mountainbear linked this article on seeing Japan’s catastrophe through a coroner’s eyes. It is as painful as you might guess.
Nothing in this entire nuke sequence–not the vaulting dose rates, not the “respirators over the hood”, not the “beta-burns”, not the 1,000+ mSv/h dose rates–has brought tears to my eyes. Nothing about that report above didn’t.
And Rana included this report, subtitled “Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is “too much”.”
The only “experts” who would say that are political activists who are either ignorant of science or traitors to it.
“The U.S. Department of Energy has testified that there is no level of radiation that is so low that it is without health risks,” Jacqueline Cabasso, the Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation,
There’s only three possibilities here: 1) whoever testified for the DOE did a truly awful job (doubtful), 2) Ms. Cabasso misunderstood the testimony and paraphrased it according to her liking (quite likely), or 3) Ms. Cabasso is a dirty little liar (don’t rule it out).
For chronic (long-term) concerns, the DOE (and NRC) use the linear no-threshold model.
“But what does that mean,” our non-geeks cry. It means it’s assumed that any increase in dose is an increase in long-term risk. No threshold, see?
So is this model true? No. Anyone expert in radiation knows it isn’t true, because we have the whole wide world to look at. And natural doses vary greatly. People pick up between 200 and 2000 mrem/year (2-20 mSv). With absolutely no harm observed at higher doses, so how is there heightened risk? And thousands of Taiwanese picked up 5000-6000 mrem/year (50-60 mSv) for years and years and had a much lower incidence of cancer than usual.
Then why do the DOE and NRC assume risk? Because they couldn’t prove there isn’t. Still can’t, despite the real world examples above.
But that is also true about everything. Marshmallows have killed in the past, and they will in the future. Dihydrogen oxide is the greatest mass murderer of all time.
Ionizing radiation is held to standards that would basically outlaw every other activity and material on earth. Fukushima is proof of that. No one has been killed by radiation, but we’re staring at maybe 25,000 dead. And how much have we heard about non-nuke carcinogens, no doubt swirling around by the ton?
Any detectable level of radiation is too much.
Just like little girls.
Please know that radiation “experts” who jet around the world at 30,000 feet to say this stuff are either too stupid to listen to, or conniving liars too corrupt to listen to.
Your choice.
yeah. i wonder whether somebody calculated the chemical contamination of the food chain by millions of CFL lights broken by tsunami, with their millions of milligrams of mercury swept into the sea. after all, there is no safe dose of mercury contamination either, is it?
(charlie?)
Ahh, the sweet deliciousness of “thermometer juice”. Like liquid lead…
not even to mention that every millirem comes instead of mecury contamination from coal plants, now in all our fish:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/08/20/us-fish-mercury-idINTRE57J01420090820
The mercury thing is another one of those running annoyances — see the thimerosol “controversy” which continues even though the seminal paper has since been proven to be faked. But EPA sets a dose limit of 1 x 10^-4 mg/kg/day, and that’s probably too strict, since plenty of healthy populations in the world get rather more than that from eating lots of fish.
The truth is that any time someone talks about a “no threshold” model for any toxin, they’re probably wrong. Even something as nasty as methyl mercury, in amounts of 1-2 atoms, won’t do a damn thing.
Bio, too. I always assumed a single germ or virus could do. The others don’t get inside and start transmuting your body into stuff just like it.
But in practice, it seems there’s a threshold even there.
The DOE would fit into the EU. Seriously. The German green party would love them.
If that was true, I should have died years ago. I should have 50 forms of cancer.
Frankly, I think the DOE is just howling with the wolves in this case. A lot of people are jumping on the anti-nuke train these days. Anything is allowed to stop new nukes or shut down old ones. Just look into Germany, it’s just disgusting, seriously.
A German japanologist actually tore all of Germany a new one in an article where he slammed how Germany handled this. I need to translate it. It’s really just disgusting. Just a few details:
1) The German THW (Technisches Hilfswerk, they are similar to a volunteer firebrigade, but specialised on technical and engineering assistance) moved to Japan, fully equipped. Their first mission was stopped because of a tsunami warning. The second was stopped because of nightfall. The third was stopped because the Germans abandoned their posts due to the “radioactive deathcloud”. The Japanese then helped the Germans save face and used them behind the lines. After the week the THW bugged out, abandoning their entire equipment. They came back, slammed the Japanese about how the entire operation was chaotic and then claimed to have barely escaped the “death cloud”.
2) A second German S&R team flew to Narita and left Japan right after arriving.
3) A German journalist claimed that Tepco was using “Wegwerfarbeiter” (there’s no Japanese term for this) to clean up the plants. What he implied is that Tepco was using homeless and unemployed people and minors as some kind of “suicide clean-up squad”. He took flak for that, but quickly blamed “foreign media outlets” (without naming names) and the German MSM were just too happy to pick that up. In fact, the German media has been playing the “yellow peril” card in a way that is absolutely awful. They have been trying to paint the Japanese as emotionless robots following a brutal economic doctrine.
I really need to translate that article, it’s just awful.
The article I linked about behind the front lines? I told a friend that I’m 100% sure that no foreign media outlet will pick it up.
MB, koennen Sie mir ein Link?
The link: http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/kultur/article12983447/Apokalypse-jetzt.html
Fittingly named “Apocalypse now”
Die Welt is often my favorite.
Except when Stern and Bild have naked women on the cover.
Trotzdem, ehrlich Narrishkeit.
Here’s the Google translation:
http://tinyurl.com/3w4zg3m
They’re not the best, but they’re easy to find.
“Who has friends like these, does not need a worst-case scenario.”
Beautiful. That’s no doubt a world-beating essay in the original tongue. Thanks for the link!
I thought the Japanese term for “throwaway workers” was “Koreans”?
I thought it was “Turks”. Least it was when I lived in Germany.
no, it’s sub-subcontractors.
Wasn’t the Sub-Contractor a Marvel character?
no idea. i was refering to this article:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/82005.html?amp
5th paragraph.
The ruler of the land of “Per Diem”.
The coroner’s story is heart-wrenching. Mountainbear is correct, the msm won’t pick it up; they are too busy over-hyping the sensational. It is no wonder that the public (like me) are finding more competent and accurate reporting elsewhere (like here, for instance).
Danke Schön.
This posting starts out “mountainbear linked this article” but there is no article linked in that text. What article are you talking about?
Definitely remember linking it, just did again. If it goes away, guess WordPress strips it out too.
But it might be my automatic link blocker that blocks links to news articles published by Righthaven customers.
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