairly certain the correct answer is #3. Would the world be better if Fukoshima had never happened? Unquestionably. Are we all going to die in five years? I'm almost 100% certain that's not the correct answer.

Can I borrow your iodine pills, please?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[NoShitThereIWas 0]

check out this website: http://jeromiewilliams.com/2013/04/12/holy-fukushima-radiation-from-japan-is-already-killing-north-americans/

Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires."

Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

[kelpdiver 2]

NoShitThereIWas

My neighbors who are two highly educated people think that this radioactivity may be what wipes out most of humanity and that within 5 years many of us will be sick, dead or dying of cancer. There is a lot about it on the Internet, I have tried to make sense of EPAs graphical data, ironically one of the measuring sites is in my hometown of Anaheim, CA.

if the pollution from the Kukoshima debacle was enough to kill us all in 5 years, then we would have died long ago. Chernoybyl, and the long history of open air testing (in Nevada, FFS, along with massive testing at Bikini Atoll, Russia, and the south Pacific (French). All of those had local casualties but no global die off.

[quade 4]

No.

As I said, "The truth is somewhere in between those two extremes." My hope is it's further toward the "nothing to worry about" side of things. Maybe we'll have to cut back on seafood for a bit. I doubt we're looking at an extinction event.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 4]

NoShitThereIWas

check out this website: http://jeromiewilliams.com/2013/04/12/holy-fukushima-radiation-from-japan-is-already-killing-north-americans/

Yes, and here's your relevant quote.

Quote

Look at what World Truth TV is saying and then you decide.

World Truth TV is not a credible source of anything.

Here IS what's relevant though, if any of this was as dire as your friends and World Truth TV suggests, it would be 100% verifiable by independent scientists like Cousteau, Union of Concerned Scientists and Green Peace. This wouldn't be something that could possible be kept secret in any way, shape or form.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[NoShitThereIWas 0]

Since our gobment isn't going to tell us the truth, who is a good source of info???

Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires."

Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

[quade 4]

NoShitThereIWas

Since our gobment isn't going to tell us the truth, who is a good source of info???

See post two above this one, but what makes you believe the US government isn't a credible source of information about environmental threats? Seriously?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kelpdiver 2]

NoShitThereIWas

check out this website: http://jeromiewilliams.com/2013/04/12/holy-fukushima-radiation-from-japan-is-already-killing-north-americans/

typical internet scare post - lots of partial, incomplete, or misleading citations, and a really big failure to understand the law of conservation of matter. Iodine and cesium isotopes are particularly concerning, but the *entire* output of the nuclear plant cannot take over the entire Pacific ocean.

The spike in iodine measured in Berkeley was a temporary one right after the incident, not a current state of affairs.

The citation for the 35% increase in infant mortality was noticeably missing. Let's be honest - if this were true, it wouldn't be swept under the rug, or missed by the larger population.

[normiss 846]

I wouldn't trust our government with the truth about much of anything.
They have established quite a history of dishonesty with the entire planet.

[turtlespeed 226]

quade

***check out this website: http://jeromiewilliams.com/2013/04/12/holy-fukushima-radiation-from-japan-is-already-killing-north-americans/

Yes, and here's your relevant quote.

Quote

Look at what World Truth TV is saying and then you decide.

World Truth TV is not a credible source of anything.

Here IS what's relevant though, if any of this was as dire as your friends and World Truth TV suggests, it would be 100% verifiable by independent scientists like Cousteau, Union of Concerned Scientists and Green Peace. This wouldn't be something that could possible be kept secret in any way, shape or form.

My guess is that if we were doomed in 5 years,
Don't you think that there would be a mass exodus from Japan with most of them already irradiated beyond saving?

Maybe somehow they directed the rads this way in spite?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[quade 4]

normiss

I wouldn't trust our government with the truth about much of anything.
They have established quite a history of dishonesty with the entire planet.

Oh please . . .

While they have told lies about certain things like surveillance issues in the name of security, they're pretty trustworthy when it comes to GIS data regarding environmental issues.

You might not agree with future predictions, but how the hell does anybody question their reportage of sensor data?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kelpdiver 2]

turtlespeed

My guess is that if we were doomed in 5 years,
Don't you think that there would be a mass exodus from Japan with most of them already irradiated beyond saving?

yes, they would be dying by the millions by now.

[billvon 3,063]

>Please respond by posting educated, factual data. Is this the end of the world as we know it???

If you took all the nuclear materials released by the Fukushima plant and spread them equally throughout the world, you would barely notice the increase in radiation. This isn't because the amount of radiation released is small, it is because the world is very, very large.

Given that most of the materials that escaped the reactor have stayed in the general vicinity of the reactor (in storage pools etc) there is guaranteed to be even less than that - and distributed over a small area. Which is why there are high risk areas in Japan as a result of the accident but none here.

