What with everything else that has been going on around the globe, wars and such, the Japanese nuclear catastrophe has been pushed down the news agenda. The reactor is still leaking and contaminating the surrounding area and beyond, U.S. authorities detected trace amounts of radioactive material on the West Coast last week.
Now The Japanese government has said they plan to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant at sea as a 'safety measure'.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company says the water to be discharged into the sea is only weakly radioactive so that's okay then, it's only weakly radioactive.
Surely Japan can't just dump radioactive material into the sea?
We all should have a say in whether they can dump this waste in the sea, how do we know it is only weakly radioactive and what does weakly radioactive mean?
There have been so many mixed messages from this catastrophe, how do we know we can trust them because they haven't been all that forthcoming so far and how do we know what affect this amount of waste will have? Where are Greenpeace because i will be interested in what they have to say about this plan. Does radiation even get diluted once in water or will it just spread the risk around other countries coastlines? What about the food chain?
I feel for the victims of this disaster, but surely dumping 11,500 tonnes of radiation into the sea is just madness and yet another example of why the sooner we rid ourselves of nuclear, the better.
7 comments:
It's like the oil leak near Florida: they just don't know what to do.
These two situations expose human ignorance and extreme risk-taking where making a buck is concerned.
While Corporations rule the world, these 'accidents' will proliferate and further damage the environment and human health.
For decades, Japan was the most orderly and self-contr¬olled place on earth. Now it's the symbol of how the entire Earth is simply spinning completely out of ANYONE's control, with chaos in nature, in politics, and anywhere else you care to name. There's no hiding place down here anymore. It's all an absurdist nightmare, complete with oceans that glow in the dark.
”but surely dumping 11,500 tonnes of radiation into the sea is just madness”
Doesn’t that depend on what the actual effect of dumping this 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water will be?... i.e. Doesn’t it depend on the answer to those good questions that you posed... about how it might dilute, and about the risk to the food chain?... Do we know the answer to those questions? You’ve just mentioned that Greenpeace (for example) don’t seem to know...
“and yet another example of why the sooner we rid ourselves of nuclear, the better”
...and doesn’t this depend on what other energy-producing options we have at our disposal? i.e. Are they better or worse... i.e. in terms of cost, in terms of efficiency, in terms of safety, in terms of damage to the environment, etc, etc...??? There are a great many things to consider.
I took it upon myself years ago to read a fair amount on the nuclear industry and I eventually concluded that it’s a better bet in many ways (for the planet, mainly) than a lot of our traditional fossil-fuel based methods, some of which are absolutely awful for poor old ‘Gaia’.
Recently I’ve been interested to see George Monbiot (probably the bete noire of the Climate Change denying lobby) coming to the same conclusion. He’s just written some fascinating stuff about how fast-and-loose with the data the anti-nuclear crowd have been playing... ironically using some of the same unscientific techniques as the Climate Change deniers.
This is worth reading too, as Helen Caldicott is much respected and often cited by the anti-nuclear lobby.
In my opinion they can get away with this ‘bad science’ because most people recoil in horror at the very mention of the word ‘nuclear’. It’s like they don’t want to hear any views that might support it.
”but surely dumping 11,500 tonnes of radiation into the sea is just madness”
Doesn’t that depend on what the actual effect of dumping this 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water will be?... i.e. Doesn’t it depend on the answers to those good questions which you posed... about how it might dilute, and about the risk to the food chain?... Do we know the answer to those questions? You’ve just mentioned that Greenpeace don’t seem to.
“and yet another example of why the sooner we rid ourselves of nuclear, the better”
…and doesn’t this depend on what other energy-producing options we have at our disposal? i.e. Are they better or worse... i.e. in terms of cost, in terms of efficiency, in terms of safety, in terms of damage to the environment, etc, etc??? There are a great many things to consider.
I took it upon myself years ago to read a fair amount on the nuclear industry and I eventually concluded that it’s a better bet in many ways (for the planet, mainly) than a lot of our traditional fossil-fuel based methods, some of which are absolutely awful for poor old ‘Gaia’.
Recently I’ve been interested to see George Monbiot (probably the bete noire of the Climate Change denying lobby) coming to the same conclusion. He’s just written some fascinating stuff about how fast-and-loose with the data that the anti-nuclear crowd have been playing… ironically using some of the same unscientific techniques as the Climate Change deniers.
This is worth reading too, as Helen Caldicott is much respected and often cited by the anti-nuclear lobby.
In my opinion they can get away with this ‘bad science’ because most people recoil in horror at the very mention of the word ‘nuclear’. It’s like they don’t want to hear any views that might support it.
lucy,
i understand your concern.
do you want to establish a no fly zone over japan? do you want to boycott them? what if it was china? how do we know china isn't doing the same of worse? ditto Russia. ditto USA. ditto India.
do not even suggest a world government.
q
There will soon be a no fish zone around Japan. Also some nice glowing Californian swimmers if they dump the radiation in the Pacific.
Dumping waste is the sea is the only option but it is not the safest. may be humans can get rid of the waste but what about the poor creatures of sea.
Post a Comment