A new study predicts 2 billion dead, 25-year winter after a ‘limited’ nuclear war, news.com.au 22 July 14 IT’S a horrifying scene burned into our collective conscious: A flash of light, a blast of hot air and a ballooning mushroom cloud. But there’s much more to a nuclear war, as a new study reveals.
Specifically, they ran computer models on a fight between Pakistan and India through advanced climate predicting software developed to study pollution-based climate change.
The outcome?
It’s bad.
Even for this “limited, regional nuclear war”, it means a one-to-two degree plunge in global temperatures and a nine-per cent cut in worldwide rainfall. In practical terms, that equates to worldwide crop failures and famine.
“This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere.”
The resulting “nuclear winter” would last at least 25 years — almost double that of previous estimates.
With the coldest temperatures for more than a 1000 years, but extending over decades, will come an expansion in sea ice — and killer frosts which will reduce growing seasons by between 10 and 40 days each year.
Other side-effects include a 20 to 50 per cent loss in the density of the ozone layer over populated areas. Such levels would be unprecedented in human history, the report says, causing widespread damage to agriculture and natural ecosystems — not to mention human skin cancer.
So much for a “limited” nuclear war.
Remember: The modern hydrogen-bomb technology of Russia, China and the United States makes such weapons as those possessed by India and Pakistan seem antique.
An exchange between these big players would likely produce far worse effects.
The scientists are confident in the accuracy of their assessment.
The computer model they plugged the data into takes into account atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics and even the interaction of sea ice and land masses with the air.
Wind preferable to nuclear, coal, MyCentralJersey 21 July 14 No energy source is without some adverse environmental impact. Even wind power poses some concerns. But given the alternatives in New Jersey, especially coal and nuclear, wind power should be an important part of the energy mix.
So it was welcome news last week when the U.S. Department of Interior announced that 344,000 acres of sea floor off Long Beach Island and the southern Jersey Shore will be opened to wind power development. Leases will be offered to companies that want to build wind turbines along the ocean floor, starting about seven miles off Long Beach Island, Atlantic City and Cape May County.
A forecast analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy says that if that area is developed to maximum potential, turbine fields would generate up to 3,400 megawatts, enough to power 1.2 million homes…………
given the negative impacts of other traditional sources of energy — coal, gas and nuclear — the adverse effects of wind turbines pale in comparison.
Wind power is hardly a new or untested technology. Turbines supply energy off the California coast and abroad in Europe.
Renewable energy — wind, solar and other alternative technologies — is essential if the U.S. is to wean itself off nuclear and coal during the next 20 to 25 years. Nuclear should not be in the mix. It’s costly, it poses safety, health and environmental risks, and it is becoming prohibitively expensive to build new plants.
So far, the government’s wind-energy initiative for the Atlantic coast has led to five commercial wind-energy leases being awarded in Massachusetts, Delaware and Virginia.
In New Jersey, after formal publication of the proposal in the Federal Register today, there will be a 60-day public comment period ending Sept. 19, after which a date for the bidding will be announced.
Fukushima: Bad and Getting Worse – Global Physicians Issue Scathing Critique of UN Report on Fukushima CounterPunch, by JOHN LaFORGE, 20 July 14 “……..Points of agreement: Fukushima is worse than reported and worsening still
Before detailing the multiple inaccuracies in the UNSCEAR report, the doctors list four major points of agreement. First, UNSCEAR improved on the World Health Organization’s health assessment of the disaster’s on-going radioactive contamination. UNSCEAR also professionally “rejects the use of a threshold for radiation effects of 100 mSv [millisieverts], used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the past.” Like most health physicists, both groups agree that there is no radiation dose so small that it can’t cause negative health effects. There are exposures allowed by governments, but none of them are safe.
Second, the UN and the physicians agree that areas of Japan that were not evacuated were seriously contaminated with iodine-132, iodine-131 and tellurium-132, the worst reported instance being Iwaki City which had 52 times the annual absorbed dose to infants’ thyroid than from natural background radiation. UNSCEAR also admitted that “people all over Japan” were affected by radioactive fallout (not just in Fukushima Prefecture) through contact with airborne or ingested radioactive materials. And while the UNSCEAR acknowledged that “contaminated rice, beef, seafood, milk, milk powder, green tea, vegetables, fruits and tap water were found all over mainland Japan”, it neglected “estimating doses for Tokyo … which also received a significant fallout both on March 15 and 21, 2011.”
Third, UNSCEAR agrees that the nuclear industry’s and the government’s estimates of the total radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean are “far too low.” Still, the IPPNW reports shows, UNSCEAR’s use of totally unreliable assumptions results in a grossly understated final estimate. For example, the UN report ignores all radioactive discharges to the ocean after April 30, 2011, even though roughly 300 tons of highly contaminated water has been pouring into the Pacific every day for 3-and-1/2 years, about 346,500 tons in the first 38 months.
Fourth, the Fukushima catastrophe is understood by both groups as an ongoing disaster, not the singular event portrayed by industry and commercial media. UNSCEAR even warns that ongoing radioactive pollution of the Pacific “may warrant further follow-up of exposures in the coming years,” and “further releases could not be excluded in the future,” from forests and fields during rainy and typhoon seasons –when winds spread long-lived radioactive particles – a and from waste management plans that now include incineration.
