Sailor: “After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead”

[kpete]

Sailor: “After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead” — Nothing alive for over 3,000 miles — No longer saw turtles, dolphins, sharks, birds — Saw one whale, it appeared helpless with big tumor on head.

Title: The ocean is broken
Source: Newcastle Herald (Australia)
Author: Greg Ray
Date: Oct. 18, 2013
h/t Anonymous tip

[...] The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

“After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead,” [Newcastle, Australia yachtsman Ivan] Macfadyen said.

“We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

“I’ve done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I’m used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen.”

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes. [...]

And something else. The boat’s vivid yellow paint job, never faded by sun or sea in years gone past, reacted with something in the water off Japan, losing its sheen in a strange and unprecedented way. [...]

The Rest:
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12
http://enenews.com/sailor-after-we-left-japan-it-felt-as-if-the-ocean-itself-was-dead-nothing-alive-for-over-3000-miles-no-longer-saw-turtles-dolphins-sharks-birds-saw-one-whale-it-appeared-to-be-hel

[wundermaus]

1. holy shit...

Terrorism? This is the real deal. Scares the holy shit out of me...
Silent spring? This poison is orders of magnitude over anything we could chemically inflect on life.
This is the stuff nightmares are made of. And then nothing. for millions of years.

[chervilant]

3. And, apparently, the fear is so

overwhelming that many are in deep denial. Witness the ones herein who post that we would get as much background radiation from eating a banana!

We will see if TEPCO can move those fuel rod assemblies manually without causing a massive release of radiation. I am skeptical.

[Brother Buzz]

12. I've been called dense on DU, and that fine.....

but this article is about garbage from the Japanese tsunami and has nothing to do with TEPCO and the Fucked up Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

<snip>

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes.

"Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it's still out there, everywhere you look."

Ivan's brother, Glenn, who boarded at Hawaii for the run into the United States, marvelled at the "thousands on thousands" of yellow plastic buoys. The huge tangles of synthetic rope, fishing lines and nets. Pieces of polystyrene foam by the million. And slicks of oil and petrol, everywhere.

Countless hundreds of wooden power poles are out there, snapped off by the killer wave and still trailing their wires in the middle of the sea.

<more>

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12

[Uncle Joe]

15. This seems to be concerning all aspects; garbage, overfishing and potential radiation damage.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

(snip)

More immediately, he will approach the organisers of Australia's major ocean races, trying to enlist yachties into an international scheme that uses volunteer yachtsmen to monitor debris and marine life.

Macfadyen signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms and collect samples for radiation testing - a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan.

[questionseverything]

94. the only thing the article did not touch on is acidification

snip from a downstream article/////

#Unfortunately, along with ocean acidification, global warming and the Giant Pacific Trash Vortex, ocean dead zones are increasingly in the news.

#Dead zones are the popular name for hypoxic regions, areas in an ocean or large lake depleted of oxygen. When oxygen levels drop too low, fish or other animals that can move fast enough flee the area. Crabs, starfish, clams and other bottom dwellers die off.

/////////////////////

new dead zone off coast of bc and the star fish are turning to goo probably from climate change and a lack of oxygen but for denialist people to pretend radiation could not be hurrying that along are foolish

[wundermaus]

24. Wrong...

"Macfadyen signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms and collect samples for radiation testing - a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan." - http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12

And there is a lot more to this story than junk in the ocean.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen." - - http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
If you get my drift.

[Brother Buzz]

27. See, that's why I've been called dense on DU, and that's just fine.....

But I still don't know what TEPCO and the Fucked up Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant has to do with the story.

[wundermaus]

33. I concede the article focuses on the debris...

I concede the article focuses on the debris in the ocean but in my mind (dense, too) the story really is what is denied: the radioactive poisoning of the pacific ocean marine life... and the ultimate extermination of all higher life forms for millions of years.
Doesn't that make you want to scream?

[Brother Buzz]

45. I started my anti-nuclear activitsm fifty years ago

Starting with Project Everyman followed by Bodega Hole-in the-Head, Google them. I hitch my horse to good science and will not tolorate opinions stated as fact.

https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/206164

[RobertEarl]

46. Fact: For 30 months, radiocative water leaking into Pacific

Fish off shore have been found with elevated levels of radionuclides from Fukushima.

Fact: Science about Fukushima has been held back due to the incrimination of the nuclear industry. See link:

http://scienceblog.com/65744/viewing-fukushima-in-the-cold-light-of-chernobyl/

Fact: Airborne depositions of radionuclides from Fukushima have been found in the US.

[Brother Buzz]

49. The elevated levels measured on the West Coast have only been found in bluefin tuna...

fish that were reared off the coastal waters of Japan.

Here's a message from the scientists that discovered the elevated levels

Scientists to eaters: Don't freak out over Fukushima fish
June 03, 2013|By Eryn Brown

A team of scientists who have been tracking radiation in bluefin tuna since the 2011 tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daichi power plant have a message for fearful American eaters: Stop worrying about the health effects of eating fish that carried the radiation from Japan to U.S. shores.

"Fears regarding environmental radioactivity, often a legacy of Cold War activities and distrust of governmental and scientific authorities, have resulted in perception of risks by the public that are not commensurate with actual risks," wrote marine biogeochemist Nicholas Fisher of Stony Brook University in New York and his co-authors in Monday's online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fisher and his colleagues analyzed measurements of radioactive cesium from Fukushima in bluefin tuna caught off the California coast to estimate the dose of radioactivity a person might receive from eating the tuna. (For more on this monitoring and the work of scientist Dan Madigan, who uses the cesium measurements to study tuna migration, check out the Los Angeles Times story "Radioactive tuna from Fukushima? Scientists eat it up," in the related links at left.)

The team reported that a 7-ounce, restaurant-size serving of Pacific bluefin tuna contaminated with cesium at the level recorded in fish caught off the coast of San Diego in August 2011 delivered a 7.7 nanosievert dose of radiation -- about 5% of the dose one would get from eating a garden-variety banana. Bananas contain a naturally occurring isotope of potassium, they wrote.

