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ellestraThe tragedy that happened in Japan, the horrifying things those people endured and those they endure still with cold, lack of food and all their possessions taken by water but most of all missing relatives has been pushed away by an easier and more sensational subject. The will it blow up or not show. The media went into a loop explaining that it's not nuclear explosions at one moment and caring people with the radiation threat at the other. And then they act surprised when people are buying out iodide pills and evacuating in panic. The amount of misinformation is staggering. In both directions - it's a sad day when someone like Ann Coulter gets to educate people about the radiation - it also doesn't make one better off.
I have some experience of extracting actual information from complete bullshit but this is not my field of expertise so I'm grateful to Randal for making this useful graphics to show the actual level of radioactivity we deal with now from the Fukushima plant in comparison with other sources and most of all other nuclear plant failures. So no, it's not even close to Chernobyl and the probability it could've ever been was very slight. There will be no nuclear explosion. There was a possibility of explosion that could put more radioactive materials in the air - mostly from the rods in the polls near reactors. This still wouldn't be nuclear explosion - more like dirty bomb - but that was the worst case scenario. There is elevated level of radioactive isotopes but in most cases (and places) it's still below limits. The only ones subjected to actually dangerous level are the workers at the power plant and even that isn't that high a level. And we all should be grateful for their hard work as, despite the odds, they manged to minimize the impact of that disaster and it looks like they should get the cooling system back on line pretty soon.
It's sad that the need to make story more interesting and action/disaster flick like the actual information about what is happening get swamped by the constant imaginary worst-case scenarios and even plain untruth. And I don't even want to touch the ones who made the tasteless and harmful comments about the retribution (Nikita Michalkov took this to another level of fail after all the internet posts) and the self-absorption of some channels that made the Japan tragedy all about what it means for Americans.
I have some experience of extracting actual information from complete bullshit but this is not my field of expertise so I'm grateful to Randal for making this useful graphics to show the actual level of radioactivity we deal with now from the Fukushima plant in comparison with other sources and most of all other nuclear plant failures. So no, it's not even close to Chernobyl and the probability it could've ever been was very slight. There will be no nuclear explosion. There was a possibility of explosion that could put more radioactive materials in the air - mostly from the rods in the polls near reactors. This still wouldn't be nuclear explosion - more like dirty bomb - but that was the worst case scenario. There is elevated level of radioactive isotopes but in most cases (and places) it's still below limits. The only ones subjected to actually dangerous level are the workers at the power plant and even that isn't that high a level. And we all should be grateful for their hard work as, despite the odds, they manged to minimize the impact of that disaster and it looks like they should get the cooling system back on line pretty soon.
It's sad that the need to make story more interesting and action/disaster flick like the actual information about what is happening get swamped by the constant imaginary worst-case scenarios and even plain untruth. And I don't even want to touch the ones who made the tasteless and harmful comments about the retribution (Nikita Michalkov took this to another level of fail after all the internet posts) and the self-absorption of some channels that made the Japan tragedy all about what it means for Americans.