As the global doctors say, in their unhappy agreement with UNSCAR, “In the long run, this may lead to an increase in internal exposure in the general population through radioactive isotopes from ground water supplies and the food chain.”……” http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/18/fukushima-bad-and-getting-worse/
Tokyo, Japan – “Abe colour” is an expression occasionally used in Japan’s domestic media. It means those government policies that reflect Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s personal views, and the term relates to his hawkish security policies. Critics claim the secrecy bill passed into law in December 2013 is said to be one such example of “Abe colour”, and it will go into effect this December.
Proper safeguards and oversight bodies were supposed to be included, but critics say that this secrecy law is still far from adequate.
One of the strongest critics of the new law comes from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which has asked the government to completely reconsider the law. Yoichi Eto, its representative, told Al Jazeera that “this law simply provides new powers to the government officials. It says that they are authorised to do this or that. But it has nothing to say at all about what officials must not do.
“There are no limits on the scope of this law, and that is its biggest problem,” Eto said.
Almost every critic of the law points to vagueness of its language; the manner in which the line between what is allowed and what is forbidden is not clearly specified.
“If we don’t have clarity in the regulations, if don’t have clarity in the law, then we don’t know what is the extent of the government’s power,” said Lawrence Repeta, a law professor at Meiji University in Tokyo. ” We don’t know how government agencies will use that power, to what degree, to what extent, what range of information may be covered.”
Professor Repeta goes on to note that the law makes no distinction about whether or not information is properly designated as a secret, or if release of the information will actually have any negative effect on national security, or if it is demonstrably in the public interest: All that the new law says is that if someone reveals something designated (for whatever reason) as a special secret, then they have committed a crime for which they may spend up to ten years in prison.
The new Japanese secrecy law also specifically targets journalists. While there is language in the text that supposedly guarantees “normal” journalistic practice, it also says that reporters and others who utilise “inappropriate means” to learn a special secret may be subject to prosecution and up to five years in prison.
What exactly constitutes “inappropriate means” to gather the news? The law is silent on this point, suggesting once again that the government and police will decide for themselves what the law mandates, once they are faced with a specific case.
Journalists at risk
Japan’s freelance investigative journalists are at particular risk, as the government may not even recognise their status as being part of a legitimate news media.
The present government has an unusually large number of things that it wants to hide
– Yu Terasawa, reporter
Yu Terasawa, recently cited by Reporters Without Borders as one of the world’s “100 Information Heroes” – the only person in Japan given such an honor – sees the main purpose of the law as preventing the media from revealing embarrassing information to the public. “The present government has an unusually large number of things that it wants to hide,” Terasawa said.
“This includes issues surrounding the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as well as, looking forward, possible conflicts with China, Russia, or North Korea.”
Terasawa is part of of a group of 43 freelance journalists and other writers who have launched a lawsuit against the new secrecy law. Michiyoshi Hatakeyama, another freelance journalist who is a plaintiff in the case, explains, “What is a secret? The line where these special secrets begin will not be clear. Even if one is arrested and you ask them why you’ve been arrested, that too may be a secret under this law.”
For its part, the Abe administration has been very reluctant to publicly defend the secrecy law since its passage last December. The minister put in charge of handling the issue, Masako Mori, is the most junior member of the Abe Cabinet, whose portfolio is Minister of State for Gender Equality, the Declining Birthrate, and Consumer Affairs. She declined repeated requests from Al Jazeera to explain the government’s position on the secrecy law, and at a press conference this month at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan the minister indicated that she only wanted to address the issue of gender equality.
Still, one journalist managed to challenge the minister on the secrecy law, and her defense of it consisted of denying that it posed any particular problems for the public good. She asserted that all necessary protections for journalists and for the public’s right to know had been properly legislated.
She also claimed that whistleblowers are fully protected under Japanese law. The only problem she acknowledged was that the government may have made insufficient efforts to inform the public about the responsible and entirely appropriate nature of this particular law. “The secrets protection law was written after exhaustive research on similar legislation of other countries,” Mori said.
No oversight
Outside Japan’s government, independent observers directly contest these claims.
In the summer of 2013, the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information, better known as the Tshwane Principles, were issued after a study involving more than five hundred experts from more than seventy countries at fourteen meetings held around the world. The Tshwane Principles calls on governments to protect and uphold freedom of information.
Professor Repeta, for example, states, “One of my biggest complaints about Japan’s parliamentary procedure was they didn’t consider the Tshwane Principles at all. It was as if they did not exist.”
It is hard to imagine a country that less needs a secrecy law than Japan.
– Morton Halperin, Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department
One of the world’s top experts on secrecy and declassification procedures, the former Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department, Morton Halperin, agrees with Repeta that the Japanese secrecy law in no way conforms with the Tshwane Principles and reflects an extremely alarming approach to secrecy legislation.
Among the problems cited by Halperin are that in the new Japanese law there is no credible third party oversight of the secrecy designation and its declassification systems, no concept that the public interest might sometimes override the need of the government to keep secrets, and no provision in the law that bureaucrats must explain why a particular document should be designated as a special secret.
The Abe administration has asserted repeatedly that fears about its new secrecy law are overblown. They say that the government will be restrained and responsible in the way that it applies the law to specific cases.
The problem, however, is that there is nothing in the law that actually obligates the government to act with restraint, and even if the Abe administration is sincere in its promises to act responsibly, it has handed an alarmingly broad power to future Japanese governments whose practices are far from certain.
