All of these things listed didn't kill a single person from radiation.
Cracked fuel rods? Am I supposed to take this seriously?
The fetish that fear of anyone anywhere dying from radiation is worth between six and seven million people dying from air pollution in a rational world would be criminally insane.
I note, with a fair amount of moral disgust that roughly 20,000 people died at the Fukushima event from seawater, and that it is reported that the number of people killed by radiation in the event was either zero or close to zero.
Which one gets more attention?
Here's a ticking clock that would matter in an ethical world: About 700 to 800 people die from air pollution every hour. This data can be calculated from the data found here:
Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249).
This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.
Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:
The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).
I invite
anyone reading this open sourced paper to find reference to the
radiation release from the Fukushima
reactors to find where this comprehensive document in one of the world's most prominent medical journals to find reference to it.
But they really, really, really, really want to carry on about Fukushima, the big boogie man that outweighs climate change, air pollution deaths, deaths from petroleum accidents and petroleum leaks and everything else.
I drive through Harrisburg PA regularly. It's still there. People are living healthy normal and productive lives in that city.
But we should allow millions of people to die every year because we
don't use nuclear power because we have our heads up our ass about Three Mile Island?
President Carter is among roughly 350,000 "liquidators" involved in nuclear reactor "clean ups."
Jimmy Carter walked through the reactor during the meltdown, much to the chagrin of the Secret Service. Dead or alive?
Lancet published the following article in 2015: Michael R Reich, Aya Goto,
Towards long-term responses in Fukushima, The Lancet, Volume 386, Issue 9992, 2015, Pages 498-500.
I quote:
Putting Hiroshima and Nagasaki side by side with Fukushima, as done in this issue of The Lancet, seems inappropriate in major respects. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intentional governmental acts of war, whereas Fukushima was accidental and negligent industrial behaviour in time of peace. They share exposure to radiation—but at vastly different levels and in different forms.2 In Fukushima, no one has died from radiation exposure, and the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation report3 in 2013 stated that substantial changes in future cancer statistics attributed to radiation exposure are not expected to be observed, although the committee also noted “a theoretical increased risk of thyroid cancer among most exposed children” and recommended they be “closely followed”.4
Which part of the bolded, italicized, and underlined text I have highlighted justifies 750 deaths per hour from air pollution?
It appears that even
feral pigs that root in radio contaminated soil in the Fukushima area are OK:
Donovan Anderson, Shingo Kaneko, Amber Harshman, Kei Okuda, Toshihito Takagi, Sarah Chinn, James C. Beasley, Kenji Nanba, Hiroko Ishiniwa, Thomas G. Hinton,
Radiocesium accumulation and germline mutations in chronically exposed wild boar from Fukushima, with radiation doses to human consumers of contaminated meat, Environmental Pollution, Volume 306, 2022, 119359.
The article is completely open sourced, but I'll excerpt it for convenience.
3.3. Genetic variation of wild boar before and after FDNPP accident
No differences in allelic variation of all loci were observed from the period prior to, and after, the FDNPP accident (Table S1). Average values of allelic richness were 3.54 for the putative population from the period prior to 2011 and 3.53 for the population from the period after 2011...
...Although the most contaminated animals within this study were living in areas in which radiation levels were greater than what is allowed for human occupancy, our study indicated a lack of effect due to radiation as measured by mutation frequencies. Because wild boar residing in contaminated areas nearby the FDNPP received dose rates as high as 320 mGy yr?1, and those doses would have been higher immediately after the accident, we anticipated an increase in mutation frequencies. However, a comprehensive microsatellite analysis indicated the number of alleles in the wild boar population did not increase in this area following the FDNPP accident (Table S1)...
This is past the point of argument. It is a fact that the fear of radiation actually kills more people than radiation itself, because people accept the cloture of nuclear power plants out of fear. The reactor in Michigan will be replaced by fossil fuels. Given that people have been dying all over the world from extreme heat this week, not in some postulated future, and that close to 80 million people have died from
air pollution in the eleven years people have been whining about Fukushima as if, on scale, it mattered, I cannot see how the closure of the nuclear plant can be
ethically justfied.
Nuclear energy doesn't need to be without risk to be vastly superior to all other forms of energy. It only needs to be vastly superior to all other forms of energy. In a rational world the selective attention paid to nuclear risks would be criminally insane. Regrettably we do not live in a rational world.
Nuclear energy
saves lives.
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)
It follows that the fear of nuclear energy costs lives.
Have a pleasant workweek.
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