Just something I saw on the news and seek clarification upon.

[Vindekarr]

On the morning news today a spokeswoman helpfully gave a long winded rant against nueclear energy: this fiend was unsurprisingly an official member of Greanpeace's antinueclear board, but claimed that the general area of oceania had been exposed to high levels of radiation.

 

Now, I've looked all over the place for answers as to what's really going on but have found none, because either the Australian news system sucks or this harridan is lying through her teeth, does anyone here know more? Ie, should I pick up a SuperSledge on the way home from work and practice my SuperMutant impersonation?

 

On a sidenote anyone who tries to use this to spread a personal agenda, such as a conspiracy theory or anti-nueclear rant will be asked to leave the thread; this is neither the time nor the place for such speculation.

Edited March 30, 2011 by Vindekarr

[Fonger]

Supermutants are not caused by radiation alone

 

you need the FEV as well

 

so the supersledge is out of the question

 

Ghouls on the other hand . . .

[Vindekarr]

I managed to hunt down a radiology professor and he says that we've got nothing to worry about, the only dangerous radiation is within the containment zone around the plant, the windborn radiation from Chernobyl, which was a thousand times worse than this, was about as intense as a 2-3 Xrays in total, for those living in Europe America and Asia, and that with a smaller meltdown we have even less to worry about.

 

I know absolutely nothing about nueclear science, while I do have a great deal of general knowledge-something that's a fallback for me when I find something frightening and the reason I have none of the normal fears towards snakes, spiders, ect, when i dont understand something bad I tend to become quite a lot less stoic, and with a radioactive plume and me having absolutely no knowledge about radiation and neuclear science, I found myself feeling somehwta frightened for my familes safety, and my own.

 

I think it's disgusting how the media is using this for fun-very few people in Australia have even the slightest understanding of neuclear physics, so the media should be working to try and quell the increasing panic here, however, all I've seen out of them is gleeful scare-mongering. What offends me more however is seeing groups like greenpeace blatantly using this as an excuse to go on an anti-neuclear crusade. Something about that really offends me on a core level, in the same way as disrespecting the dead. Certainly, neuclear just isnt safe for this modern world-Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island, and now Fukushima, in 60 years we have had succesive, obcene disasters and gained nothing, Neuclear FISSION energy has failed us, but using the developing crisis in Japan to attempt to cause panic as Greenpeace has in recent days simply shows a contempt for the Japanese people.

[ub3rman123]

I think that at the distance Australia is from Japan (Half a globe), nobody would get anything serious like leukemia. Lemme go find an ocean currants map.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

There are things to be worried about, though, and I don't know how far you have to be away not to worry or if you even can be far enough away.

 

I've been trying to bone up on these things too in these days. The radioactive Iodine-131, which everybody likes to tout only has a half-life of 8 days, does cause cancer and specifically lodges in the thyroid gland. Now, iodine-131 tainted milk has been found from Japan to the US (already, my mother called the other day telling me they'd found it in the milk there; she lives in Chicago but who knows where they found it), plus they've found the I-131 in Northern European countries (can't remember which) as well as all the way down to Italy...

 

So, I'd be very careful of drinking fresh milk and fresh milk products, wherever you are in the whole damn world, for a little while. Make the judgment call yourself, but if they found that crap here in Italy (in the north), then some of it will get on the grass, eaten by the cows, and quite likely get into the milk/cheese supply here, too. In Italy. That's a long damn way from Fukushima.

 

I don't know if you know, but in Italy, after Chernobyl, there was/is an epidemic of thyroid problems. Don't know if you'll find internet data on it, but I know it from people and doctors here as fact.