Cesium is not Iodine, and it's still not safe to eat

This is a decent informative article from NaturalNews.com about radioactive cesium vs. iodine. While the tone is a little alarmist, the information is accurate.

When you hear about "radiation levels" at Fukushima, you're mostly hearing only about radioactive iodine, which decays much, much faster (i.e., days rather than years) than all the other radioactive isotopes one could measure there today. Cesium takes 30 years to decay by half. A tiny bit of radioactive cesium eaten in the body of a contaminated fish caught from the Pacific Ocean - or seaweed grown there - is infinitely more dangerous to you than a particle floating around the atmosphere.  

An illustrative example, from the link:

"A speck of radioactive dust that's one meter away from you, for example, is twice as dangerous as that same speck four meters away. But if you eat that radioactive speck (because it's part of a fishyou're consuming, for example), then suddenly it'sinside your body. So now it might only be a millimeter away from your internal tissues, meaning you've decreased the distance between you and the radiation source byone thousand times. Because if the law of the inverse square of the distance, you have now magnified the radiation intensity byone million times(because one million is the square of one thousand)."

This is the real danger of cesium and other radioactive isotopes - once you eat them, they emit radiation from inside your body, in your muscle tissue or bones or heart or wherever. 

"[Y]ou quickly become a walking radioactive dirty bombfrom the inside."

Rare Earth Minerals, Murder by Technology

The continuing tidal wave of ripping stuff out of the earth keeps on rolling. This time, under the Pacific Ocean. Rare earth minerals, tons of them, have been "discovered" by Japanese "explorers". 

"Rare earth metals have emerged as one of the most sought after resources in [the] commodities boom. Minerals present in the mud include gadolinium, lutetium, terbium and dysprosium." Some of these are used in the manufacture of those eco-friendly hybrid cars. Here is a handy image with notes about which minerals are used in the Prius, created by Lee Allison, state geologist and Director of the Arizona Geological Survey. Gadolinium is used in x-ray systems, CDs, and nuclear medicine.

The "commodities boom." Does that include frac sand? The excitement and anticipation of profits by scooping tons of mud off the ocean floor makes me sick. To what lengths will we continue our pillaging of the very body that bears us and makes us human? We are all complicit, here in the privileged West. I am sick to death of new solutions and technologies that are really assassination attempts. While we consume the death of the oceans and the forests and the ecological systems that continue to get in the way of our lifestyles, we lose more and more of our humanity.

It all seems part of the end of Empire and it's a long way down yet.

Who Needs Leaders?

I firmly believe it's all going to get worse before it gets better. I believe that as the profiteers desperately move through our earth's body to make more and more money for fewer and fewer people, that those of us outside the cities will suffer. But I do believe radical change is possible; I don't believe that destruction is inevitable; I don't believe we have to lose our humanity in defense of our land base; I also don't believe the lack of humanity in the actions of a few mining or nuclear energy companies mean we are doomed to desperate living (no, not John Waters-style, you smart asses).


In a recent article in the Economist of all places (Who Needs Leaders?), I read this quote:


"THE earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan three months ago have revealed something important about the country: a seam of strength and composure in the bedrock of society that has surprised even the Japanese themselves. Not only has this resilience helped the hundreds of thousands suffering from the loss of families, homes and livelihoods to cope with their suffering, despite the self-absorbed dithering of their national politicians in Tokyo. By reminding Japan of the hidden depths of its local communities, especially compared with the shallowness of central government, it has also provided a sense of how Japan could emerge stronger from the crisis, ending years of economic drift."


Depth of local communities. Shallowness of central government. 


Isn't it true?

Japanese elders offer to help clean up Fukushima

Even though it is little reported in the US news media, the meltdowns at Fukushima's nuclear power plants continue to deteriorate. There is much, much work to do; each unit must still be cooled and contained, and the kilometers around Fukushima will remain contaminated for a very long time. Work demands workers. Who will volunteer, under full consent, to help clean up this corporate and governmental disaster?


A group of elders has stepped forward to offer their services. 


The complete negligence and greed of TEPCO and the disinformation of the IAEA and the Japanese government has doomed not only the land and environment of Japan and its people to dramatic increases in cancer and death and toxic food and economic devastation. It will now also lose cherished grandparents to nuclear power.


"Kazuko Sasaki, 69, the co-founder of the group, says she has a number of personal reasons why she wants to work at the plant. 'My generation, the old generation, promoted the nuclear plants. If we don't take responsibility, who will?'"


In the face of Ms. Sasaki's responsibility, I ask again: Where are the designers, builders, and owners of these nuclear power plants? Why are those who are truly responsible not volunteering their time to clean soil, dump water, and fix leaks? As always, the failure of a few to experience real connection with the land base and their communities cost the lives and well-being of many. What can we learn, here? Who is next?

Fukushima Updates

Finally, TEPCO can no longer deny the level of radioactive destruction in its Fukushima plants.

Unit #1 has a confirmed meltdown of its core, #4 is about to collapse, and #2 is leaking radioactive water like a sieve.

Arnie Gunderson has a great new video update you should watch.