A hypothetical fisherman who consumed about five times as much fish as the average American would get a dose of around 2.8 millisieverts over a year, of which only 4.7 microsieverts would come from cesium, and Fukushima. That's about the same amount of radiation a person receives when getting a dental X-ray, the team wrote. The increased probability of developing a fatal cancer for the hypothetical fisherman was 0.00002%, the equivalent of two additional cancers per 10 million people eating the relatively larger amount of fish.

<more>

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/03/science/la-la-sci-sn-fukushima-radiation-seafood-20130603

[RobertEarl]

50. Compared to bananas, again?

Potassium is good for and needed in a healthy body.

Cesium 137 is a toxin.

Comparing the two is asinine. Especially since cesium is taken in by the body as if it were potassium and cesium can replace potassium in the body.

And what about strontium? Plutonium? Iodine? Where's the science on all those, Brother Buzz? You do know all those and more were ejected from Fukushima, right?

See, Nadine's objections to people posting about bananas is dead on. Yet we see reports from some scientists offering scab opinions about not to worry when taking in known toxins.

But by Gawd, you did. Again!

ETA: Facts above can be found on wikipedia on the 'Cesium' page.

[newthinking]

88. The "banana/potassium equivilent" has been debunked as bad science

Exposure time is dramatically less due to homeostasis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

The validity of the banana equivalent dose concept has been challenged. Critics, including the EPA,[9] pointed out that the amount of potassium (and therefore of 40K) in the human body is fairly constant because of homeostasis,[10] so that any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination of an equal amount.[1][11]

It follows that the additional radiation exposure due to eating a banana lasts only for a few hours after ingestion, namely the time it takes for the normal potassium contents of the body to be restored by the kidneys. The EPA conversion factor, on the other hand, is based on the mean time needed for the isotopic mix of potassium isotopes in the body to return to the natural ratio after being disturbed by the ingestion of pure 40K; which was assumed by EPA to be 30 days.[9] If the assumed time of residence in the body is reduced by a factor of ten, for example, the estimated equivalent absorbed dose due to the banana will be reduced in the same proportion.

These amounts may be compared to the exposure due to the normal potassium content of the human body, 2.5 g per kg,[12] or 175 grams in a 70 kg adult. This potassium will naturally generate 175 g × 31 Bq/g ? 5400 Bq of radioactive decays, constantly through the person's adult lifetime.


http://boingboing.net/2010/08/27/bananas-are-radioact.html

2) The way the the radioactivity travels around and is taken up by the body—i.e., How much is absorbed by the blood stream? What tissues does this specific isotope tend to accumulate in?


The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body's level of Potassium-40 doesn't increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.

And that's the difference between a useful educational tool and propaganda. (And I say this as somebody who is emphatically not against nuclear energy.) Bananas aren't really going to give anyone "a more realistic assessment of actual risk", they're just going to further distort the picture.

[wundermaus]

48. "Will not tolerate opinions stated as fact"...

When you know it all, please let me know.
Of course, "fact" is subject to revision as new facts are revealed.
So hitching your horse may involve an unhitching or two along the way.
When the truth is withheld and manipulated by the rich and powerful in place of science, then "facts" are opinion.
Will not tolerate, eh?
Sounds like an extremist and a closed mind.
So facts are not subject to revision, correction, or replacement?
How long has your world been flat?
Maybe... just maybe things have changed in 50 years.
I've been on the planet for 60 years... Seeing it through pretty clear eyes.
So step softly my friend, "facts" can cloud the head with lies...
but I know my opinions flow from the heart.

[NickB79]

61. They DID find plenty of fish, actually

If you read the article though, you find that it was all in the hulls of fishing trawlers or dead and thrown overboard as by-catch

[chervilant]

54. "...that IS fine"

In future, if you're going to snark about a serious subject, please TRY to sound erudite, even if you are not.

(I am fully capable of reading the cited articles.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. I should clarify the banana comment to you

Last edited Sat Oct 19, 2013, 11:29 PM - Edit history (1)

since you were not around during the Fukushima height. We were told by the know it all that it was perfectly safe and not much more rads than eating a banana, So it became a running gag.

So "eat your bananas" is truly a joke, because this is as serious as it can be. There is more, some of us are relentlessly attacked. And we have been very correct.

And I should add, the kids do not understand a thing about bio concentration. So be it. They are fun, at this point. What can I say, with the willfully ignorant none that you can do.

The video down (post 20) explains a lot of what we tried to warn them about, short term, medium term, and even long term. But you can't help the willful ignorance.

[Brother Buzz]

32. Correct, like when you told us the west coast milk supply was just days away from becoming poisoned?

[RobertEarl]

47. What does this mean?

http://archive.truthout.org/in-this-nuclear-world-what-meaning-safe68620

But what does this mean? From this record of studied and lived experience, there are a few things that we know. For example, fallout and the movement of radionuclides through marine and terrestrial environments ultimately get into the food chain and the human body. The toxicity of contaminants and radioactivity in fallout represent significant health risks. Acute exposures are further complicated when followed by chronic exposure, as such assaults have a cumulative and synergistic effect on health and well-being. Chronic exposure to fallout does more than increase the risk of developing cancers, it threatens the immune system, can exacerbate pre-existing conditions, affects fertility, increases rates of birth defects, and can retard physical and mental development, among other things. And we know the effects of such exposures can last for generations.

Japan's nuclear disaster demonstrates in powerful and poignant terms the degree to which the state prioritizes security interests over the fundamental rights of people and their environment. Japan's response to its nuclear disaster -- similar to other government responses to catastrophic events like Katrina and Chernobyl -- has struggled to control the content and flow of information to prevent wide panic (and the related loss of trust in government), reduce liability, and protect nuclear and other industry agendas.


Here is a link to a page listing headlines that link to NRC reports at the time Fukushima blew up.
http://enenews.com/top-33-headlines-nrcs-fukushima-foia-releases

These links support the above post from Truthout concerning the government suppressing information about Fukushima and radiation.

[Brother Buzz]

51. It means nadinbrzezinski told us to rush out and buy aseptic milk because....

a toxic plume of death was bearing down on the West Coast and was going poison the milk supply in days.

