Fukushima… Wasn’t that a movie about… no… hmmm….
The day after the disastrous level-nine earthquake that triggered the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear crisis, March 12, an Israeli expert on air quality and poisoning, Professor Menachem Luria, told Israeli Channel 2: “From what we can gather, this disaster is even more dangerous than Chernobyl.”
At the time, his was a minority opinion in the scientific community; very few believed that a nuclear accident as bad as the 1986 meltdown in Ukraine would occur again. “I think that’s basically impossible,” said James Stubbins, an expert at the University of Illinois, and many others agreed.
Yet, as we are now slowly coming to realize, Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl. In a revealing recent feature article published by al-Jazeera, Dahr Jamail conveys the comments of Arnold Gundersen, a senior former nuclear industry executive in the United States.
“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,” Gundersen asserts. “We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl … The data I’m seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man’s-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometers being found 60 to 70 kilometers away from the reactor. You can’t clean all this up.”
Hey Uncle Dave please change the headline article to something about computer viruses. Thanks.
The redirect virus. Posting logs didn’t help me because I got a less qualified helper. I think it was ComboFix that I used. I looked at the log and manually deleted the file.
>Did a Day Care bus filled with kiddies run off the road?
Let’s see if that’s the right number. The US infant mortality rates is 6.8 per 1000 and in the northwest is 5.6 for Oregon and 5.1 for Washington.
Washington and Oregon have 90,000 and 50,000 births in 2008, leading to 729 deaths expected, which just happens to be a power of 3. Add 1/3 means 243 additional deaths. However, it is just for 1/4 of the year, so we have 61 additional deaths, if we take the 3 months since the disaster.
Good call bobbo.
Now the real issue is whether this is statistically significant. Are the mortality rates stable enough year to year to say that a 1/3 increase is significant? Looking at a source article, one commenter mentions they didn’t even use a whole year’s worth of data. There was a dip in mortality before the meltdown, and compared to that things were higher.
#33–Haley==well said. I’ll cop to it. Just my emotions running wild. That happens when I read about little kiddies being killed by our thirst for cheap and green energy.
#29–ArianneB==does your link address causality or just the facts? If causality, shouldn’t you copy/paste that relevant language? If just the facts, shouldn’t you tell us your reasoning for linking these deaths to events that occurred 4 weeks later?
Always amuses me how often it is that the more intelligent/competent one is in a particular field of endeavor, how resistant one comes to admitting error much less even apologize for it.
I’d like to see a study on that: self awareness/honesty/humility correlated to income/intelligence/social success.
Which data set should be red and which blue? I’m starting to tear up even now thinking of Sinead O’Connor singing “Apologies.”
We miss you Kurt–you should should have gotten out before Fuckyoushima hit.
Damn Statistics.
I suggest that everyone read this article in Scientific American regarding the above claim. I know it’s hot, but Cool-Aid isn’t good for you.
http://scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-babies-dying-in-the-pacific-nor-2011-06-21
#35–Mike==I shouldn’t fail to thank you for the compliment. And once again, when you post so intelligently displaying your skill and expertise in another area of arcane sophisticated abstract thought, this time statistics, I am left awestruck at why you lie so much.
That would be another study I’d like to see, not why does Sophisticated Mike lie so much, but why do otherwise competent people vote Republican? Is it like kiddies driving a bus off the cliff–they just haven’t matured enough for what they are doing?
I say right here and now: everything we do, say, think should be statistically relevant.
Prove me wrong.
>> Mark III said, on June 25th, 2011 at 12:03 am
>> Just one more thing I don’t give a crap about.
>> Gracious me, the list of things I don’t give a crap about is quite long. Many of them, I see right here on this blog,
I don’t give a crap about a supposedly banned Rand Paul bumper sticker.
But one of the worst nuclear disasters in history?
I can work up a little interest in that.
What are your priorities?
#37–Skeptic==I will read the article, or is it a comment?, with interest but you rang my bell with Mark Twains usually irrelevant comment.
Statistics don’t lie. People do.
Its just like using a gun, just a tool. In itself, inert, does nothing. Its only when picked up by a man with evil intent and fired into the public domain that these things become dangerous.
Unlike guns, statistics have enormous important attributes to help us solve big problems. Its only on their misuse based on the ignorance of people they are used on, that they become dangerous. Sadly, the public cannot don a teflon shield of adequate education to spot the misuse on its very utterance. What is behind that objectively true statistic? Don’t blame the death occurring 4 weeks after the sampling period selected on Statistics. Remember only criminals misuse statistics.
Now, to the link!
I live in the Northwest (Oregon, to be specific) and I hadn’t heard anything about increased infant mortality until this discussion thread.