Dr. Helen Caldicott posts truly wonderful and up-to-date information on her facebook page. She is not only very knowledgeable, but works tirelessly to educate whoever will listen about the many false claims to the relative safety of nuclear power from a physician's and activist's perspective. She is awesome, go find her page on facebook now. Just open up a new tab and go do it if you care to learn about nuclear power throughout the world.

Giant tents will cover the reactors! Presumably to reduce steam and atmospheric releases. And like Chris pointed out, it will also shield cameras quite well. The only good news in that article is that there will be no limit set on the liabilities Tepco will have to pay.

The risk of another explosion, in #1, is still possible. Since there is a confirmed meltdown there, an explosion would be bad, right?

Since radiation from Fukushima probably never really ended, the rain is not as safe as we might want to believe. Cesium is still high around the reactors; when will Japan's ground water and oceans be safe enough to support life without also causing cancers? Why will the US not learn from Japan?

Updates on Fukushima, March 29

It appears that nuclear disaster is not really very popular reading. For years it has been the awful fear lurking, a tiny despair fit only to bring out occasionally in full regalia and splendor. Most people I know hate that there are nuclear power reactors, that officials in positions of power deny their risk and harm, and that there is very little we can do on a national scale to shut them down. And even when they are shut down, we have all that radioactive waste that nobody wants stored in their backyard. But not many people want to dwell on the negative over which we have little control. Who can blame us? It's the invisible thing that poisons us, our food, our water, our air.

The recent disaster in Fukushima power plant has sharpened my interest in radioactivity and health, and I have been following the events closely. Today's news confirms what I (and others) have suspected: a meltdown is indeed possible and the results would be disaster for the people of Japan and the life in the ocean(s). The effects will be global.

Radioactive particles are amazingly sinister; there is no safe dose. There is no way to put it otherwise: every dose has consequences in the body - it is cumulative. It is especially damaging in children and pregnant women. This includes ultra low doses from x-rays and electronics. Even tiny amounts from the Japan fallout that fall in the rain that waters the produce grown in California and Mexico are not safe, despite what the US's claims of allowable limits might be. Radioactive iodine has a half-life of 8 days; that means that in 8 days it is reduced by half; in another 8 days it is reduced to a quarter; in another 8 days it is reduced to an eighth, and in another 8 days it is zero. 40 days from initial exposure, never mind spikes of radioactive steam blowing over the Pacific or over Tokyo in fits and spurts over two weeks. The dangers of radioactivity can NOT be overstated.

Today's news from Japan is sobering. Again, Arnie Gunderson speaks about what is happening now (video is approximately 7 minutes, look for the March 29th update). And the Guardian UK reports that there is a fuel melt in the core that has breached the containment vessel. Molten fuel is oozing or flowing slowly into the drywell, which is currently filled with seawater. The seawater might prevent a total meltdown into the ground (and ocean), by cooling the fuel, but it may not. I am so sad for the residents of Japan and the fish in the ocean.

This near-total disaster has only the goodwill of strangers going for it - the relief efforts and money flowing into Japan from the rest of Japan the world. The rest of it is enough to make all of us wonder what the hell we were thinking to allow a toxin that lasts thousands of years to heat our homes and power our industrial civilization. At least, that's what I'm thinking.

Soul Power

This great article by former nuclear engineer and anti-nuclear essayist Keith Harmon Snow is very long, and full of reliable information, analysis and conjecture. Not a happy piece, but not worth missing, either.

"Good" news, or positive news, is soul-filling and gives us strength to pursue purpose. Information about catastrophe sharpens the edge on our actions and shows us how to connect the dots, how we are connected to the earth, our land bases, and the suffering of others. Both are critical to our humanity, and can open our hearts. I feel an essay coming on. Keep watching.

The Footbath Squad

I am deeply moved by the compassionate action of a Japanese group of young people calling themselves the Footbath Squad. Inspired by the actions of another group of people providing comfort to survivors of a previous disaster, this group goes to the emergency shelter of earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster refugees and gives them 15 minutes of massage and footbaths - acts made to comfort people who have lost all security. Young people comforting the old, children, the bereaved, the suffering, the bored, the displaced. A volunteer says, "We want to share their pain."

This story has completely made my day; this story is the answer to my daughter's question, "Mom, why are you crying?". I am reminded of our ability to act like humans in the midst of so many other people's inhuman acts and oppressive decisions. Somehow their actions have comforted me, too, thousands of miles away.

Just fission

Hey kids, I've wondered why it's so hard to find good updates on Fukushima reactor meltdown, and it appears that it's because there is actually fission occurring. You know, like in a meltdown.

Neutron beam detected
Disaster impact level raised from 5 to 6 - This is a very informative article, with the title "Radiation from Fukushima exceeds Three Mile Island"

Just because it's not in the news, doesn't mean it isn't happening.

More updates can be found in the comments of this article from Green Mountain Daily.

Here is a great primer/summary of the forms of radiation and measurement by Arnie Gunderson. (Video runs 8:26)

Another update from Environment News Service

Into the ocean

Arnie Gunderson, of Fairewinds Associates - a really good place for analysis of the nuclear disaster in Japan if you want facts and reliable, non-inflammatory conjecture - has posted a recent analysis of the elevated radiation readings around the Fukushima plant. In this 7 minute video, he points out that the surface contamination recently measured in the ocean 30 - 40 km from the power plant is higher than the beta radiation level which defined a "hot spot" after the Chernobyl disaster.

And on the Green Action Japan web site, a member tweeted last night that TEPCO found trace amounts of neutron radiation  at the border of the nuclear power plant. Neutron - you know, the kind of radiation that makes other particles radioactive when it comes in contact with those particles. I'm looking for verification of this, and will post it if I find it.

The radiation from the buildings is sinking, not going into the atmosphere. Bad bad bad for people and non-human animals in Japan. But also, the ocean. The ocean! Plankton, fish, mammals that eat the radioactive fish.... What will become of the Pacific at the end of all this? Did we really have to be smacked over the head so violently by our own damned toxins (gulf oil spills, radioactive contamination, tsunamis destroying fishing villages) to get the hint that people overfish, overuse, and overstress the oceans? I guess so. Will we stop? Probably not until the oceans are near death.

Unless we can, like the earthquake, tear things apart with the force of our grief.

A corporate tragedy

Our corporate-sponsored president is nowhere to be seen in the fight against toxic nuclear power. Even as other nations are taking a short break from promoting and approving new plants, our lovely corporate nation continues its path of destruction through nuclear power. President Obama never looked very good to me, and I've yet to read anything that changes my mind about this issue. I have come to believe that no matter which president would be elected, the nuclear approval process and loan deals to companies to build new reactors would have just gone on and on.

And if the kind of tragedy that is happening right now in Japan can possibly happen anywhere there are plants (and it could - flooding, massive earthquakes near population centers, catastrophic power outages, etc.), every single person and official who signed the OK, approved the loan, built the plants, covered up leaks and violations of operational safety, and made a profit off of them is personally responsible. Every. Single. One. A bureaucracy is only as strong as its participants.

Because this tragedy is corporate, not natural. People decided to ignore safety warnings and approve the plants in Japan. The cost is homicide - of all the inhabitants and pets around the plant who will die and suffer from cancers, their children, the ocean life contaminated with radiation, and all the workers. The depth of my grief is vast; I have cried almost every day as the true damage continues to grow and be exposed. But while we mourn we must also nurture our righteous anger for those who continue to bargain their profits against the sacred. This anger is what will move us toward each other, which will ultimately be the only real weapon we have against the overwhelming power of american nuclear advocates. Until that time I will continue share my outrage, insights and information as I can. Because people, I am hella pissed.

They Know Radiation

Finally, Japan has people going into the area where the reactors are melting down to determine which isotopes are being released, and the levels at which people are exposed: The Peace Culture Foundation, which manages the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan. Fortunately, this group is also supplying housing and relief supplies to the victims of this corporate tragedy. Somehow I trust this group more than any word from any government body. Like the interviewee says, they know radiation.

Interview on Democracy Now.

Things to Read, Things to Eat

It appears that the nuclear dream has become a raging catastrophe. On this link, on the Green Mountain Daily page, now a couple days old, you'll find dire warnings. In the comments, though, you'll find a brilliantly angry commenter advocating putting out the reactor fires with the bodies of all the officials and scientists who have advocated so hard for nuclear power and who also have relentlessly belittled the information from anti-nuclear activists. You really should take a minute and read it. I laughed hard enough to make me feel better for a little while.


And after you're done there, you should probably check out this NYT web page with a simple, level-of-radiation-free projection of the air currents and radioactive plume that could be coming out of Japan right now. The plume could hit produce-growing areas of California tomorrow afternoon, if accurate. But don't worry. Trustworthy Officials say we're in no danger. I sure am comforted, aren't you? Mr. NRC Director's words: “I don’t want to speculate on various scenarios,” he replied. “But based on the design and the distances involved, it is very unlikely that there would be any harmful impacts.” 


Another article mentioned Cesium 137 as the most pressing danger from the meltdown of Number 4. A 30-year half-life.


I'm pretty sure the web of lies is huge from both Japan and the US. I trust no one in any position of power with this important information. I highly recommend following this story on the Green Mountain Daily web site, and the Beyond Nuclear web site. 


Things we are doing to minimize our concern for our family's health and food safety in the light of this exponentially horrifying tragedy in Japan:
1. Weeping occasionally
2. Making sure we have potassium iodide on hand
3. Eating more fermented soy: miso, tempeh, tamari
4. Increasing our Omega fatty acid and green tea consumption
5. Not buying fresh produce or food from California or Washington for a long time; especially no dairy products.
6. Sharing important links with everyone we know
7. Thanking every god that we live far inland
8. Hoping for the best while continuing to make sure our nutritional needs are met and exceeded. Not always easy to do with little money, but we're trying.
9. Drinking only very good unpasteurized alcohol. Homemade when possible. This is better for the soul.
10. Limiting refined sugar.


I've about had it with this nuclear thing. I've never understood how ANYone can support it, given that in nature there are no situations you can fully control and predict. Maybe now the billions of people around the globe will agree with me.