Even in the absence of the new secrecy law, the Japanese government’s actual operations are often guarded from public view. Almost every major study of Japan’s mainstream media notes its tendency to shy away from investigative political reporting and to “reveal” to the Japanese public that information simply handed to them by the public relations officials of the various ministries and other government agencies.
In this context, Morton Halperin observed, “It is hard to imagine a country that less needs a secrecy law than Japan.”
Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician and Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Germany, cites his organization’s recently published Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee On The Effects Of Atomic Radiation) report on Fukushima that seriously – if not criminally — minimizes the health dangers of that nuclear disaster. Rosen decodes the UNSCEAR report’s methodology, shows where it cherry-picked its data and, in effect, demolishes its credibility.
Fukushima city government launches a new public information program to educate its kids about radiation. It includes such contraindicated gems as:
It is important to walk or play outside.
Open the window to keep good ventilation (nothing about the need for air filtration).
Dry clothes in sunshine (no word about radionuclides in the air or dust)
Air your futon outside when it’s sunny!
Fukushima city government campaign, “Let’s Build Radiation Resistance Body”
For a more realistic look at what it means to attempt life in Fukushima Daiichi’s radiation-saturated environment, here’s a picture of Fukushima nuclear refugee Setsuko Kida (from Nuclear Hotseat #134 – http://ow.ly/sP00P) facing the need to do her dishes with bottled water:
Setsuko was surprised to see clean dishes stacked on her kitchen sink. “The dishes were still dirty in the sink, but my husband must have brought along some water and washed them,” she said, choking back tears.
台所の食器が綺麗に洗ってあると驚く木田さん。
「汚れっぱなしだったんだけど、お父さんがわざわざ水を持ってきて洗ってくれたのね、、。」
と木田さんが少し声を詰まらせながら言った。
Photos courtesy of Yuji Kaneko for use on Nuclear Hotseat website. Reproduction requires permission.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DUCK AND COVER REPORT:
Oconee Nuclear Station in Florida forced to shut down from undetected crack that leaked; NRC forces regulator Duke Energy to attend a conference;
Proposed shutdown of Indian Point reactors near Manhattan so heated water discharge doesn’t kill billions of fish, fish eggs and larvae; Entergy asks NRC to extend licenses another 20 years each, though Unit 2′s license expired in 2013 – and it’s still operating!
And…
When people get concerned about safety limits, change the limit to change the perception = no problem!
Florida Power and Light’s Turkey Point nuclear power reactors in Miami-Dade County are trying to cool the reactor with canal water that’s 99 degrees – only one degree short of the NRC’s safety limit for cooling water. FPL’s solution? Asking the NRC to raise the 100-degree operating limit to 104 degrees so the reactors can stay on line. OY!
Its simple really ,if your watching or reading main stream media and they use key words while talking nuclear that includes anything containing Potassium 40 like potato chips drinking water or everyday objects its time to switch the program off before it programs you . Of course almost everything on earth has potassium 40 in it but why is it in a conversation about man made ionized radiated elements ,is it a accident ? How difficult is it to tell the difference between a banana and ionized radiated 12 ft nuclear fuel rod is anyones guess . Radon is another red herring as it also is normal radiation found at insignificant levels throughout earth and is used to cover up nuclear fallout repeatedly in media . Radon is also used to scare homeowners and inundate the innocent with radiation is everywhere mentality . How many home owners have ever died of Radon gas again, oh that’s right none but according to experts its a epidemic and it is one of the leading cause of lung cancer right .
Wait a second everything on earth is here because it is genetically superior and because it is acclimated to natural radiation ,bananas will not mutate fruit flys k . But now WHO says its a major contributor to cancer and we are suppose to believe that life on earth didn,t adapt to Radon or natural radiation umm m’kay . Those assertions are too ridiculous to take serious but a great way to shake down the home building industry and acclimating the trendy’s to radiation is everywhere syndrome and have a radiation boogeyman to convoluted man made radiation with .
When a nuclear apologist critter spots easy prey or is provided a platform they get strait to work . Their job as a nuclear lapdog is to throw insignificant terms into the nuclear equation to confuse and distort normal true background radiation with killer man made radiation by constantly repeating the same keywords .
The viewers and readers have all heard for 70 years how man made radiation is like Banana’s from main stream media verbatim . Did you know if you eat a Banana you basically in lay mans terms off gas that potassium 40 like is in banana’s because it is homeostasis . Your body can not hold more potassium 40 nothing on earth can . Other popular misdirections by creepy nuclear critters is ” did you know potatoes have natural radiation in them ” once again this is homeostasis its natural and your body is adapted too easily handle that .
Go watch any video of the nuclear apologist they usually only do interviews at night after the sun goes down because sunlight can easily destroy their credibility . Once darkness descends you will hear them say ” your drinking water has 7500 Bq of natural potassium 40 in it so having 1200 Bq/Kg of man made ionized Cs 137 in your food is ok ‘ .
But Potassium 40 is irrelevant its homeostasis you off gas the same amount , Cs 137 accumulates its accumulative and its a man made iodized radioactive particle . These atoms and particle do not exist on the moon and the sun doesn,t make them , the sun creates elements we destroy elements they are completely different in every possible way .
