Fukushima's Refugees Are Victims Of Irrational Fear, Not Radiation

[FBaggins]

Every time I eat a bag of potato chips I think of Fukushima. This 12-ounce bag of chips has 3500 picoCuries of gamma radiation in it, and the number of bags I eat a year gives me a dose as high as what I would receive living in much of the evacuated zones around Fukushima. But unlike the Fukushima refugees, I get to stay in my home. We live in a nuanced world of degree. Eating a scoop of ice cream is fine, eating a gallon at one time is bad. Jumping off a chair is no big deal; jumping off a cliff is really stupid. The numbers matter. It’s the dose that makes the poison. There is a threshold to everything.

The radiation in those potato chips isn’t going to kill me. Likewise, no one is going to die from Fukushima radiation. Cancer rates are not going to increase in Japan. The disaster wasn’t hidden like the Soviets did, so that people unknowingly ate iodine-131 for two months before it decayed away to nothing. No one threw workers into the fire like lemmings because they didn’t know what to do.

Where do I get off downplaying the effects of the Fukushima disaster? I’ve been studying the environmental effects of radioactive contamination for three decades, working at America’s national labs and nuclear waste repositories. My enduring frustration: the extreme supposition that all radiation is deadly and that there is no dose below which harmful effects will not occur.

This idea, known as the Linear No-Threshold Dose hypothesis (LNT), was adopted in 1959 as the global regulating philosophy and remains entrenched against all scientific evidence. It is an ethical nightmare. And it will destroy Japan’s economy.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/03/10/fukushimas-refugees-are-victims-of-irrational-fear-not-radiation/

[phantom power]

1. Bonus points for breaking out of the banana box and doing potato chips

[FBaggins]

5. Never understood where people so misunderstood the banana reference.

I constantly see it here as if the usage had been debunked... when all they prove is that they didn't understand it in the first place.

[TheWraith]

14. They can't rebut, so they mock instead.

Because they don't have any actual scientific basis for complaining about the banana example, they treat it as if it were a joke or something to scorn. It's the same way people who've been wrong on science have always reacted.

[marybourg]

2. Says Christopher Helman, of Forbes,

who "focuses on gas oil and the tycoons who" own them. Who wouldn't believe him?

[FBaggins]

3. Couldn't even be bothered to read the first paragraph on the site?

"This is a guest editorial by Dr. James Conca, an international expert on the environmental effects of radioactive contamination."

And from the end of the piece:

"Dr. James Conca is an international expert on the environmental effects of radioactive contamination and other contaminants such as heavy metals and organics. He has a PhD in Geochemistry from CalTech (1985) and has been working on nuclear waste and nuclear energy for 27 years, in positions in Academia, the National Labs and industry."

[marybourg]

10. I did read it, but on an ipod touch,

which sometimes jumps over print. Sorry. I see that paragraph now.

[FBaggins]

13. No problem.

Sorry if that came accross as harsh.

[zipplewrath]

4. Read closer

This is a guest editorial by Dr. James Conca, an international expert on the environmental effects of radioactive contamination.

Proportional risk isn't a well understood approach. But he's trying to explain the difference between being afraid of getting sunburned, and being afraid of standing in front of a window.

We walk through varying amounts of different kinds of radiation all the time. He suggests that much of the affected area can and will be "safe", as safe as going to the beach on a sunny day.

What I didn't see was a discussion of "dust". What is the solid particulate situation in the area? That would be ingested and inhaled.

[FBaggins]

6. Close...

We're really talking about people who are afraid of living in a home that has windows at all... let alone standing in front of one.

[zipplewrath]

8. Same metaphore

sun has radiation = light is bad

Watches have radiation, it's what makes them glow in the dark.
Smoke detectors have radiation in them.
It's not THAT it exists, it is HOW MUCH exists.

[FBaggins]

12. Absolutely... but as with that example, the AMOUNT of paranoia matters too.

It's bad enough that we have nuts who insist that 400,000 Japanese will die as a result of the event, but we actually have people who fear for the damage done to the West coast of N. America.

There was one guy on a recent "doomsday preppers" who insisted:

People need to know Japan should be evacuated. California, Oregon, and Washington should be evacuated.

[zipplewrath]

22. Oh brother

I can't begin to think the volume of any material that would be required to contaminate that much land from all the way across the Pacific.

[FBaggins]

23. That's another difference between those prone to irrational paranoia...

...and those who remain rational.

There's no shortage of imagination on their part. The problems come when they hypnotize the innocent into their fears.

I barely caught my breath laughing at him before I realized that on a nationally-watched show, there were probably no end to the gullible who will think that he might have a point.

[izquierdista]

7. What tools like this never realize

All right, Dr. Conca, let's suppose that you can trash the LNT and replace it with some minimum acceptable level. Let's suppose further that this more rational, scientific number is used to regulate the nuclear industry and the public exposure. Well, now that things are more reasonable, we can go back to building nuclear power plants, complete with environmental and risk assessments that tell us how often a reactor core will puke its guts outside of its containment. Funny how the actual amount of releases to date have far exceeded what was predicted beforehand. After all, nobody could have predicted that Chernobyl or Fukushima could have happened, just as nobody could have predicted that airplanes could be used as terrorist weapons.

But never mind, let's fast forward a couple centuries, to a time when, with all the nuclear power plants there are in a post fossil fuel world, there is an average of one Fukushima type release every couple years or so. How much of the earth's land area will be exclusion zones then? Will the background radiation of our planet still be 360 mrem, or will it be higher? How much higher? How high can it get before it will start having negative health effects?

Just look at what a problem we have with humans pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Do you really want to replay that movie with radiation in the starring role?

[zipplewrath]

9. So the people of Fukushima should suffer

They should suffer because....

We "know" that many areas around there are "safe", but we should still make the people afraid to go back to their homes because????

Seems like a weird preversion of "ignorance is bliss" or something.

[TheWraith]

11. Your criticism shows that you really don't understand the point at all.

Nor how radiation works, or threat assessment.

[izquierdista]

15. Yea, right

:poundsand:

[kristopher]

16. This is like saying the damage to someone raped is all in their head.

It is a right-wing "blame the victims" view that is beyond disgusting.

[FBaggins]

17. Not even close.

It's like saying that the reaction of the person who watched a scary movie (where a creapy guy leared at a young girl) and got scared she too could be raped... is all in her head.

And, of course, it is.

The dishonest scaremongering spread by some of your favorite sources is responsible for more health impact on the people of Japan than the reactors have been. That is what is "beyond disgusting".

There's no "blaming the victims" here. It's blaming the knowing lies or unknowing ignorance of the fearmongers.

Which is precisely where the blame belongs.

[Dead_Parrot]

18. No, not in thier head

You pointed out in another thread that the evacuation claimed more lives than the meltdown. I'm pretty sure they are really dead, and not imagining it.

[Odin2005]

21. That's an insult to rape victims.

[Odin2005]

20. K&R, I hope you have a good flamesuit, because the Nucleophobes...

...will nuke you.