I’m surprised the local TB news hasn’t picked-up on it, even if just a story about an internet myth.
We got a week of coverage for someone pee’ing in our drinking water!
… “TV” news!
Another industrious poster on the blog at the Department Of Nuclear Engineering, UC, Berkley, did his own research on the actual CDC infant death statistics and wrote the following:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/4550
Ok. I finally had time to go through the CDC infant death statistics for the 10 weeks prior to Fukushima fallout reaching the US west coast. This is for the same 8 cities that were represented in the article. And goes back 10 weeks from the week ending March 19 (the 4 weeks used in the article plus 6 additional weeks back). This matches the length of the post Fukushima period the article referenced.
The total for the 10 weeks prior to Fukushima fallout is:
10 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 129 deaths (avg.12.90 per week)
I didn’t didn’t verify the data for the subsequent 10 weeks. But, I’ll trust the authors on that. The article states:
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
Which means that the infant mortality rate after Fukushima is actually 3% lower!!!
If someone else has the time to verify my findings, please do so. The numbers per week and city are copied below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This would have made a very long post on DU, so please go to the link to see the long list of statistics. Skeptic)
Rood riddance to nuclear power plants.
They were never a good idea in the first place.
A nobody, please, try raising that canard about coal being the only alternative to nuclear.
It will take decades to phase-out nuclear, giving us plenty of time to phase-in clean renewables.
The only thing stopping us is loud sub-population who are convinced that American can no longer innovate.
Skeptic,
Your link to the Scientific American article was enough to convince me this is a bogus story.
This story could be used as a case-study in using statistics to lie. I can safely say “lie” because nobody would honestly make the mistake of sampling data from four weeks for something like infant mortality. It had to be intentional selectivity.
# 22 bbjester
Maybe your water supply has had its ph lowered recently? Slightly acidic could possibly dissolve built up metals en route to your tap.
At least that seems much more likely to me than Fukushima being the cause.
I am no expert so take it with a grain of water softening salt 😉
I found those links while trying to find out recent infant death statistics statistics for Japan. There weren’t any that I cound find, but that also makes a point. If the death rates in the nothwest US states were 34% higher, imagine what they would be in Japan. Apparently it’s not newsworthy or alarming enough to publish.
Also I fixed the link in my post #43. The post in question is quite a few comments down the page.
http://nuc.berkeley.edu/node/4550
Bobbo, OT, but since you mentioned Mark Twain, I am currently reading “The complete Short Stories of Mark Twain”. I believe it’s the only compilation ever done. (edited by Charles Neider).
Great read if you are interested.
Thanks Skeptic. Does the compilation add any commentary or is it just a collection? I’ve read most of Twain, got reinterested a few years ago when PBS did a bio on him.
The recent controversy on Changing “nigger” to “slave” in high school editions of Huck Finn was not that interesting to me. Do anything you want to art, just call it modified and go from there. For myself, I’d let the kiddies know there were two versions, and let them read what they want.
NEVER criticize anyone about reading whatever they want to. They can read whatever you might prefer later, if they want to.
While most famous for Huck Finn, as a traveler myself, I more prefer Innocence Abroad…but to quote the ghetto: Its all good.
Re #49 Bobbo, there is a good, but short, introduction (10 pages?) explaining where he got the stories and some observations about Twain. There are other “complete works” but this one is unique in where he found the stories. I just checked, and you can read the intro online here. I hope the link works. You’ll have to scroll down to the contents. I’m sure they’ve removed a few pages so that you’ll buy the book, heh, heh. I got mine at the library. Now I’m out for some fresh air before it rains again.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=NxwHTVAD-3MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+complete+short+stories+of+Mark+Twain+Neider&hl=en&ei=3UAGTtniGoTs0gGDm_TzCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Skeptic–thanks for the effort but I get nothing when I scroll down except another notice that “No Preview” is available.
Still interesting to read some of the posted comments though. You can never have too much “context.”
How does any thinking person not become bitter? ((And you may know?—smile!)
#37 Good report by Scientific American. Guess that proves the infant mortality claims were wrong.
What also wrong is the complete lack of interest in Fukushima. All eyes were on Fukushima when there was a “chance of a meltdown”, then suddenly nobody cared when TEPCO finally admitted that all 3 reactors active that day had already melted down within hours after the earthquake.
#18 Well it saved my fathers life. The guys assigned to carry fuel to the front lines weren’t expected to last over 30 minutes. Yes it let a lot of Americans make it home alive who would have died and that is important to me. It was Truman’s job to save American lives.
As for the Japanese go back and check the estimates. It saved Japanese lives as well. Civilians charging our forces armed with pikes weren’t expected to die of old age and the Japanese were already in the habit of getting their civilians to off themselves if the army didn’t do it for them.