[RobertEarl]

52. There was found elevated radionuclides level in milk

That was science from EPA right after 3/11.

Why you would make fun of that is really quite perplexing. Guess your opinions are overriding the known science?

[Sirveri]

53. So what? People still drank milk, and people are still fine.

If the levels are elevated, but still under safe limits, then the product isn't harmful. Otherwise, they wouldn't really be limits. Also quantity matters, one extra radionuclide found makes levels 'elevated', but that doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things because a single radionuclide won't actually do anything.

[greiner3]

76. "So what? People still drank milk, and people are still fine."

Radioactive elements build up in an organism that consumes contaminated products.

Will you give me $1.00 for every case of cancer linked to tainted milk in say 20 years?

"...a single radionuclide won't actually do anything."

ANY radiation is/can be harmful to life (except for the cockroaches, unless your statement is meant for these creatures alone).

It's the build up of radionuclides that is the problem as the radioactive particle can cause genetic mutation.

[Sirveri]

109. You would have a point if the half life of I-131 wasn't 8 days.

Considering that the 'spike' we saw three years ago was 5000 times below the limit, and I-131 is gone from the environment 45-80 days after the fact. Pretty sure we have nothing to worry about from the initial accident. Also, FDA limits are set with biological half life in mind. They're set such that if you consume the average or less, and the contamination level is at the limit or less, you can drink it every day all year long and still be under the federal limits.

Also, considering that levels were 1000 times lower after fukushima than they were during the hey day of above ground nuclear weapons tests of the 1960's I'm 100% certain we'll all be fine as far as the milk is concerned. Humanity has detonated around 450 nukes above ground since the 1940's, newsflash we're all still here and kicking and living our lives like nothing happened. So maybe nothing really did happen?

[RobertEarl]

114. Your data, please

Those are astounding claims you have made. 5,000 times this and 1,000 times that.

You surely have the data to back up those claims, right? Or is all that just your unfounded opinions?

[Demeter]

86. You know what a safe level of radiation is? ZERO

And it just becomes exponentially worse up from there, both in dosage and and in time.

Thanks to the nuclear age, there is probably no spot on earth that is safe, but there are some hellholes that you couldn't pay me to approach, and Japan and Ukraine are two of them.

I've had my children. Will my children be able to have healthy, genetically operational children? Will yours? Do you give a care?

[newthinking]

89. Actually, most of Ukraine was less exposed than much of Europe

Sorry, I understand what you are getting at, and agree with your aversion and concern about the spread of unnatural radiation in our environment, but please be more careful.

Indeed northern Ukraine and especially areas around Chernobyl this is true of. But I would not be the least concerned spending time in say Crimea; on the other hand parts of Belarus or even Finland and Sweden were heavily affected. Not that I would be even that concerned about simply a trip to any of those places.


http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.html

The plume from the burning graphite initially traveled in a northwest direction toward Sweden, Finland and eastern Europe, exposing the public to levels up to 100 times the normal background radiation. A very serious concern involves the contamination of grain and dairy products from fallout. This contamination presents the chance for permanent internal contamination. Both Sr-90 and I-131 migrate to vital organs in the body where they are impossible to remove, serving as a constant source of unnecessary radiation and as a cause of cancer or other diseases.

[Demeter]

90. I am well aware of where the radiation went

I had relatives there. Just as I have friends in Japan, who lived in my house and ate my bread.

And the cancer statistics leak out, once in a while...

[KoKo]

97. Indeed, Demeter! Indeed! K&R!

[Sirveri]

108. Flat out false, you absorb radiation from natural sources all day long.

Unless of course you live in an underground bunker and never see the sun. But the normal person is going to get 300 mrem every year. That's been happening since the dawn of life on earth, so I'm pretty sure we can take a certain amount without serious harm (that level is capped at 5 Rem per year by the federal government).

FDA dose limits are set with biologic half life in mind, which means if the level found is lower than the limit, and you're consuming less product than the calculated average, then you will not exceed the civilian dose limit (which is half that of a radiation worker). Since we were talking about radio iodine and milk absorption, and we never saw anything other than a single solitary blip on the radiation monitors, and we never saw anything on FDA tests of the milk supply, I'm certain that we're fine on that front since; with a half life of 8 days it was completely out of the environment inside three months.

Considering that 127 Million people still live in Japan, I'm sure you could ask them what it's like in a 'hellhole' that they have lived and worked in every day for the last three years.

Yes, the kids are fine, you can check with the 1.5 Million children who have been born in California since fukushima. Them and the parents who are living their lives like nothing happened have likely forgotten since most people haven't seen any effect in their lives. Myself included.

[RobertEarl]

110. Your opinion, Sirveri, is: No Harm Done?

Do you have data to back up your opinion?

One thing to remember is that radio-Iodine is an easy marker of the radioactive plume which comes from nuclear power plant emissions.

We know Iodine was found. Being there are many other radionuclides that come from nuclear emissions such as strontium and plutonium, et al, we can be sure those were also deposited from Fukushima.

But those others are very hard to identify: the process is expensive and time consuming and the EPA just doesn't have the budget.

If you have the data showing EPA is testing for all those others I am sure we'd all love to see it.

[Sirveri]

111. Yes, I-131 was found... at 1000 times lower levels than during the 1960's.

Why would they test for specific nuclides, when they already do a general radiation test and nothing is coming out above background?

If the entire object is not more radioactive than normal, then that automatically means it's not contaminated with radioactive particulates. If you have evidence of significantly elevated counts, by all means present it. So far I've seen a single blip on a single radiation monitor in Berkeley, CA that was in total isolation to all other West Coast atmospheric monitoring stations. And an incredibly small increase above background in milk supplies that lasted for a month. So since there isn't any evidence of actual significant contamination, I'm forced to conclude that we haven't been contaminated in a way to disrupt anyone's life. The sky is not falling, there is no reason to panic, that's not an opinion because it's based on the evidence at hand.

[RobertEarl]

113. Just your opinion then?

An opinion which is not based on real data. You saw one blip and there you go, running with that?

But since you are so sure, tell us what the background was pre-Fuku versus today. Not opinion, but real data.