If you ingest man made radiation it causes your body to instantly attack it , it sequesters into your organs and bones . Your body will try to entomb it you call that cancer tumors and as long as its putting out energy your body has a auto immune response to it . That is using up your body’s reserves until that tumor is found and removed or well you know .
You will always hear the good old nuclear apologist say you will get more radiation from a Dental or Chest Ex-rays or we all live in a natural radiated environment . Or the radiation from japan is less then you would be getting by flying on a plane from Solar Radiation . If you have ever hear a nuclear expert say any of the above then you know your listening too or reading a pro nuclear PR spin doctors . The ocean is too big , it can never make its way over here , or it will take 10 years for the ocean to bring anything across when the jet streams deposited radiation over the entire Northern Hemisphere in less than 7 days and it continued unabated for 7 months . If the ocean currents only travel at 1 mile per hour 24 hours a day its here in 229 days , but it coming out of fukushima every day pretending its not pouring into the ocean is not a solution .
Remember the ocean is not that big when you take into context everyday 300 tons of radioactive water is hemorrhaging into the pacific . Well if it was just one day maybe i could look the other way but its daily for over 1200 days 24 hours a day 1440 minutes a day every day forever . Lets put that into perspective on St Pattys Day some community s pour 25 to 40 pounds of dye into rivers to temporary change the color of the river right . Well what would happen if you poured a 1000 pounds of dye that didn,t lose its color for 100s or 1000s of years in a 5000 mile river every minute of those 1440 minutes in each day for over 1200 days and then got into a plane and flew down that 5000 mile river to see where the dye went . How far down that 5000 mile river would you have to go before you do not find that the river all the estuaries and lakes and ponds etc etc are not effected by doing that every minute for 1200 days . My guess is everything right to the ocean would be a brightly different color .
What you need to do is get some distance between the nuclear creature and yourself . Do not I repeat do not crouch down to the same height of nuclear creatures , make yourself look taller as they can attack without provocation and slowly back away as nuclear critters are notorious known to attack from behind . Under no circumstances should you make direct eye contact with nuclear critters , look just above their hairlines because they can control your mind with their eyes and make you say stupid unsubstantiated gibberish like you will get more radiation from a banana than from radioactive fall out anywhere on earth even if you stood in the middle of the Fukshima military industrial complexes DEW production facility aka nuclear power plants .
It has been said that if you sprinkle holy water on a nuclear scientist they have to tell you the truth for the next 3 minutes , even though it is not recommended you get that close because of nuclear verbal diarrhea . According to nuclear critters 7400 Bq/m3 of Cs-137 is EPA standard in drinking water and after all you get 7500 Bq of potassium 40 in a glass of drinking water so its safe according to nuclear apologist . Anyone who says anything different is a alarmist and is just fear mongering . Besides all that ionized man made Uranium 238 will decay is 4.5 billion years so have a bananas because after all nuclear scientist are probably right a banana and a 12 ft nuclear fuel rod are impossible to tell apart .
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
A group of residents from a village near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is planning to file for state arbitration so all villagers can be entitled to equal damages regardless of radiation levels of their areas.
The entire village of Iitate is designated for evacuation, but it is categorized into three different zones, each with a different radiation level and differing amounts of compensation.
The residents from the two zones with relatively low contamination say that the difference in compensation is dividing residents.
They plan to ask the Center for Settlement of Fukushima Nuclear Damage Claims to urge the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company to pay them equal damages.
The residents also plan to seek the payment of consolation money worth about 30-thousand dollars per person. They say they were exposed to more radiation because the evacuation order wasn’t issued until more than one month after the meltdown.
About 2,500 people, or 40 percent of all Iitate residents, are expected to join the group. The group hopes to invite more people to take part and file for arbitration in autumn.
The leader of the group, Kenichi Hasegawa, says he hopes residents will unite to express their anger.
To revitalize its economy and politics, Japan needs an efficiency-and-renewables leapfrog that enables the new energy economy, not protects the old one. Japanese frogs jump too, says Bash?’s famous haiku “The old pond / frog jumps in / plop.” But we’re still waiting for the plop.
n short, German policy gave renewables fair access to the grid, promoted competition, weakened monopolies, and helped citizens and communities own half of renewable capacity. In 2013, Germany’s nuclear generation reached a 30-year low while renewable generation, 56 percent greater, set a new record, reaching an average of 27 percent of domestic use in the first quarter of 2014 and a brief peak of 74 percent on 11 May.
Japan thinks of itself as famously poor in energy, but this national identity rests on a semantic confusion. Japan is indeed poor in fossil fuels — but among all major industrial countries, it’s the richest in renewable energy like sun, wind, and geothermal. For example, Japan has nine times Germany’s renewable energy resources. Yet Japan makes about nine times less of its electricity from renewables (excluding hydropower) than Germany does.
That’s not because Japan has inferior engineers or weaker industries, but only because Japan’s government allows its powerful allies — regional utility monopolies — to protect their profits by blocking competitors. Since there’s no mandatory wholesale power market, only about 1 percent of power is traded, and utilities own almost all the wires and power plants and hence can decide whom they will allow to compete against their own assets, the vibrant independent power sector has only a 2.3 percent market share; under real competition it would take most of the rest. These conditions have caused an extraordinary divergence between Japan’s and Germany’s electricity outcomes.
