While the mainstream media may be content to portray the current situation as business as normal as the levels of radiation officially detected in the USA are nothing to be concerned about they are not discussing the problem of sustained amounts of radionuclides being pumped into the atmosphere have to eventually go somewhere and be absorbed.
Currently the biggest issue is that amount of Cesium-137 that is traversing the globe. With a half life of 30 years it is going to have a significant long term affect on the diary industry and basically anything that consumes grass. So if you like your beef with a hefty does of cancer causing Cesium-137 it makes sense to not be worried. It really is business as usual.
Most of the other elements being detected have significantly less long term potential for damage to human health unless of course you are in the path of the toxic plume or happen to be living in Japan right now. In that case you really are at significant risk of a horrible painful death from radiation poisoning.
Barium-140 has a half life of 13 days and Iodine-131 is 8 days. Certainly enough time for anyone in the direct path of the toxic plume to be significantly adversely affected by exposure.
It seems the only thing currently going right in this incredible chain of events is that the wind has been consistently blowing westward for the past week moving most of the radiation out into the pacific where it is being absorbed by the ocean and hopefully dispersed enough not to have a significant immediate effect on the worlds food supply. Of course you wouldn’t want to eat any fish that was caught in that part of the world during the next few months.
With a sustained toxic plume sweeping it’s way across the pacific and having been originally detected in continental USA on Wednesday 16 March only 5 days after the Tsunami hit that means Americans have been potentially exposed to large doses of Cesium-137 for the past 4 days straight. Given the cesium-137 has a half life of 30 years and the other radionuclides last for at least a week this is definitely in my book a cause for concern.
People in the USA are right to be boosting on Iodine, calcium and potassium at this point. They should also be very concerned about ingesting dairy products and the California wine industry is probably off limits for this year at least.
If that wasn’t bad enough the real cause for concern is for the Japanese people who are currently being exposed to the highest dose of radiation poisoning on mass that modern civilization has ever seen. It’s extraordinarily sad but the truth is that we are currently witnessing a mass homicide being conducted by TEPCO and the Japanese Governement. Aided and abetted by the IAEA and the global nuclear and military industrial complex all in the cause of having access to weapons grade material for constructing nuclear weapons.
When will they finally realise that we don’t want this to be our reality?
With the choice between Uranium/Plutonium reactors with enough energy to power the world for a couple of hundred years and the constant threat of nuclear weapons and horrible ecological damage from a meltdown event or a Thorium based economy that consumes Uranium/Plutonium, has no weapons possibilities in addition to being so abundant that we could have basically free energy for thousands of years any rational person would choose the latter option. Unfortunately the military industrial complex and Big money power companies are anything but rational. It often seems like the people in charge of those organisations actually enjoy death and destruction and want to do as much damage as possible.
Isn’t it time for a change?
Tags: e=mc2, environment, Fuel, Fundamentals, military, nuclear by Sparky
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