Making mountains out of meltdowns (in Japan)
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A good interview with Professor David Jamieson, head of the School of Physics at The University of Melbourne on Thorium reactors and the current nuclear 'crisis' in Japan.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/03/22/3170512.htm?site=newcastle
(with audio- so you don't have to read much
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An interesting read from marketing guru Seth Godin...
The triumph of coal marketingLook at this infographic!
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While nuclear power is probably the only way to go, Japan's situation is steadily deteriorating. I wouldn't be surprised if reactor 3 turns out to be a major disaster. I am sure that none of us would care to eat the radiated seafood, and vegetables as the result of the disaster. It's a mistake not to consider people's "state of fear", and its impact on the world economy.
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More and more of this has got even more to do with mass hysteria and panic. Even the World Health Organisation has made a statement that there is very little to worry about.
The problem with the press is that they haven't a clue how to report a massive humanitarian crisis, because what sells papers isn't news that eight thousand people are already confirmed dead and 12,000 are still missing, but what sells papers to the liberal masses in the west is an impending nuclear disaster caused not by nature but by people, and this simply isn't true.
I actually find it quite disgusting that in a liberal paper such as the Guardian here in the UK, has mentioned nothing of the humanitarian crisis, just pages upon pages of updates on the reactor.
It makes me very upset. So upset that I'm quite happy to eat food that has been labeled as 'contaminated' just to prove a point. In fact, in order to become affected with radiation, you would have to eat vast proportions of leafy vegetable for at least a year, every day. The same goes for drinking water. The Japanese obsession with these face
masks doesn't improve perceptions either. -
[flash=600,400:ymsrl8dm]http://www.youtube.com/v/CsDomUQ-fYM[/flash:ymsrl8dm]
Crazy!!
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Doesn't she have cancer? If so, that may be contributing to her fear.
The tons of water they poured into the reactors have sent 2 workers to the hospital. I'll bet some of this water found its way into the adjacent ocean along with the radioactive iodine in the smoke.
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I never saw her before this, but on seeing this again (it was on the Daily Show), I wonder if she wasn't playing along as an outlandish devil's advocate for the pervasive ignorance.
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@honoluludesktop said:
The tons of water they poured into the reactors have sent 2 workers to the hospital.
I think you have to be very careful how a news item like that is interpreted.
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@unknownuser said:
but what sells papers to the liberal masses in the west is an impending nuclear disaster caused not by nature but by people
@unknownuser said:
How many other "Glenn Beck"'s are you Americans hiding??
So what is it?, liberal or conservative?
Beck is an extreme conservative, yet you cite the liberals as the problem.
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@solo said:
Crazy!!
'Thick' more like!
How many other "Glenn Beck"'s are you Americans hiding??
Someone should give her a reality check about the radiation that is emitted every single day from our very own sun!
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neither. This is sensationalism. It can be both.
edit; Pete, I should point out that I was referring to the UK when I mentioned papers.
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The true problem is the 24 hour news cycle IMO.
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Here is the news post. NHK is the Japanese version of "Voice of America".
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@tfdesign said:
@honoluludesktop said:
The tons of water they poured into the reactors have sent 2 workers to the hospital.
I think you have to be very careful how a news item like that is interpreted. :idea:
Well, 3 workers walked in the water that had been poured into one of the reactor's building, and 2 were found with potential radiation burns. The one that wasn't burned, had his shoes protected from getting soaked.
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@solo said:
The true problem is the 24 hour news cycle IMO.
Well we have 24 hour news too. It's pretty bad ('bad' as in it just repeats the same thing over and over again), but nowhere near as awful as that.
The last series of HBO's The Wire was a good reminder of how low media can go in order to sell papers. Although fictional, I think The Wire captured quite a good perspective into perceiving how some may portray the news in order to hold on to an audience, and thus regaining viewing figures that keep those 'journalists' in a job.
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@honoluludesktop said:
Well, 3 workers walked in the water that had been poured into one of the reactor's building, and 2 were found with potential radiation burns. The one that wasn't burned, had his shoes protected from getting soaked.
Like I said, it's all in the way the news is portrayed (like for eg sensationalism etc)
@unknownuser said:
The director of the institute, Makoto Akashi, says the 2 workers should be able to carry on with their daily lives without discomfort. He added the 3 workers will be discharged early next week.
So what kind of burns are we talking here? I mean plain hot water burns too- and those can be equally nasty and painful even fatal.
What about this article in the same newspaper?
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/26_22.html
Do people pay attention to that? Or is it just not interesting enough? Not enough science fiction?
Sometimes I think the British Dr Who series has a lot to answer for!
[flash=425,344:2qq5nrw8]http://www.youtube.com/v/jCOPyK5F2II?fs=1&hl=en_GB&fs=1&&[/flash:2qq5nrw8]
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So, you would swim in the ocean next to the plant?-)
Did you consider the source of the news? As I said, NHK is the "Voice of America" of Japan. One of their normal functions is to increase tourism to Japan.
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@honoluludesktop said:
So, you would swim in the ocean next to the plant?-)
Did you consider the source of the news? As I said, NHK is the "Voice of America" of Japan. One of their normal functions is to increase tourism to Japan.
Just give me some toxic spinich and I'll boil it up and eat it in front of the millions of other doomongers on YouTube. And yes, pay for me to fly to Japan, and I'll happily swim around the reactor!
If the paper's function is to increase tourism in Japan, then they should all be fired! But I suspect in the land of the rising iPad, kindle and Android, you're just witnessing yet another newspaper clambering for attention to 'up' the sales revenue.
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It's not a newspaper, just read the link.
Tell you what. Go to Japan, swim in the ocean next to the reactor, submit proof, and I will reimburse you:-)
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Dear Tom,
Just in case you haven't already seen this,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842
Extract from article:
People worry about radiation because they cannot feel it. However, nature has a solution - in recent years it has been found that living cells replace and mend themselves in various ways to recover from a dose of radiation.
These clever mechanisms kick in within hours and rarely fail, except when they are overloaded - as at Chernobyl, where most of the emergency workers who received a dose greater than 4,000 mSv over a few hours died within weeks.
However, patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement.
In this way, many patients get to enjoy further rewarding years of life, even after many vital organs have received the equivalent of more than 20,000 years' dose at the above internationally recommended annual limit - which makes this limit unreasonable.
A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.
End extract.
Regards,
Bob
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