#52–AriannaB==more dribble WHILE admitting you dribble? Do you really view the world only in extremes? “……then suddenly nobody cared……” Well, certainly YOU demonstrate you have no interest at all in being credible/sane in representing current issues of the day.
Have you got a third for us or will you save it for another thread?
#53–deowill–big controversy about 15 years ago when Smithsonian commentary on the Enola Gay was that Japan was A-Bombed unnecessarily for various racists/war mongering motives of the USA. Enough veterans complained. I give it another decade and such commentary will have more likely success.
The argument of course is that USA could have “demonstrated” the bomb on an island near to Japan or whatnot.
War. WAR!!!!!!
Just wanted to chime in about this antivirus thing first. And I agree, Microsoft Security Essentials is a fine program. I ditched AVG awhile back after many years of use for MSE. Have yet to regret it and it even runs fine on my Asus EEE (I upgraded it to 2gb of RAM.). I still whole heatedly recommend Spybot S&D and its immunization feature. Recently I have been messing with Immunet with integrated ClamAV as a cloud based zero day protectant. Can’t really attest for its effectiveness as of yet though. Malwarebytes is awesome too. I just had to install Win 7, 64bit Home twice this weekend and it sucked. SP1 Net Install borked my box the first time. Went with the SP1 ISO the second time around and it went without a hitch. Usually I run Fedora but like to keep windows around just in case.
As far as my earlier post goes… well it really doesn’t do any good to worry about what has already happened I guess. Still the media has been slacking quite a bit lately. Maybe it has something to do with their corporate masters. Just sayin’ 😛
GregAllen unless you can point out a green renewable that’s NOT more expensive than coal/oil/gas/nuke we have no option. Raising the cost of energy is not acceptable as the result is a lowered standard of living.
#47 skeptic, I’m not sure if Japan has any kids.
#45 GregAllen, perhaps it is a lie. I’d believe it if someone looked up the stats for the cities they didn’t use in their survey like Tacoma and Spokane, while they did use Boise.
Why do you think coal should not be used, in place of ‘clean’ renewables?
>> President Amabo said, on June 26th, 2011 at 4:17 am
>> GregAllen unless you can point out a green renewable that’s NOT more expensive than coal/oil/gas/nuke we have no option. Raising the cost of energy is not acceptable as the result is a lowered standard of living.
I _might_ buy your argument, if there was a fair accounting of the costs of nukes/gas/coal/oil.
There has always been a false economy around traditional fuels thanks to massive direct and in-direct subsidies from taxpayers.
For example, whole wars need to be factored into the cost of oil. The cost of nuclear disasters need to paid up-front in the cost of nuclear energy, not picked-up by the taxpayer after the disaster. And, of course, we just give our tax dollars to the oil companies.
Lastly, nobody knows the cost of renewables 30 years from now. But, you can be sure it will be much lower than now.
>> MikeN said, on June 26th, 2011 at 5:26 am
>> Why do you think coal should not be used, in place of ‘clean’ renewables?
Because coal will ultimately be the death of us. It’s worse than nuclear, in the aggregate, from what I hear.
The disaster was big when it first happened, bigger when more started leaking and breaking down. The concern should have been elevated much higher when Japan clearly did not have the expertise to start any type of “clean up” and finally had to allow foreign experts to come in and help. And making this a small concern for its own citizens and public is just cruelty in the most ignorant sense imo.
Take a look back through the events people, this was forthcoming whether you wanted to believe them or not, and sadly not many did. I can’t count the number of forums I’ve discussed this with with so few agreeing. Everyone wants nuclear but so little seem to understand all the facets involved in getting just one built.
There are many military families around where I live. Some families have been ordered and shipped out to help with this very crisis already, prior to this news. None of the family members like it but they have no choice in the matter. All of them are experts in their field with years of experience mind you. That goes to show you how bad they need the help.
Just a month ago one of my sister’s friend was ordered to shipped out and stick around for at least 5 years >.> They had a week to move, sell, pack and what not. He was a data analyst expert in the nuclear field. Lastly they were a Japanese family and have parents and relatives living in Japan and they still didn’t want to go, rather didn’t want to expose the kids to any of the harms.
I’m not entirely sure why this isn’t getting bigger attention but then I’m not surprise Japan isn’t doing much or rather eliminating attention when it needs to. Case in point, there’s a Japanese forum for a game I play and we had discussions on there concerning the events. Those threads are immediately deleted with no reasons as to why. And no, it’s not against the rules of the forum, as other topics are discussed without any issues.
I guess people like hearing about penises…err weiner’s rather than more important news.