Before the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, both Germany and Japan were nearly 30 percent nuclear-powered. In the next four months, Germany restored, and sped up by a year, the nuclear phaseout schedule originally agreed with industry in 2001–02. With the concurrence of all political parties, 41 percent of Germany’s nuclear power capacity — eight units of 17, including five similar to those at Fukushima and seven from the 1970s — got promptly shut down, with the rest to follow during 2015–22.
In 2010, those eight units produced 22.8 percent of Germany’s electricity. Yet a comprehensive package of seven other laws passed at the same time coordinated efficiency, renewable, and other initiatives to ensure reliable and low-carbon energy supplies throughout and long after the phaseout. The German nuclear shutdown, though executed decisively, built on a longstanding deliberative policy evolution consistent with the nuclear construction halts or operating phaseouts adopted in seven other nearby countries both before and after Fukushima.
Moreover, the Energiewende term and concept began before 1980, and Germany’s formal shift to renewables — now well over 70 billion watts installed — began in 1991, 20 years before Fukushima, then was reinforced in 2000 by feed-in tariffs. Those aren’t a subsidy but a way for customers to buy, and hence developers to finance and build, the renewables society chose, with a reasonable chance for sellers to earn a fair return on their investments. FITs’ values have plummeted in step with renewable costs, so developers now commonly opt to earn higher market prices instead.
This integrated policy framework and the solid analysis behind it meant that the output lost when those eight reactors closed in 2011 was entirely replaced in the same year — 59 percent by the 2011 growth of renewables, 6 percent by more-efficient use, and 36 percent by temporarily reduced electricity exports. Through 2012, Germany’s loss of 2010 nuclear output was 94 percent offset by renewable growth; through 2013, 108 percent. At this rate, renewable growth would replace Germany’s entire pre-Fukushima nuclear output by 2016.
Contrary to widespread misreportage, closing those eight reactors did not cause more fossil fuel to be burned. Whenever renewable sources run in Germany, both law and economics require them to displace costlier sources, so renewables always make fossil-fueled plants run less, though often in more complex patterns. The data confirm this: from 2010 through 2013, German nuclear output fell by 43.3 TWh, renewable output rose by 46.9 TWh, and the power sector burned almost exactly as much more coal and lignite as it burned less of the costlier gas and oil. German utilities bet against the energy transition and lost. Now they gripe that the renewables in which most of them long underinvested have made their thermal plants too costly to run.
Global Physicians Issue Scathing Critique of UN Report on Fukushima
There is broad disagreement over the amounts and effects of radiation exposure due to the triple reactor meltdowns after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) joined the controversy June 4, with a 27-page “Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report ‘Levels and effects of radiation exposures due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami.’”
IPPNW is the Nobel Peace Prize winning global federation of doctors working for “a healthier, safer and more peaceful world.” The group has adopted a highly critical view of nuclear power because as it says, “A world without nuclear weapons will only be possible if we also phase out nuclear energy.”
UNSCEAR, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, published its deeply flawed report April 2. Its accompanying press release summed up its findings this way: “No discernible changes in future cancer rates and hereditary diseases are expected due to exposure to radiation as a result of the Fukushima nuclear accident.” The word “discernable” is a crucial disclaimer here.
Cancer, and the inexorable increase in cancer cases in Japan and around the world, is mostly caused by toxic pollution, including radiation exposure according to the National Cancer Institute.[1] But distinguishing a particular cancer case as having been caused by Fukushima rather than by other toxins, or combination of them, may be impossible – leading to UNSCEAR’s deceptive summation. As the IPPNW report says, “A cancer does not carry a label of origin…”
UNSCEAR’s use of the phrase “are expected” is also heavily nuanced. The increase in childhood leukemia cases near Germany’s operating nuclear reactors, compared to elsewhere, was not “expected,” but was proved in 1997. The findings, along with Chernobyl’s lingering consequences, led to the country’s federally mandated reactor phase-out. The plummeting of official childhood mortality rates around five US nuclear reactors after they were shut down was also “unexpected,” but shown by Joe Mangano and the Project on Radiation and Human Health.
The International Physicians’ analysis is severely critical of UNSCEAR’s current report which echoes its 2013 Fukushima review and press release that said, “It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers.”
“No justification for optimistic presumptions”
The IPPNW’s report says flatly, “Publications and current research give no justification for such apparently optimistic presumptions.” UNSCEAR, the physicians complain, “draws mainly on data from the nuclear industry’s publications rather than from independent sources and omits or misinterprets crucial aspects of radiation exposure”, and “does not reveal the true extent of the consequences” of the disaster. As a result, the doctors say the UN report is “over-optimistic and misleading.” The UN’s “systematic underestimations and questionable interpretations,” the physicians warn, “will be used by the nuclear industry to downplay the expected health effects of the catastrophe” and will likely but mistakenly be considered by public authorities as reliable and scientifically sound. Dozens of independent experts report that radiation attributable health effects are highly likely.
Points of agreement: Fukushima is worse than reported and worsening still
Before detailing the multiple inaccuracies in the UNSCEAR report, the doctors list four major points of agreement. First, UNSCEAR improved on the World Health Organization’s health assessment of the disaster’s on-going radioactive contamination. UNSCEAR also professionally “rejects the use of a threshold for radiation effects of 100 mSv [millisieverts], used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the past.” Like most health physicists, both groups agree that there is no radiation dose so small that it can’t cause negative health effects. There are exposures allowed by governments, but none of them are safe.
