Ongoing Fukushima Thread

[worth]

http://news.discovery.com/tech/video...lies-video.htm

[firebug]

Science for the People (formerly Skeptically Speaking) recently completed an episode on the Fukushima incident.

http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/fukushima

A good listen for those who are interested.

[Thor]

Ughh, anyone want to debunk this nonsense.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/12/11/japan...shima-fascism/

Taro Yamamoto, a Japanese legislator, says the law “represents a coup d’etat” leading to “the recreation of a fascist state.” The powerful Asahi Shimbun newspaper compares it to “conspiracy” laws passed by totalitarian Japan in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, and warns it could end independent reporting on Fukushima.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been leading Japan in an increasingly militaristic direction. Tensions have increased with China. Massive demonstrations have been renounced with talk of “treason.”

But it’s Fukushima that hangs most heavily over the nation and the world.

Tokyo Electric Power has begun the bring-down of hot fuel rods suspended high in the air over the heavily damaged Unit Four. The first assemblies it removed may have contained unused rods. The second may have been extremely radioactive.

But Tepco has clamped down on media coverage and complains about news helicopters filming the fuel rod removal.

Under the new State Secrets Act, the government could ban—and arrest—all independent media under any conditions at Fukushima, throwing a shroud of darkness over a disaster that threatens us all.

By all accounts, whatever clean-up is possible will span decades. The town of Fairfax, CA, has now called for a global takeover at Fukushima. More than 150,000 signees have asked the UN for such intervention.

As a private corporation, Tepco is geared to cut corners, slash wages and turn the clean-up into a private profit center.

It will have ample opportunity. The fuel pool at Unit Four poses huge dangers that could take years to sort out. But so do the ones at Units One, Two and Three. The site overall is littered with thousands of intensely radioactive rods and other materials whose potential fallout is thousands of times greater than what hit Hiroshima in 1945.

Soon after the accident, Tepco slashed the Fukushima workforce. It has since restored some of it, but has cut wages. Shady contractors shuttle in hundreds of untrained laborers to work in horrific conditions. Reuters says the site is heaving infiltrated by organized crime, raising the specter of stolen radioactive materials for dirty bombs and more.

Thousands of tons of radioactive water now sit in leaky tanks built by temporary workers who warn of their shoddy construction. They are sure to collapse with a strong earthquake.

Tepco says it may just dump the excess water into the Pacific anyway. Nuclear expert Arjun Makhijani has advocated the water be stored in supertankers until it can be treated, but the suggestion has been ignored.

[Nyah]

I don't really have anything to contribute to what you posted, I just wanted to comment on how Fukushima has REALLY brought out the gullible idiots on social media. On my Facebook news feed, I'm constantly seeing people sharing sensationalist stories with headlines like 'Fukushima & the End of Humanity' (accompanied by a slew of sad faces by the poster), 'West Coast Fish Are Radioactive: DO NOT EAT FISH'... Even one that suggests the radiation levels in fish in the arctic are killing polar bears.

I seriously think people should have to pass a critical thinking course before they're allowed to share anything on Facebook. Fear mongering at its finest. The ironic part is 99% of these people are against 'Mainstream Media', but buy everything that's posted by one of their Activist sites, all of which link absolutely no credible sources for their so called information. The amount of misinformation that's posted on these sites is staggering. Everything from anti-Vax, Fukishima and the end of the Earth, to how the government is supposedly now using Wifi to track and spy on people (?!). Then with the sharing of this misinformation, they suck in other people who are just as gullible. Idiots!

/rant

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't know if its lack of critical thinking as much as its people using this for their own personal agenda's.

Sure there are gullible people out there that take some information and exaggerate it to make themselves look knowledgeable and important. But at the same time there are people who intentionally stretch the truth to further their own personal agenda.

Its just like the whole Christmas is cancelled thing that one of the environmental groups put out there because of melting snow in the North Pole. Its sensationalist and grabs attention, and makes them money.

As for the Japanese reactor story I did read something last year about the various criminal organizations getting heavily involved in it and because of that worker safety and disposal of materials were being handled in a really reckless manner in order to maximize profitability.