One dummy here a while back said it had increased by 3%. They were apprised that that 3% of which they wrote was from nuclear power reactors which is a thousand times more deadly than say bananas, or from the sun.

You agree with that, I am sure, since you are all 'sciency' and all that, aren't you? But wait.... you avoided the facts about plutonium and strontium, didn't you? Are you against facts, or what? Discuss, please; Plutonium and strontium......


On edit: whoever post 112 is, you are obviously on ignore.

[Sirveri]

115. There is plenty of real data, it supports my position.

Where is YOUR data? So if the atmospheric monitoring stations say that nothing is happening, I'm supposed to believe the opposite? If the routine tests on nations milk supply all come back negative, I'm supposed to disregard that and stop drinking milk? When the EPA says that levels found in milk are 1000 times lower after fuku than after above ground nuclear weapons test of the 1960's, I'm supposed to ignore the history that already happened and think everyone is going to get cancer and die?

You want data, here it is: http://www.epa.gov/enviro/facts/radnet/search_userguide.html
You can look up whatever numbers you want, if you think they support your case feel free to present them.

[RobertEarl]

116. Ok.

Last edited Mon Oct 21, 2013, 07:44 PM - Edit history (1)

I deleted that long report. It was about how radioactive-isotopes are introduced to the environment. And how long they last.

It did not have any details about health effects on humans. See my next reply for that.

[Sirveri]

117. That report says nothing about human health effects.

Bottom line is simple, if it enters the food chain, but doesn't actually DO ANYTHING, then it doesn't matter and we can safely ignore it. I was never disputing that radioactive contaminants were capable of entering the food chain (which is how they're found in milk). My dispute was about the human health effects and the resultant fear mongering from the accident sequence, more specifically with a focus on the West Coast (since that's where I live and the data I'm most familiar with). The study you posted does nothing to address the issues raised. Yes, Strontium and Cesium are, due to their position on the periodic table of elements, biologically similar to calcium. They have a biologic half life of apx. 5 years (your body will dispose of 50% of your calcium and everything that acts like calcium every 5 years), this is known and is factored into EPA limits and guidelines for annual consumption.

[RobertEarl]

121. Health effects

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/51585989-82/nuclear-radiation-scientists-bullets.html.csp

There is no 'safe' exposure to radiation

Bioaccumulation is one reason why it is dishonest to equate the danger to humans living 5,000 miles away from Japan with the minute concentrations measured in our air. If we tried, we would now likely be able to measure radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium bioaccumulating in human embryos in this country. Pregnant women, are you OK with that?

Hermann Mueller, another Nobel Prize winner, is one of many scientists who would not have been OK with that. In a 1964 study, "Radiation and Heredity", Mueller spelled out the genetic damage of ionizing radiation on humans. He predicted the gradual reduction of the survival of the human species as exposure to radioactivity steadily increased. Indeed, sperm counts, sperm viability and fertility rates worldwide have been dropping for decades.

These scientists and their warnings have never been disproven, but they are currently widely ignored. Their message is very clear: Virtually every human on Earth carries the nuclear legacy, a genetic footprint contaminated by the Cold War, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, the 400-plus nuclear power plants that have not melted down and now Fukushima.
"

[Sirveri]

127. Maybe those scientists are ignored because the data doesn't correspond to their conclusions?

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45058#.UmXMZfkqiSo

31 May 2013 – Radiation leaked after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 is unlikely to make the general public and the majority of workers sick, a United Nations scientific committee today said previewing a new report.

“Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects,” the UN Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) today said in a news release.

“It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers,” the Vienna-based committee added.

The finding comes from a report in which more than 80 leading international scientists analysed the available information on the levels and effects of exposure following the March 2011 events in Japan.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/wildlife_in_chernobyl_debate_over_mutations_and_populations_of_plants_and.html

Few wild animals lived in the region in 1986; their habitats had been destroyed for Soviet dairy farms and pine plantations. But large mammals started appearing almost immediately after the evacuations, and the animal populations soon exploded.

Roe deer and wild boar caught here in the early 1990s packed more than 2,000 times the safety norms for cesium-137 in meat. Though internal radiation levels have since dropped dramatically, some animals recently tested in Belarus still exceeded safe levels by dozens of times.

But in a surprise to just about everyone, the animals all looked physically normal. The same was true of other species tested—radioactive but normal-looking. The few known exceptions include albino spots and some deformities in barn swallows.

So to summarize, we probably won't see any major health effects from fukushima, and plenty of animals are able to tolerate radiation levels just fine. Humans aren't that special, which means that there has to be some sort of safe dose rate and Mueller's conclusion is wrong.

[RobertEarl]

128. They evacuated the humans from Chernobyl

If they had stayed and let others in the deaths would be massive. Some Russian reports are that half a million have died. We do know Russian human pops are declining.

The UN is pro-nuke. Have always been. They will never tell you radiation from NPP's will kill you. Fuck them.

See this report:
http://scienceblog.com/65744/viewing-fukushima-in-the-cold-light-of-chernobyl/

What you are denying is that it sometimes takes a decade for radiation to really do its dirty deed. But here you are saying: "I'm not dead, therefore radiation is safe."

Do you work in the industry?

[Sirveri]

130. No I don't work in the industry.

I do however have training in the field and was considering moving into nuclear power operations and maintenance. As I am now firmly entrenched in the CA bay area, I doubt I'll ever touch anything nuclear again unless I go to work at LLNL. That said, I'll trust a study by 80 industry specialists that actually understand the statistics and physics behind this stuff better than most. So far, it has been three years, where is the damage?

[RobertEarl]

132. 160,000 evacuated from Fukushima

Had they stayed there would be massive deaths. That is what the science says. Thy are not dead because they got the Fuku out of there!


In fact, the US science said evacuate all US personnel from a 50 mile zone. Why did they do that if it is so safe?

No Link:
"Based in part on NARAC projections and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidance, on March 16, the U.S. Department of State advised American citizens living within 80 kilometers of the damaged nuclear power plant to evacuate or take shelter indoors. Factors such as weather and wind direction were cited by the embassy as key reasons for this recommendation. “None of the recommendations were based solely on model results,” says Gayle Sugiyama, program leader for NARAC. “But modeling analyses were certainly important in providing guidance, especially in the early phases of the crisis.”