Since the decay products of nuclear fuel are very unique (i.e. isotopes that do not exist in nature) it is relatively easy to detect very, very small quantities of them. Which is why we can detect them here. We've also detected the results of the Chernobyl explosion and the results of our own nuclear weapons tests, which, at times, sent much higher levels of radiation into towns in the US. We didn't all die then.

>My neighbors who are two highly educated people think that this radioactivity may be
>what wipes out most of humanity and that within 5 years many of us will be sick, dead
>or dying of cancer.

Just out of curiosity - were they standing in the sun when they said this?

[lawrocket 3]

NoShitThereIWas

After a grim conversation with two neighbors about our exposure to the several radioactive isotopes especially on the central/southern California coast in addition to Washington state and a measuring device in Tucson AZ, I am wondering if anyone has the inside scoop on this.

My neighbors who are two highly educated people think that this radioactivity may be what wipes out most of humanity and that within 5 years many of us will be sick, dead or dying of cancer. There is a lot about it on the Internet, I have tried to make sense of EPAs graphical data, ironically one of the measuring sites is in my hometown of Anaheim, CA.

I have done a lot of reading and research and people who have bought the Geiger counters are measuring large increases in radioactive aerosols in their atmosphere as far east as Maryland just recently. I know we aren't able to trust what our government tells us. They could care less about the "little people". Please respond by posting educated, factual data. Is this the end of the world as we know it???

Radiation fears are pretty well-ingrained. The Naders of the world were successful in putting the image in people's minds of the insidiousness of plutonium and the like. Bernard Cohen couldn't quite keep the same appeal (google "Bernard Cohen and Nader" for some interesting reads).

There are some things to consider. First and foremost is that the government is serious about fear. Rare is the opportunity to create and capitalize on fear missed. And even the government can't look with any seriousness and tell us we have to fear from Fukushima.

For some facts and other anecdotes, I DO have a problem with the linear no threshold model of nuclear harm. I favor a radiation hormesis approach.

Second - you live in Anaheim (I grew up in Cypress). If you want to visit a veritable natural Chernobyl! Just take the 91 East to the i-15 north, hang a right turn at the I-70, and drive about 400 miles east and you'll find yourself on the western slope of the Rockies (probably around Glenwood Canyon - gorgeous place). From natural sources (earth and cosmic) you probably get around 300 millirems per year of radiation. Because Colorado is higher elevation (more exposure to cosmic) and because the Rockies are loaded with uranium (earth) the average Coloradoan gets 1,200 millirems per year of natural radiation. And yet they are regarded as the healthiest of Americans (though radioactive mutation may explain ryoder).

So nothing to worry about.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

What kind of exposure levels are they measuring? Hard numbers, not just "large increases."

While I certainly wouldn't trust the government to tell us, there are enough people who actually know about this stuff that if it was real, it couldn't be kept a secret.
Navy "nucs", power company people, docs who deal in radioactivity, even just interested amateurs.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[Calvin19 0]

Good to see someone else that understands radiation and the exaggerated fear that follows it.
Acute radiation exposure sucks, yes, but it's not what most people think.

I have posted this chart before here, but it should be posted again.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

[normiss 846]

I thought I saw a recent news article that they are starting to detect elevated radiation in tuna in those waters.

[billvon 3,063]

>I thought I saw a recent news article that they are starting to detect elevated
>radiation in tuna in those waters.

They are detecting elevated levels of radiation in the milk HERE, in California, specifically higher levels of Cs-134 and Cs-137. Most of that is from our own nuclear testing in the 1960's, but some is from Fukushima (based on the ratios between those two isotopes.)

[Calvin19 0]

normiss

I thought I saw a recent news article that they are starting to detect elevated radiation in tuna in those waters.

Your mom has elevated radiation levels. Better keep your tin foil hat on then.

Read*. Absorb. Understand. Think. React if necessary.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/29/2548951/fukushima-radiation-fish/[url]

*Read from accurate, credible science-based sources. Not opinion blogs.
(Edit to add the *)

[Calvin19 0]

It should be a good clue that MOST of the caesium being found around the western US has been there since before even you old-schoolers were born.

[ryoder 1,590]

Calvin19

Read. Absorb. Understand. Think. React if necessary.

I see what you did there.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[kallend 2,106]

quade

***Since our gobment isn't going to tell us the truth, who is a good source of info???

See post two above this one, but what makes you believe the US government isn't a credible source of information about environmental threats? Seriously?

Well, there's Allen v. The United States for starters.

And there's the Final Report of the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1996), not to mention Title 50, Chapter 32, Section 1520 of the US Code.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[quade 4]

normiss

I thought I saw a recent news article that they are starting to detect elevated radiation in tuna in those waters.

I wonder if it's starting to affect our precious bodily fluids?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver