Fukushima Fear Mongering Debunked
January 17, 2014
Is Fukushima fear mongering elite inspired
or do truthers have a perverse desire
to believe the worst?
(Editor's Note: I reserve judgment and post this for purposes of information and discussion.)
by James Farganne
(henrymakow.com)
Fear
about Fukushima and its "poisoning of the Pacific" is rampant
these days. On Facebook, some of my "truther" friends get angry
if I dare to question the reality of a nuclear apocalypse looming in
and over the Pacific.
The term "fear porn" has gained a lot of traction, and in this instance I can see why: intelligent people have become so addicted to their Pacific Ocean horror fixation, they refuse to evaluate data that might contradict it.
Are there dying animal populations? Should residents of the Pacific Northwest be concerned? Does the Pacific Ocean contain large amounts of radioactive material? While the answer to all these questions is "Yes", there is, as usual, a lot more to know.
Mainstream media outlets peddle the lie that all four obliterated reactor containments at Fukushima remain unbreached. Meanwhile, the so-called "alternative media" has been hammering truth seekers with dire claims that are equally misleading.
These two false scenarios - one, everything is under control, and two, the Pacific Ocean has been destroyed - constitute the usual goalposts by which people are routinely deceived, manipulated, and distracted from reality.
Usually, the goalpost dialectic leads the public down a predetermined path of brainwashed opinion, and reality is somewhere outside the confines of the posts. In this case, however, reality is not only outside the goalposts, but in between them as well.
Let's look at the latter reality first.
ANIMAL DIE-OFFS
Yes, there was a starfish apocalypse. Dead starfish by the millions littered the ocean floor off the British Columbian coast. Their arms were falling off. Their guts were gooshing out. When marine biologists collected them in tanks for analysis, they sometimes turned to jelly before they reached the laboratory.
"Alternative news" sites such as ENEnews.com promptly attributed the die-off to radiation from Fukushima. Droves of truthers, already terrified by reports of radioactive tuna and Google Maps images showing the killer radiation overtaking the Pacific like a psychedelic oil slick, fell for this bit of disinformation hook, line, and sinker.
The truth is that die-offs are a regular occurrence in nature. Die-offs happen when populations outstrip food supply; malnourishment leads to starvation and, more importantly, disease, which quickly propagates, effecting a population crash.
After the crash, the survivors, presumably the fittest, enjoy less competition for a recovering food supply, and the population rebounds.
Dr. Craig McClain, Assistant Director of Science for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, identifies the syndrome that caused the die-off, and gives three reasons why it had nothing to do with Fukushima: (1) as an observed phenomenon, it predates Fukushima by 3 - 15 years; (2) it also occurs on the East Coast; and (3), other forms of life in the region remained unaffected.
Far from being unusual events, animal die-offs happen all the time, and normally go unremarked by all but the scientists who monitor them. Unscrupulous outlets ENEnews.com and Rense.com, among many others, are now hauling reports of them into the alternative media limelight and attributing them to Fukushima fallout without presenting a shred of evidence.
In doing so, they spread not only disinformation, but needless fear.
ATMOSPHERIC FALLOUT
There have been claims of high Geiger counter readings in the Pacific Northwest.
According to Jim Stone, the engineer and ex-NSA analyst who proved that Fukushima was an act of environmental terrorism, the nuke that destroyed Reactor 3 did indeed produce particles that were blown eastward and are most likely to end up in North American riverbeds.
That isn't good, but neither is it the end of the world, when one considers the many Cold War nuclear test detonations, which are one factor in the cancer rate explosion of the 20th century.
This article from Geigercounter.com traces high readings in California to naturally radioactive sand. How many amateurs with Geiger counters are erroneously jumping to Fukushima conclusions?
Background radiation is not uniform. Naturally occurring hot spots vary widely in intensity. In some parts of Iran, people thrive in radioactive norms much higher than any in the United States.
It makes sense to take the Geiger counter reports with several grains of salt.
Stone makes another good point. In Washington State, police cars are equipped with Geiger counters, which still sometimes detect radiotherapy patients. The background radiation in that region has not spiked because of Fukushima; otherwise, the cops' Geiger counters would be jammed and useless for detecting cancer patients.
Some particles from the obliterated core of Reactor 3 have found their way to North America, but the reality does not begin to approach the hype.
This is where people have been getting most emotional, and understandably so. We love whales and dolphins, and a whole lot of us enjoy seafood too. How much more catastrophic can you get, short of a planetary mass extinction event?
But this claim, that "The Pacific Ocean is dying", is the most tenuous of them all.
The Pacific took its worst hit when Reactor 3 exploded, sending a portion of its fuel downwind over the waters. The rest will sit on Japanese land, making much of it uninhabitable for as long as Japan remains above sea level.
Water happens to be an ideal radiation sink. Even gamma rays cannot penetrate more than two and a half feet of seawater. It takes only a fuel pool with a little water to soak up all the radiation from many reactor cores. Meanwhile, the Pacific Ocean occupies fully 30% of Earth's surface.
Consider also the many nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific during the Cold War. In that context, are we to believe that a bit of fuel from one reactor core could destroy the entire ocean?
Even had Reactor 3's entire core been ejected into the water, the idea that it could poison the entire ocean is ludicrous.
CONCLUSION
If you are freaked out by the hype, I suggest that you consider the possibility that you are getting roped in by a fear porn campaign designed to ... do what?
Now we come to the reality outside the goalposts.