I have posted what some health professionals have stated, a link about the science of Chernobyl, and facts about evacuations saving lives, and about bio-accumulation.

And you who trusts "80 industry specialists" have denied it all. Good job, Brownie!

[Sirveri]

133. I meant on the West Coast. I live here, not in Japan.

That's also in line with what the UN report said. So good of you to not bother to actually read it.

[RobertEarl]

135. I've read all that crap

Time after time, time has proven the UN and WHO to be full of nuke waste.

What is your gig? You keep saying it is safe, all the science says it is not safe. You say one place showed some rise in the radioactivity, the US as a whole has shown a rise. Accumulation is happening, there is radioactive pollution coming across the Pacific, and this whole thread is about the observations of a sailor who claims the Ocean life is in decline.

Know what? They need workers at Fukushima. You need a job? Go over there you think it is so safe. They have already gone thru 20,000 workers who have reached their rad limits. And it is still spewing.

[PatrynXX]

18. reminds me of all those apocolyptic Anime

that came out of japan for ages fortelling of such an atomic even. although it was only Japan they warned of. not this. worse than any stephen king book.

[cui bono]

2. k n r

[NBachers]

4. I'm sick to my stomach.

[kentuck]

5. Me too.

That is stomach-churning.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. me too, N

Me too.

[ffr]

17. I just lost my appetite.

All these reports are painting a picture of something really bad.

Hope I wake up tomorrow and it has all been a bad dream.

[SammyWinstonJack]

30. Hard not too be.

[nashville_brook]

6. ...

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I so wish there could have been pics or video

so people could see what is really happening.

[Shivering Jemmy]

9. At least it would help verify

Whether report is accurate. Tone is so subjective difficult to assess.

[reACTIONary]

31. No kidding...

... the guy doesn't see as many whales as he thinks he has in the past and it's apocalypse now. So what is the whale population? Were they washing up on shore for the last year? How about some facts?

[Union Scribe]

41. I'm seeing "ENENews" used as a source more and more

here. It's just a warehouse of unverifiable anonymous articles. I can't find them linked to anywhere but other dubious sources.

[RobertEarl]

42. That's not true

Most of the ENEnews articles are well sourced.

What is different about the comment sections is that the dumb asses who love nukes are pretty much run off.

Were you run off from there? Is that why you speak evil of ENEnews.com?

[Union Scribe]

58. They rip off articles then editorialize them

to make them say what they do not say. The OP is a perfect example. Some yachtsman talking about overfishing, trash, and debris, somehow becomes "OMG Fukushima!" The Herald article is worth reading, but you'd never know that from the cherrypicking and context ENENews used.

[polichick]

8. OMG - has this been on the news anywhere?

[snooper2]

112. no because it's just bloggy trash

[polichick]

118. So it's not true?

[AverageJoe90]

10. A bit hyperbolic for sure, but nothing to sneeze at, either.

While not seeing anything for 3,000 miles is really more of a strange and highly unlikely coincidence than anything, it should be pointed out that yes, there have indeed been a lot of problems reported in or around the general area where Fukushima stood, and there's no doubt that some of that radiation & other gunk has made its way eastward as well.

Apocalypse? No. But a serious catastrophe rivalling Chernobyl in its severity, and one that will undoubtedly have severe effects for decades to come? Yes, undoubtedly.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

62. Outrivalling Chernoble

And it ain't done yet.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[kpete]

71. one of my favorite quotes:

"the question is not what you look at,
but what you SEE."

-Henry David Thoreau


when you cannot see,
you do not care...
unfortunate for mother earth
sad,


peace, kp

[Uncle Joe]

100. That is a good quote, I believe this quote from him seems appropos as well

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

Henry David Thoreau

I agree it is kpete, it is sad.

Peace to you, UJ.

[DeSwiss]

14. K&R

- If you never understood the underlying rationale for the Prime Directive, it should be absolutely clear now. This is what can happen when a planet full of slowly evolving yet mentally limited people get their hands on technology that is far in advance of their own mental development and level of intelligence.

[truebluegreen]

21. Bingo!

I have thought for a long time that intelligence--especially that intelligence that can modify the environment before understanding it--is not a survival trait.

[DeSwiss]

34. People who viewed nuclear energy in this way.....

- had no business with it:

[center]



[/center]

[MADem]

37. Charlie the Tuna, there, looks like he's shittin' bricks--he doesn't look too happy about that atom!

[RobertEarl]

43. Cesium 137 bricks.

And those bricks are eaten by the fish and crabs and starfish below him.

[Berlum]

65. + 1,000

nt

[CrispyQ]

78. So true.

We have some incredibly brilliant individuals, but as a collective, we aren't too bright.

[newthinking]

91. There is actually a real name for this phenominon - "Progress Trap"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_trap

In Escaping the progress trap O'Leary finds the cause of progress traps in neurological studies of cerebral development, specialization and lateralization of brain function. His study of this shows how individuals and societies can become committed to an exclusive form of technocratic rationalism. In this scenario, technical preoccupation slowly prevents creativity and problem-solving from taking effect. Where problems are created by technical specialization itself, such as desertification resulting from mismanaged irrigation, this trend can be irreversible. The classic case would be Sumer, where output-raising irrigation canals and logging slowly combined to make the fields far too salty to continue supporting the crops Sumerians had to rely on.

[airplaneman]

16. A biologist once told me.

Because we do what is needed for a profit instead of what is needed for our own survival, we have in essence assured our extinction. Our oceans are in serious trouble, our climate is probably beyond repair. We are in a serious condition of overshoot which is degrading our carrying capacity. These problems are accelerating and we have initiated a lot of negative feedback loops. We show no sign of seriously realizing this and moving in the opposite direction or even slowing the pace of our extinction. In the next 20-40 years the human population is going to enter a serious and obvious decline. In the next 5 to 10 years food and drinkable water will start to become more scarce on a planetary level. I pray we start to wake up soon.
-Airplane

[Snarkoleptic]

20. I'm sure this video will disturb and inform many as it did me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. I spoke very early of this

and was made fun off here. This is hardly surprising, and I mean hardly.