Second, the UN and the physicians agree that areas of Japan that were not evacuated were seriously contaminated with iodine-132, iodine-131 and tellurium-132, the worst reported instance being Iwaki City which had 52 times the annual absorbed dose to infants’ thyroid than from natural background radiation. UNSCEAR also admitted that “people all over Japan” were affected by radioactive fallout (not just in Fukushima Prefecture) through contact with airborne or ingested radioactive materials. And while the UNSCEAR acknowledged that “contaminated rice, beef, seafood, milk, milk powder, green tea, vegetables, fruits and tap water were found all over mainland Japan”, it neglected “estimating doses for Tokyo … which also received a significant fallout both on March 15 and 21, 2011.”
Third, UNSCEAR agrees that the nuclear industry’s and the government’s estimates of the total radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean are “far too low.” Still, the IPPNW reports shows, UNSCEAR’s use of totally unreliable assumptions results in a grossly understated final estimate. For example, the UN report ignores all radioactive discharges to the ocean after April 30, 2011, even though roughly 300 tons of highly contaminated water has been pouring into the Pacific every day for 3-and-1/2 years, about 346,500 tons in the first 38 months.
Fourth, the Fukushima catastrophe is understood by both groups as an ongoing disaster, not the singular event portrayed by industry and commercial media. UNSCEAR even warns that ongoing radioactive pollution of the Pacific “may warrant further follow-up of exposures in the coming years,” and “further releases could not be excluded in the future,” from forests and fields during rainy and typhoon seasons –when winds spread long-lived radioactive particles – a and from waste management plans that now include incineration.
As the global doctors say, in their unhappy agreement with UNSCEAR, “In the long run, this may lead to an increase in internal exposure in the general population through radioactive isotopes from ground water supplies and the food chain.”
Physicians find ten grave failures in UN report
The majority of the IPPNW’s report details 10 major errors, flaws or discrepancies in the UNSCEAR paper and explains study’s omissions, underestimates, inept comparisons, misinterpretations and unwarranted conclusions.
On July 14, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) presented a new plan to prepare four new storage areas at its Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS), and to increase the total storage tank capacity for contaminated water by some 100,000 cubic meters beyond the existing plan to increase storage capacity.
TEPCO had already formulated a plan to increase tank capacity by about 800,000 cubic meters by the end of FY14 (March 2015), and by a further 30,000 cubic meters in a new area where tanks would be built.
The new plan is in addition to that, and aims to deal with uncertainties arising from delays in carrying out measures to prevent groundwater inflow, as well as to establish a reliable purification plan with sufficiently ample capacity. –
Among the key findings published in 2013-2014 include the discovery of tumors, cataracts and damage in birds from highly irradiated areas Chernobyl sperm, and impacts on biodiversity in Fukushima. One of the most interesting results is the discovery that some bird species may have developed a form of resistance to radiation effects by changing the allocation of antioxidants, although many birds are sterile in highly contaminated areas.We also recently discovered effects on neurodevelopment of some small mammals as well as Chernobyl Fukushima.
The seat of the research program Chernobyl + Fukushima (CFRI) is at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Research has officially started in Ukraine in 2000 and Fukushima in July 2011. To date, the group has conducted more than 30 research expeditions to Chernobyl and Fukushima.
At Fukushima as Chernobyl, nuclear accidents have released huge amounts of radioactive elements were dispersed by the weather conditions prevailing at the landscape scale.Some 200 000 km 2 (Chernobyl) and 15 000 km 2 (Fukushima) were heavily contaminated.Radioactive materials were not uniformly dispersed and have created a mosaic of micro-habitats “hot” and “cold” scattered throughout the region.
This radioactive patchwork has given us a unique opportunity to observe the genetic effects and environmental effects associated with changes in great detail and repetition and so much scientific rigor, which is not possible in a laboratory or research traditional field, often subject to the constraints of a limited range and rather unnatural environmental heterogeneity. This is an important aspect because it can be assumed that the interactions between natural environmental factors and radioactive contaminants may play a key role in the biological consequences of disasters in question. It is therefore essential that studies on the effects of radiation are carried out in the nature, scale regions.
Studies on human populations only have many constraints that limit their usefulness when it comes to trying to understand the long-term consequences of radiation.
The CFRI, University of South Carolina was the first, and remains to this day the only research group to use a multidisciplinary approach to understand the impact on the health and environmental effects of radiation on wild populations. This allowed us to study the acute exposure (short-term) as well as chronic (long-term and multi-generation).
The research program Chernobyl + Fukushima also now has the only team to work both Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Our main sources of funding are the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust, the CNRS (France), the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Additional funding we have been granted by NATO, the Foundation for Civil Research and Development (CRDF), the National Institute of Health (NIH), Qiagen GmbH, the Fulbright Foundation, the Office of Research and Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina, the Academy of Finland and we also received donations from individuals.
Today the program already has to his credit more than 60 scientific publications, most of which date from the last seven years (these papers are available on our websitehttp://cricket.biol.sc.edu ). Our research has raised eyebrows in many newspapers and television programs, including the New York Times , The Economist , Harpers , BBC, CNN, and News Hour PBS (see website for details).