Stone thinks that the disinformation is to divert truthers' attention from the real issues surrounding Fukushima: that (1) the disaster on 3/11/11 was a coordinated attack on Japan, (2) the majority of environmental damage outside Japan came in the immediate wake of that attack, and (3) the most serious issue is all the expelled fuel still strewn around Reactor 3's destroyed containment. So lethal is that debris that not even robots can survive proximity to it. Safe disposal remains untenable.
I think the "elites" enjoy scaring the masses. In a sense, they feed on it. Fear is an excellent tool for keeping people's minds in chains, especially when they happen to be a demographic (frequenters of "alternative" media) who are consciously trying to shake off those chains and become mentally free.
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Stone's report proving that 3/11/11 was an act of war is available in PDF format here.
jimstonefreelance.com
farganne.wordpress.com
http://311truth.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/spreading-fear-garbage-charts-misrepresentation/
The Nuclear Scare Scam (Lecture by physicist) Thanks Peter
First Comment from Stephen Quayle
IT'S HARDLY FEAR MONGERING-I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT NUCLEAR EFFECTS FOR DECADES AND THE CPM IN BOZEMAN MONTANA IS 120- NORMALLY .18 LAST YEAR-I OWN MY OWN SOPHISTICATED RADIATION MONITORS. -JUST BECAUSE LYING PAID HACKS HAVE TAKEN OVER 60 YEARS WORTH OF RADIO ACTIVITY STUDIES AND RE WRITTEN THE LAWS OF PHYSICS DOESN'T CHANGE THE LETHALITY OF IONIZING RADIATION OR THE DANGER OF THE VARIOUS ISOTOPES-NO ANCHOVIES AND THE REPORTS I GET FROM ALSKAN FISHERMAN ARE HORRIFIC NOT TO MENTION THE NAVY SAILORS WHO WERE EXPOSED TO LETHAL DOSES ON OUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS-I HAVE ALOT OF RESPECT FOR YOU BUT YOU ARE WRONG ON THIS ONE AND GROSSLY MISINFORMED!
Ken Adachi replies:
Just read Steve Quayle's ill informed, delusional, all cap comments and I'm compelled to respond. For the past decade or so, Steve's entire radio career on Coast to Coast radio is marked by one continuous trail of the-sky-is-falling, "the-end-is-almost-here" warnings of biblical proportioned "calamities" that are "just about" to overtake America and usher in the End Times fundamentalist "prophecies" otherwise known as British Israel. He's a Doom & Gloomer from the get go.
Here he makes statements that illustrate his utter mastery of the art of the Blind Leading the Blind. I have frequently explained in my articles debunking Fukushima radiation hysteria that the CPM (counts per minute) reading at any Geiger counter station is not a SINGLE static number that is "18 last year" and has now RISEN to "120" in Bozeman, Montana. It doesn't work that way. The CPM reading changes CONTINUOUSLY from MINUTE to MINUTE. It can be "18" one minute, and COULD show "120" the next minute, and come back down to "25" the NEXT minute. Geiger counters set to read CPM will record ANY form of ionizing radiation event which INCLUDES natural cosmic rays and harmless alpha radiation which NATURALLY arise from certain geological formations. The ONLY way to arrive at a meaningful number is to AVERAGE the CPM readings over a 24 hour period and publish the MEAN average as background radiation on a daily basis. Go to this National Radiation Map of privately owned, civilian
Geiger counter monitoring stations around the US that show RAW, instantaneous readings in CPM and notices how the numbers CHANGE each few minutes as you refresh the page.
http://radiationnetwork.com/
This group considers an "alert" reading to be a SUSTAINED reading of over 100 CPM for THREE or more CONTINUOUS minutes. There are NO 100 CPM + alert readings ANYWHERE in the United States and there have been NONE recorded in the USA since 3/11, beyond the occasional FALSE alert readings which are explained on this page:
http://radiationnetwork.com/Message.htm
Steve uses his emotions more than his brains when he alludes to the supposed Fukushima triggered cancers acquired among sailors from the USS Carrier Reagan involved (along with Japanese relief workers) in distributing food pallets and those who were involved in the pathetic water dumping debacle at the Daiichi power station which we all saw on video is another CONTRIVED Fukushima radiation scare story based on ZERO evidence of any SIGNIFICANT or harmful radiation exposure to ANY of those sailors. Sailors who work on relief/rescue missions involving a nuclear accident and those who work aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier are REQUIRED to wear sensitive DOSIMETERS to record their total radiation exposure. The Navy said that NONE of those sailors involved received MORE than the equivalent of ONE month's worth of normal background radiation exposure. The idea that these guys acquired thyroid or other types of cancers due to their INSIGNIFICANT radiation exposures while engaged in Japan relief efforts or the water dumping episode is an ABSURDITY beyond reason.
Here is the index of articles I've posted to date explaining and debunking Fukushima radiation hysteria promotion:
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/fukushimaradiationhysteriaindex.shtml
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James T said (January 21, 2014):
I do agree that the fear may be overblown, but there are also other factors to consider, such as radiation from worthless "power" plants
isn't the only one that should be accounted for.
To expound what I mean is that what we have here is radioactive particulate that may
well be combined with the *Real* radiation threat, that being cellular technology and broadcasting which is quietly nuking people at a
constant rate and growing. Are the fukushima particles any more dangerous when combined with the electro-magnetic maelstrom cellular companies continue to build? (I don't personally know) But the fear of the fukushima fallout certainly detracts from people watching out for
this other radiation that is constantly being spread with every new cellular antenna/tower activation, so perhaps that is one end-goal of
the fear mongering.