Spiegel Online International (Der Spiegel, German news magazine), Feb. 5, 2015 (emphasis added): [It’s] the worst accident in the history of civilian atomic power… The Fukushima catastrophe changed the world. Nuclear reactors melted down on live television and twice as much radioactive material was released as during the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The disaster… poisoned entire landscapes for centuries and killed hundreds of thousands of farm animals… Fukushima is more than just a place-name, it is an historical event…
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Venice, and Nanjing University, Feb 6, 2015: The ? radioactivity of snow-pit samples collected in the spring of 2011 on four Tibetan Plateau glaciers demonstrate a remarkable peak in each snow pit profile, with peaks about ten to tens of times higher than background levels. The timing of these peaks suggests that the high radioactivity resulted from the Fukushima nuclear… The released radioactive nuclear substances not only polluted Japan… but also spread to other areas of the Northern Hemisphere via atmospheric circulation and ocean currents, affecting the hemispheric and even global environment. As an overdose of nuclear radiation may seriously threaten human health and wildlife survival, this nuclear accident has caught the attention of the world. The radioactive fallout [was] detected in the atmosphere, soil, surface water, and pastures in the low-altitude regions of North America… Much of the radioactive material was transported by the westerlies, resulting in the fallout over North America… [T]o reach the Tibetan Plateau, material transported by the westerlies has to first circle much of the globe… In May 2011, snow-pit samples were collected on the Gurenhekou Glacier… Dongkemadi Glacier… Muztag Glacier and Yuzhufeng Glacier… In 2005 and 2007, we drilled ice cores… Tanggula ice core [and] Yuzhufeng ice core… Clearly, the peak ? radioactivities in the snow pits… are much higher than that in the corresponding local ice cores, and even overwhelm the peak ? radioactivities caused by past atmospheric thermonuclear tests in the early 1960s… The peak ? radioactivities… are 11.0 and 92.4 times larger than their local average background levels… attributed to the Fukushima radioactive fallout… The Fukushima nuclear accident… created a radioactive horizon that can be used as independent age markers in snow and ice cores in the Northern Hemisphere… providing a direct record of the impacts of human activities on the Earth’s environment…
See also: VIDEO: New data shows Fukushima radiation release exceeds Chernobyl
I was writing a comment, and the entire thing vanished. I will try to recapture what I was trying to say. I have been on this story since day one, and this article verifies much of what I have feared. This terrible drought that is destroying CA is related to this disaster, our water is vanishing, and the heat is endless. Here in February, it is close to 80 degrees, and I live in Northern CA, where the Winters used to be real…….it is an endless hell of ugly sunshine and dry, nasty weather.
When I was young, and the US was actually a leader of a decent and better world, the best minds on the planet would have come together to find a solution regardless of corporate greed. In this case, a very greedy corporations, TEPCO, with control of 96% of Japan’s power grid turned down all offers of help, even from Russia. Russia has had more experience than anyone. Their solution would be to bury the damn thing, the sooner the better. The fact Japan refused tells all what happens when corporations and government marry, perfect fascism. And, now it destroys Japan and much of the Northern parts of the world. Corporate greed overcame the health and welfare of their customers. How short sighted and greedy can you get?
TEPCO could get some of those plants running again, Profit was at stake, so profit won, regardless of the consequences. The Pacific Ocean has been destroyed, it is dead, and it was the source of food for millions, jobs for thousands and 50% of the world’s oxygen came from it. No longer. Other articles discuss the growing areas of total oxygen loss in the Pacific (carefully not mentioning Japan), and the fish and big sea creatures are dying.
Many have appeared in our bays because they are starving. They average one third of their weight, covered with cysts and the vulture creatures put here by nature won’t touch them; they can sense or smell the difference. Instead, they continue to rot on our beaches. Our once beautiful beaches are now covered with barnacles, and the magnificent beaches of the Pacific are no more, we have no people certified to handle them.
Japan….if it were only Japan, I would not care, but it has ruined our lives, and is getting much worse. I have said the radiation is part of the cause of melting glaciers and rising sea levels and the heat from the radiation cannot be denied. It is common sense. We face our own extinction, a far cry from the world I was raised in, a world of hope where progress was not a dirty word.
The bastards take the waste from Fukushima to burn in conventional burn centers in Tokyo regardless the fires from conventional fires are not hot enough to burn radioactive material. They don’t care they send the material into the atmosphere twice as if once isn’t bad enough! It is genocide, pure and simple.
Bringing in homeless, helpless and folks in debt to their bookies to do cleanup is insanity. I am sure they are all dead, but no mention is made. Cleaning up an ongoing disaster is like cleaning up an ongoing flood……….you can do nothing until the source of the problem has been stopped. In this case, it continues unabated for four years next month.
I remember just a couple of months after the disaster, one of the biggest banking firms in the world defaulted on some downtown Tokyo property, they refused to buy it………….they knew, just as we do, that Japan will soon be uninhabitable.
So will North America, we are getting the brunt of it…..it is terrifying to those who want to live. The burning sense in our throats and lungs, the metallic taste in our mouths are daily events, I use lots of mouthwash……….
Japan was a great trading partner with the US. They bought a lot of US debt at record low rates and return, they loaned us money…….that all came to a screeching halt after Fukushima. Nations around the world started refusing Japanese goods due to high levels of radiation. Their export business came to a halt. Their economy has been sliding south ever since, and their debt to GDP has been rising. They are in great trouble, there has been no solution, nor will there be. Man is the only creature so stupid as to invent things beyond his abilities to control them.
Our food chain has been destroyed. For the first time in over 400 years, we face a problem so ancient, we have forgotten…………food supplies. It was around 1650, when man figured out how to raise enough food for the population. Man learned to let fields lie fallow, to change what they grow in each field……..much of the skills of raising food efficiently was mastered. From that time on, man was able to create museums, schools, art was appreciated, it was the time of a Renaissance, then the 18th century enlightenment, followed by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. Machines were put to work to farm much more efficiently……….from the beginning of the 19th century, to the early 20th century, we went from candle light to electric lighting. From messenger to telegraph and telephone. We went from coal heating and kerosene lighting to electric heating and lighting. We really thought we had harnessed power for a much higher standard of living.
Then came the automobile, next the aeroplane. First WW, it took 18 days to turn a rich man’s flying toy into a weapon. Such is the way of man. I remember mustard gas victims……..it was horrible to see people live a long life in an iron lung. All the good stuff we developed for the raising of man’s standard of living would be twisted by greedy gut war mongers.
The 20th century tells the story. Give man enough rope, and he will hang himself.
All the great things we invented, the semiconductor, computers, high definition TV………all have been applied to weapons and spying on others. At the beginning of the 21st century, the US suffered a coup, some very evil people grabbed power, and it has gotten worse every year. All the technology we developed cannot overcome the radioactive disaster of Fukushima or the corruption of government marriage to corporations.
We are finished. There is no hope because nobody is even trying to fix this problem. When people stop trying, it is a very bad sign.
Once a thinking individual comes to these same conclusions, the next question is what are you going to do to get ready, and When do things get bad?
Civil Rights Law ended our civilization because it gave power to those that didn’t earn it, Then they elected someone to destroy everything and he IS doing that!
You have a very clearly written explanation of many different things we must grasp to fight our own deaths. Thank for helping us confront the reality of what we are facing. The food chain decline stories, alone are so dismal. The largest ocean on the entire earth!
No matter what measurement they make today on any beach it will be higher , next time!