The team was one of the first to use ecological, genetic and dosimetric technologies to clarify the issue of health and environmental consequences of chronic exposure to low doses after the disaster of Chernobyl and Fukushima. These technologies include ecological surveys repeated natural populations of birds, mammals and insects to observe the effects on longevity and reproduction repeatedly; DNA sequencing and genotoxicity tests to assess genetic damage in the short and long term for individuals living in the wild;
The use of miniature dosimeters attached to wild animals and field measurements of whole body irradiation in birds and mammals to obtain an accurate assessment of external and internal doses of radiation received by the animals living freely in nature .Recently, the group has expanded its research to epidemiological and genetic studies of human populations (especially children) living in regions of Ukraine affected by Chernobyl.
Among the key findings published in 2013-2014 include the discovery of tumors, cataracts and damage in birds from highly irradiated areas Chernobyl sperm, and impacts on biodiversity in Fukushima. One of the most interesting results is the discovery that some bird species may have developed a form of resistance to radiation effects by changing the allocation of antioxidants, although many birds are sterile in highly contaminated areas.We also recently discovered effects on neurodevelopment of some small mammals as well as Chernobyl Fukushima.
Both disasters differ in the time since they occurred and the amount and variety of radionuclides released, although the predominant source of radiation is cesium-137 in both cases.
Yellow-throated Sparrow near Chernobyl
The main points revealed by research
The highlights of the research published by the research program of Chernobyl + Fukushima:
• The population size and the number of species (that is to say, biodiversity) of birds, mammals, insects and spiders are significantly lower in highly contaminated areas of Chernobyl.
• In many birds and small mammals, life and fertility are reduced in areas of high contamination.
• At Fukushima, only birds, butterflies and grasshoppers have declined significantly during the first summer after the accident. The other groups did not suffer any adverse effects. Efforts continue to identify changes that may affect these populations over time.
• large variability is observed among different species in their sensitivity to radionuclides. Some species are not affected, and some even seem to increase in number in heavily contaminated areas in Fukushima like Chernobyl. This is due, presumably, to the disappearance of competition (ie more food and habitat), reducing the number of predators and perhaps an adaptation to the effects of radiation.
• Many species show signs of genetic damage following acute exposure; the differences between Chernobyl and Fukushima suggest that some species may show the effects of an accumulation of mutations over several generations.
• Some individuals and species show no evidence of genetic damage from exposure to radiation and some even show of evolutionary adaptation to the effects of radiation by increasing the antioxidant activity may offer protection against radiation signs ionizing.
• Bird species most likely to experience a reduction in their number due to radiation are those that have historically seen an increase in mutation rate for other reasons, perhaps related to the ability to repair their DNA or decline their defenses against oxidative stress.
• The deleterious effects of radiation exposure observed in natural populations of Chernobyl include increased rates of cataracts, tumors, abnormal growth, deformation of sperm, infertility and cases of albinism.
• Neural development is also affected as evidenced by a reduction of brain size in birds and rodents; impact on cognitive abilities and survival rates have also been demonstrated in birds.
• At Fukushima, the first signs of developmental abnormalities were observed in birds in 2013, but has not yet demonstrated significant genetic damage in birds and rodents.
• Tree growth and microbial decomposition in the soil are also slowed in highly radiation-contaminated areas.
In summary, these results clearly demonstrate that these nuclear disasters have affected the scale of the environment on individuals, populations and ecosystems; there are many examples of developmental abnormalities and deformities that probably contribute to the reduction in the abundance and biodiversity observed in regions radioactive Chernobyl and Fukushima. These results contrast sharply with the optimism of assertions without evidence put forward by the Chernobyl Forum (UN) and the members of the Scientific Committee of the United Nations on the effects of radiation (UNSCEAR). Studies should be continued to determine not only the time of adaptation of populations and communities in this disturbance, but also whether these regions will one day again habitable and if so, from where.
Objectives for 2014-15
We are currently looking for funding to support research activities, ongoing and planned, Chernobyl + Fukushima program:
1) Constant monitoring of bird populations, small mammals and insects in Fukushima to test the changes in population size (abundance) and the number of species (biodiversity) over time. This study should help establish long-term predictions about the time required to restore the situation.
2) Constant monitoring of populations of barn swallows and rodents (mice and voles) for cancers, survival, reproduction and genetic damage at Fukushima and Chernobyl (in collaboration with the French Institute and CNRS Rikkyo University in Tokyo, the Society of wild birds of Japan, the Japan National Institute of Forests and Finnish University of Jyvaskyla).
3) Start up a new project to study the effects of radiation on tree growth and soil microbial activity in Fukushima (in partnership with Chubu University, Nagoya, Japan).
4) Start up of a new project to determine the effects of radiation on growth, fertility and genetic damage in cows living in highly radioactive areas in Fukushima (in collaboration with the Association of Cattle Breeders Fukushima)
5) Getting started a new project to examine the mutation rate in humans using the complete sequencing of genomic DNA. This project will initially focus on families living in contaminated areas of Ukraine. This project is a collaboration with the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University and the Institute of Radiation Medicine in Kiev, Ukraine.
6) Continued development of new methods for measuring doses and genetic damage in wild animal populations.