This is well known science, but people in the US are in true denial, and I will not start on DU.

[Scuba]

75. Some of appreciated your postings, and shrugged of the nuclear apologists.

Count me in that group.

[nadinbrzezinski]

84. Thanks, but the real (at this point also ignorant of the science)

bullies win. I hope we don't have another nuclear disaster, this one is hardly over. My postings on this, like almost everything else that is of substance, is off site now. These people are mean, are ignorant, are IMHO probably racists, and are proven bullies and character assasins

It matters little the scientific evidence is with me.

So we must eat our bananas.

[Overseas]

68. K&R. Didn't know about various countries' standards for Cesium contamination of foods.

[zeemike]

22. There have been many a science fiction story written on that theme.

I just thought I would never live to see it.
K&R, not because this is good, but because we need to know.

[DeSwiss]

35. Exactly. n/t

[CrispyQ]

79. That is a perfect summation of where our species is.

Because we do what is needed for a profit instead of what is needed for our own survival, we have in essence assured our extinction

Here is a 12 minute mini-documentary by Thom Hartmann. He dares to use the E word, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017150660

Personally, I think we're toast. The changes we will have to make in our daily lives, in our ways of thinking, I just don't see it happening. Not at this point in time & I don't know if we have any time left.

And excellent post, Airplane.

[Flaxbee]

104. I don't care if we wipe ourselves out. Really, we've shown humans are incapable of

managing the planet in any remotely responsible way. Profit first, screw the rest. That is no way to behave or live with any hope of a future.

So, good riddance to humankind. We're parasites.

However, I do very much care if we take the rest of this planet's beautiful species with us. That really angers me to the point of incoherence.

[Phlem]

19. There's going to be a huge

population adjustment on the horizon. Maybe, hopefully, we learn at last.

-p

[postatomic]

23. I found an article that helps explain 'some' of the ocean dead zones

Not saying that this explains what this Sailor didn't see, but it's worth a read:

http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2013/aug/31/ocean-dead-zone-mystery-oregon/

It's all a bit scary. Made even more scary by the fact that corporate controlled media doesn't make this a news story.

[Zorra]

26. Why aren't we shutting down all the reactors...like, yesterday?

I would rather much rather live without electricity than die from producing it.

[RobertEarl]

29. Fuku Plume may already be on west coast?

At this link is an animation of what would happen to something (plastic) dumped in the ocean. Click on area close to Japan and see how something might spread due to surface currents in the pacific.

http://adrift.org.au

At this link is the report using the above link to describe the possibilities of what Fukushima has done is doing.

http://scienceblog.com/65898/fukushima-radioactive-plume-to-reach-us-in-three-years/

It has been 2 years and 7 months since Fuku blew sky high releasing three reactor cores full of water into the ocean. Already we have records of debris from Japan reaching the west coast, so one could say we already have polluted water from Fukushima here now.

[RobertEarl]

39. Link to discussion about Fuku Plume

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023849451

We don't know what will happen with the plume of radioactive water.

And the government is sitting on its hands. About time they started telling us what the science is saying, don't you think? Or will we let it be like global warming where they denied the science for years and years?

[CrispyQ]

80. What can 28,000 rubber duckies lost at sea teach us about our oceans?

What can 28,000 rubber duckies lost at sea teach us about our oceans?

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/what-can-28000-rubber-duckies-lost-at-sea-teach-us-about-

snip...

In 1992, a shipping crate containing 28,000 plastic bath toys was lost at sea when it fell overboard on its way from Hong Kong to the United States. No one at the time could have guessed that those same bath toys would still be floating the world's oceans nearly 20 years later.

[davidpdx]

106. It certainly would be interesting to recreate that 20 years later and see where they end up

I very much doubt it would be the same places

[SoapBox]

36. Some one at work, that goes to Tokyo frequently...

I mentioned in passing, Going to the dead zone AGAIN?

She gave me a dirty look and responded, That's just stupid...it's perfectly safe there.

THAT is what I call a big old trip down the DeNile.

[Union Scribe]

40. She's right, that is stupid.

It is perfectly safe in Tokyo.

[RobertEarl]

44. The former PM of Japan, says otherwise

And when he did they kicked him out of office. Imagine that, someone who tries to warn people about the danger of nuclear radiation gets kicked out of office by the big money folks.

Arne Gunderson claims that when he sampled a few places in Tokyo he found readings that back in the US would have made those places nuclear waste sites.

The wise people in Tokyo are leaving. They know better than what the big money, pro-nukers are claiming.

[Union Scribe]

55. Anyone can SAY anything.

There isn't a shred of credible evidence showing danger to anyone in Tokyo. And quit with the lame "pro-nuker" crap, being against irrational fearmongering (even that done by professional fearmongers) doesn't take a paycheck.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. Let me just throw this out there: And I am NOT a "pro nuker".

I think Fukushima proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that fission reactors are a monumentally stupid way to boil water.

But.. there are 9 Million people in Tokyo. Some of them, as well as others from surrounding areas, who are not on the TEPCO payroll, have got to know their way around radioactive sampling.

So let me ask you; has anyone besides Arne Gundersen reported these results?

[proverbialwisdom]

99. Here's a recent article for you.

http://japandailypress.com/citizens-group-reports-high-radiation-levels-at-possible-venues-for-2020-tokyo-olympics-0937428/

Citizens group reports high radiation levels at possible venues for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Oct 09, 2013
Faith Aquino

[Art_from_Ark]

120. Naoto Kan was kicked out of office because of perceived bumbling

For example, his nuclear liaison in Fukushima basically had "a little radiation never hurt anyone" kind of attitude which really ticked off a lot of the local people. The evacuation from the 20km area was also pretty chaotic, and it seemed that a lot of people were left on their own, with some even unwittingly evacuating to places that had higher radiation levels because they were downwind from the reactors.

But I think that Kan's biggest problem was that he stayed out of the public eye. He relied much too heavily on his spokesman to speak about the disasters and their aftermath, and that gave a good deal of the Japanese public the impression that Kan was in over his head.

[RobertEarl]

122. He has turned totaly anti-nuclear

That is why he is no longer in office.