7) Coordination of an international association of independent scientists capable of providing non-biased evidence based on health and environmental risks of nuclear accidents information. This group will be responsible for compiling, evaluating and interpreting current medical and scientific literature and develop a literature suitable for public dissemination by the press and Internet media, and used in public presentations in Japan and the rest of the world.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Timothy A. Mousseau
Professor of Biological Sciences
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208 USA
(803) 920-7704 Mousseau@sc.edu
Tomioka Mayor Katsuya Endo said that although the government has set up several thousand barricades and many areas are still off-limits, the new zone designations allow for some 11,200 people, around 70% of the town’s former residents, to return to their former homes and begin clean-up operations. “Finally, we can start rebuilding the city’s infrastructure,” Endo told reporters. Mar. 25, 2013
Photograph of the Prime Minister receiving a letter of request from Mayor Katsuya Endo of Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture March 14, 2012
FUKUSHIMA (Kyodo) — Katsuya Endo, the former mayor of Tomioka in northeastern Japan who was forced to evacuate the town along with his fellow residents following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, died of gum cancer on Sunday, his family said. He was 74.
Endo served as mayor of the Fukushima Prefecture town for a total of 16 years over four four-year terms between 1997 and 2013. He lost his re-election bid last year.
After a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant north of the town, all Tomioka residents were forced to evacuate their seaside town. Town hall operations were also moved.
Endo was living in Koriyama, an inland Fukushima city west of Tomioka, when he died at a hospital there.
Tomioka plays host to Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, which remains offline following the disaster at the nuclear complex nearby.
Epidemiology of gum cancer
The incidence rates of oral cancer differ from region to region. The annual age-adjusted incidence rates per 100 000 in several European countries vary from 2.0 (UK, south Thames Region) to 9.4 in France. In the Americas the incidence rates vary from 4.4 (Cali, Colombia) to 13.4 in Canada. In Asia, it ranges from 1.6 (Japan) to 13.5 (India). In Australia and New Zealand, it varies from 2.6 (New Zealand – Maori) to 7.5 in South Australia. In Papua New Guinea, in the Lowlands and the Highlands the incidence per 100 000 among men was 6.8 and 1.0 and among women 3 and 0.4, respectively. In Iran the incidence was reported to be 1.1 per 100 000 per year 2,3.
The prevalence rates of oral cancer available from Burma and India indicate that in Burma, among 600 villagers aged 15 years and above, the prevalence was 0.03 per cent4. In a study of 150 000 villagers aged 15 years and above in six districts of India, the prevalence rate of 0.1 per cent was the highest reported5,6. The relative frequency of oral cancer in several countries compiled from several reports published over a 25-year period varies from 2 to 48 per cent. http://ispub.com/IJDS/1/2/5720
Two doctors judged a health problem of a woman in Minamisoma to be “almost entirely” caused by Fukushima nuclear accident.
The woman (66) was livng in Minamisoma city when 311 took place. She started evacuating on 3/12/2011.
10 days after, she had cerebral hemorrhage in a toilet of a shelter. She had a past illness of high blood pressure but healthy enough to work in her farm.
She still doesn’t have the sense of her left hand and leg.
Regarding her cerebral hemorrhage, both of her family doctor and rehabilitation doctor judged it was due to Fukushima nuclear accident.
This was a diagnosis to be submitted to ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) of Fukushima accident.
However the ADR center picked up the diagnosis of the doctor who was recommended by Tepco, has never seen this woman.
Tepco’s doctor asserted her cerebral hemorrhage is only 50% affected by Fukushima accident, which the basis has never been shown.
The center suggested the compromise settlement of 7 million yen compensation for her.
Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal.
More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people-nearly 200,000 kids-tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.
More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that “not one person” has been affected by Fukushima’s massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30.
But the deadly epidemic at Fukushima is consistent with impacts suffered among children near the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, as well as findings at other commercial reactors.
But a wide range of independent studies confirm heightened infant death rates and excessive cancers among the general population. Excessive death, mutation and disease rates among local animals were confirmed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and local journalists.
Dr Richard Dixon, Director of Friends of the Earth Scotland said: “The proposal to use ships sounds like a ploy to get this problem out of people’s minds rather than the safest option.”
Sea trials will soon be conducted to establish whether it is a realistic option to transport highly radioactive material from Dounreay to Sellafield
Sea trials will soon be conducted to establish whether it is a realistic option to transport highly radioactive material from Dounreay to Sellafield
But Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the consortium in charge of the £1.6 billion decommissioning of the Caithness plant, insists no decision has been taken on whether to take 26 tonnes of material south by rail or by ship.
Concerns have been raised about such a dangerous cargo being taken through the Pentland Firth and down through the Minch and passed the Argyll islands to the giant nuclear plant in Cumbria.
Dounreay accumulated more than 100 tonnes of nuclear fuel and material when the decision was taken in 1998 to close down and clean up the site.
A few tonnes belonged to foreign reactor operators and most of this has now been returned by road, air and sea over the last decade.
The remainder belongs to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority quango which wants the spent fuel to be managed at Sellafield.
But 26 tonnes are made of so-called ‘Dounreay exotics’ , highly radioactive fuels, some of which include highly enriched uranium.
Dr Richard Dixon, Director of Friends of the Earth Scotland said: “The proposal to use ships sounds like a ploy to get this problem out of people’s minds rather than the safest option.”
A DSRL spokeswoman said “The sea trial has not been conducted yet. It is planned for later on in the year. There has no decision to take the material by sea. The Dounreay Stakeholder Group was informed in March that trials of a sea route would be carried out. If successful, this will give the option of two routes.”
nuclear-news 