Fukushima has scared the holy-hell out of him because he had all the facts right in front of him. He almost called for Tokyo to be evacuated.

[Art_from_Ark]

123. No, he's no longer in office because he did not take charge of things

At least, that is the impression he gave. And I say that as someone who supported Kan, was in Japan during that awful time, and watched in dismay as his spokesman took center stage on the TV news while Kan stayed out of the limelight. Then his party suffered a crushing defeat in the April 2011 local elections, and even influential members of his own party, such as Ichiro Ozawa, started a "Dump Kan" movement because of a perceived failure of leadership.

[RobertEarl]

124. Well...

We see who is in there now, and he is a complete shill for nuclear power. All the science says shut the things down, but Abe has said that Fukushim is under control and Japan should build more!

If allowing only 300 tons of polluted water a day into the ocean is "under control" then we have the moon controlled. We don't.

When Kan went anti-nuke, he was done for. He above all other leaders of Japan is a responsible leader. The rest are liars and cheaters. "Fukushima is under control". Sure.....

[Art_from_Ark]

125. Once again, Kan was not dumped because he became anti-nuke

He was dumped because he did not effectively lead. The Japanese public was very much against nuclear power in the aftermath of the disaster, and if he had been on top of things, rather than relying on a spokesman to do his talking, his party likely would have won the April 2011 local elections and he would have remained prime minister.

I will say this in defense of Kan: The disasters (plural) were so massive and wide-scale that they probably would have overwhelmed anyone who was sitting in the prime minister's chair. And the massive amounts of money that had to be diverted to the rebuilding and relocating efforts hurt the economy as a whole. I think Kan was being given bad economic advice to cut back on non-disaster-related spending, and that also hurt him, as did the overvalued yen. As soon as Abe got in, he opened up the money valves at the Okurasho and is being credited with turning the economy around. That is the main reason why Abe's party won such a decisive victory in last July's Upper House elections.

[RobertEarl]

126. Abe is money bags

You do know Japan is about the most indebted country in the world, right?

Kan did lead... responsibly. He shut down all the nukes, and he tried to keep Japan from digging a deeper hole. The money bag people saw profits from "disaster capitalism" and got Kan kicked. Japan would be far better off with Kan than "Fukushima is under control", Abe.

Look, Art, what do you say about Abe and the whack idea that Fuku is under control? Is he whacked, or is he honest?

[Art_from_Ark]

129. Let me ask you this

Let's say there was a similar triple disaster in the United States, and in the aftermath you were always seeing not President Obama, but Jay Carney on TV every night speaking for the government. And then Obama appointed a special high-profile liaison for the disaster area who took a *very* cavalier attitude toward the people he was supposed to be helping. And then the economy tanked, all right before an election. How would the Democratic Party do under such circumstances? I'm pretty sure the outcome would not be a good one. But in Japan, unlike the United States, the prime minister does not have a set term-- he is very vulnerable to the political whims of the nation, and can only serve as long as he has the confidence of either his party, or the nation's voters.

And Abe might be pro-nuke, but he can't even get approval to restart idled nuke plants. How is he going to be able to build more nukes?

[RobertEarl]

131. Well, you didn't answer my question

But as for when such a disaster happens here, the nukes will also be closed down and the nukers will do everything they can to get a pro-nuke in office.

If Kan was still pro-nuke he'd probably still be in office. But he had the crap scared out of him and he took the responsible moves to protect the people and damn the nukes!

Do you really think if Abe was anti-nuke he would ever have been elected? Of course not.

So, again, do you agree with Abe that Fuku is under control? Or is he a liar?

[Art_from_Ark]

134. Kan would not still be in office if he were pro-nuke

He would still be in office if he had showed leadership. He wasn't kicked out for closing the nuke plants-- that's what a vast majority of the Japanese public wanted, and still want.

Here are examples of how Japanese media were criticizing him in the aftermath of the disasters:

国民向けの「一方的な」[74]メッセージを発する以外に地震発生から2週間以上も記者団の取材や質問に応じず、国会での答弁も行わなかった菅首相について「表舞台に姿を現さない」[195]「首相のリーダーシップが見えない」[195]「引きこもり」[196]「枝野官房長官に説明を丸投げ」[196]「パフォーマンスばかりが目立つ」[197]とメディアから批判された[74][195][196][197]。
2011年3月26日の日本経済新聞は「原子力には詳しい」と自負していた菅が「臨界って何だ」と発言したと報じ、「なまじ知識があるだけに話すとぼろが出そう」との周囲の不安が出番の激減につながっているとした[198]。

"Except for the 'one-way" messages he was giving the public, for more than 2 weeks after the earthquake (Kan) did not hold a press conference nor answer questions in the Diet (Parliament) and "did not appear on center stage". "Leadership was not apparent" "He became a shut-in." "He defers explanations to his Chief Secretary Edano" "It is obvious there is nothing but a performance."

On March 26, 2011, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that for a man "who supposedly was knowledgeable about atomic energy", Kan asked "Rinkaitte nanda?" ("What is nuclear criticality?&quot .　"He only has superficial knowledge, and it is apparent when he speaks". His uneasiness with those around him is helping to greatly diminish his duties.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/菅直人

Even the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's largest left-leaning newspaper, eventually threw in the towel on Kan. It was the Japanese version of Lyndon Johnson's "I've lost Cronkite" moment.

[RobertEarl]

136. Is Abe a liar?

Is Fukushima under control?

Did you see what our media did to Carter? Clinton? Obama?

You also trust the Japanese media like the fox?

You are hiding from the truths, Ark. Say good night.

[Art_from_Ark]

137. Oh, good grief

Fukushima is definitely not under control. Hell, there was a report on last night's news about the problems that the recent typhoons have caused there, and worries about problems that the latest typhoons could cause.

I was here in Japan during that awful time in 2011, watching the TV news every night, and Kan was nowhere in sight. It was always Yukio Edano who was speaking for the government, so much so that he was being jokingly referred to as "Prime Minister Edano".

I do not trust the Japanese media for the most part, but I do tend to trust the Asahi Shimbun, and even that newspaper threw in the towel on Kan.

I am no fan of Abe, and am uncomfortable with most of his coalition partners.

[Art_from_Ark]

119. It is perfectly safe in Tokyo

And I say that as someone who is actually IN Tokyo. It is hardly a "dead zone"-- the trains, stations and streets were all as crowded as they ever are during today's morning commute.

[tavalon]

38. That is where our salmon fry go to grow up

I don't know if there will be a salmon run next year or if there is, whether I will be willing to eat it.

Sad, very sad.

Tepco executives should look to their ancestors for the honorable thing to do.

[NickB79]

56. The oceans have been dying for decades now

Climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing, the now infamous Texas-sized plastic gyre in the Pacific, etc, etc.

Anyone who thinks this is something new, and something that only started with Fukushima, hasn't been paying much attention.

[MFM008]

59. I am not sorry

I wont live long enough to see what is going to happen to my beloved ocean and life within. I couldnt bear it.

[NickB79]

60. The fish weren't missing, the author states exactly where they went

But they weren't pirates, not in the conventional sense, at least. The speedboat came alongside and the Melanesian men aboard offered gifts of fruit and jars of jam and preserves.

"And they gave us five big sugar-bags full of fish," he said.

"They were good, big fish, of all kinds. Some were fresh, but others had obviously been in the sun for a while.

"We told them there was no way we could possibly use all those fish. There were just two of us, with no real place to store or keep them. They just shrugged and told us to tip them overboard. That's what they would have done with them anyway, they said.

"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."

Macfadyen felt sick to his heart. That was one fishing boat among countless more working unseen beyond the horizon, many of them doing exactly the same thing.

[magical thyme]

70. that's in the area not poisoned by the tsunami

where there are fish, we kill them to extinction. anything not "tuna" is "waste": killed and thrown overboard.

where the ocean has been poisoned, they have died off.

we are well and truly screwn.

[CountAllVotes]

63. How depressing

As the sea dies, so does the rest of the food chain. That includes the human part of the food chain which is us.

I too am glad that I won't be around long enough to see how much worse this will get. I noted this part of the article here:

>> "I asked them why don't we push for a fleet to go and clean up the mess," he said.

"But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris there."

***********

We're screwed, plain and simple -- screwed.

and a scream to go w/it.

& recommend.

[CrispyQ]

82. From post #16:

Because we do what is needed for a profit instead of what is needed for our own survival, we have in essence assured our extinction.

So much for the pinnacle of creation.

[Berlum]

64. The ocean is broken

holy shit

[JCMach1]

66. And it's us... everywhere I have dived in the past few years, you can see the insane explosion

of jellyfish. It's not natural... things are very, very wrong...

[hatrack]

93. Experienced divers I've talked to say that things are deteriorating rapidly in the Caribbean

There are fewer and fewer areas that are (relatively) intact, meaning that they really have to get off the beaten track - Cocos Island, Truk, some of the far-offshore areas of Belize.

They also report that a lot of the areas around the Keys are in big trouble.

[nadinbrzezinski]

101. Are we seeing a collapse?

We know that we are in the middle of the great Holocene Extinction.

[JCMach1]

103. The oceans are very, very resilient... so, often you see things that look like a rolling collapse

One population, or particular reefs, or areas will collapse... sometimes they will recover... but probably once you start tracking it long term the trend-line is going South and pretty quickly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. The acidification really worries me

due to higher CO2. Which also explains the bleaching of creatures that require calcium, such as star fish and corals.

[JCMach1]

107. CO2, oil, Global Warming

There used to be thriving coral reefs near Dubai... Now, Persian Gulf temperatures are often around 90 during the Summer.

[hatrack]

138. Nature has tremendous resilience, given half a chance.

The problem is that we hardly ever give it half a chance. Not even a quarter of a chance . . . .

[JCMach1]

139. Exactly... sigh

[JCMach1]

102. I saw the jellyfish and reef bleaching even in Belize

Ditto for much of the rest of the Carribean, UAE, Oman, and Kenya...

[Bennyboy]

67. FUKUSHIMA IS HERE......

yesterday in (where else) San Francisco (the City)

[seveneyes]

69. Why no pictures?

Pictures of trash and before/after yellow paint jobs would help immensely. Even a cheap camera would help here.

[Auntie Bush]

72. This is absolutely tragic devastating news... It's sickening what we'd done to the ocean.

[grahamhgreen]

73. Wind is cheaper than nuclear, cheaper still when u add in a few disasters.

[Brickbat]

74. Lots of jumping to conclusions on this thread.

Here's hoping people stretched properly before they did so, because those are some pretty big leaps.

[Bennyboy]

77. let's not forget all the toxic waste dumped into the oceans

The Military is responsible for a lot of it, but Corporations have been dumping toxic waste all over the world into the oceans for decades... And in metal barrels surely, that will start or has been leaching into the oceans. Most dumped close to shore (to save money in transportation costs surely) and fertile breeding grounds.

[agent46]

81. Don't worry. Go back to sleep.

The Illuminati are on the run. The new age is dawning everywhere and the galactic federation of light is here to make sure everything will be ok.

[NealK]

83. That's so depressing.

[heaven05]

85. as long as bananas can be used

to confuse and distract from the impending terror, I'll be reading what I am reading here. Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe. How sad the denial. geez

[nadinbrzezinski]

87. Bananas became a running gag

Because they were used in such a way by the propagandist and the willfully ignorant. So, yes, eat your bananas is truly a joke...on them mind you.

[Bennyboy]

92. Lets not forget all the oil spills around the world...

all close to shore and in breeding areas. In some places around the globe the amount of oil spilled into the oceans is more than what was spilled in the gulf, EACH YEAR.

[WillyT]

95. So Damned Depressing...

& Rec !!!

[Enthusiast]

96. I find this too sad to think about............nt

[agent46]

98. If this disturbs you and gives you a sense of urgency

If this disturbs you and gives you a sense of urgency, please follow up with reading Guy McPherson's work. His blog and website, "Nature Bats Last" is here:

http://guymcpherson.com/

Guy McPherson is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. You can learn more about him at his university website here:

http://ag.arizona.edu/~grm/