Fukushima at Eight: Ongoing Cover-Up of the Nuclear Hazards in Japan and Abroad

Michael Welch, Dr. Helen Caldicott, and Arnie Gundersen
Global Research

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

– Albert Einstein

The eight year old Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster marks a critical turning point in human history. 

As of November 2018, 18,434 people are known to have died from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and the follow-up tsunami which struck the nuclear facility leading to the inundation of electric generators powering the circulation of coolant in the reactors. When the generators failed, three units experienced catastrophic meltdowns. [1]

Radioactive water has for years now been draining into the Pacific Ocean. Toxic debris spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 73,000 people remain evacuated, and fully 3,600 dies of illness from causes like illness and suicide linked to the aftermath of the event. [2]



The group Simplyinfo.org has been undertaking extensive ongoing research and analysis of the Fukushima disaster and its aftereffects. In its recently released annual report, Simplyinfo presented a number of astonishing and grim revelations.

The report estimated the threat of radioactive microparticles created by the meltdowns as possibly “the single largest ongoing risk to public health from the Fukushima disaster.” According to the research, these pieces of material from the nuclear fuel meltdowns are small enough to be inhaled or ingested and lodge in major organs of the human body where they continually irradiate cancer-causing levels of radiation, making them much more hazardous than the external sources of radiation being monitored by health authorities. [3]

The report also highlighted startling instances of negligence and cover-up. One notable example was the case of Dr. Shunichi Yamashita. He had downplayed the health risks in public meetings, but was discovered through an internal memo retrieved from an ‘off-site center’ set up as a central commend for the disaster to have warned of ‘a serious possibility of thyroid damage to children in the region.’ [4]

As the radioactive contamination continues to be a concern the Japanese government of Shinzō Abe is inviting the world to visit Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics. The authorities are maintaining that the situation has been contained. Officials have decided to have the city of Fukushima host baseball and softball games, and are even having the iconic torch run start in Fukushima. [5]

Efforts to normalize life in Fukushima 8 years after the meltdowns appear to be successful if trends in media consumption are any indication. Articles marking the anniversary were eclipsed by other breaking stories.[6]

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Designer Creates Algae-Based Alternative For Plastic Packaging That Could Save Our Environment

Truth Theory

It seems like people are becoming more and more aware of plastic products and the threat that they pose to the environment. Plastic is used in and for almost everything as of now, and food packaging is one area where lots of plastic is used. While you might not have noticed it, but if you ever go down the aisle of a supermarket, then you will realize the amount of plastic that is used. It is quite clear that we need to tackle this problem.

A few engineers and scientists, as well as Margarita Talep, a designer, have come to our rescue in this situation. Margarita Talep has been successful in developing an algae-based product which can be a great substitute for plastic food packaging. Packaging, generally, has a short lifecycle. So, Talep planned to develop a kind of material that would be capable of holding food items or any other product but when discarded, it can breakdown easily without accumulating as waste.

Talep uses a gel-like substance called agar, which is sourced from seaweed. This is not a new product. It is quite commonly used as a kind of food thickener. When Talep understood the potential of this gel-like substance, she heated it up to develop a polymer and then she added water to it to act as a plasticizer. For colors, she used natural dyes that were developed from vegetables and fruits like carrots, beets, purple cabbage, and blueberries.

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Oil slick threatens French coast after cargo ship sinks

france24.com

 

An oil slick was heading towards the French coastline on Thursday after an Italian cargo ship sank in the Atlantic carrying 45 containers of "dangerous materials", authorities said.

The sheet of oil, 10 kilometres (six miles) long and one km wide, could hit parts of the country's southwest region near the port city of Bordeaux this weekend.

"According to our forecasts, fragments could reach some areas of the coast in Nouvelle-Aquitaine by Sunday or Monday owing to bad weather, which also risks making the anti-pollution operation more difficult," environment minister Francois de Rugy said Wednesday.

France will deploy four ships to help battle the oil slick at sea and will prepare for a clean-up operation on land, he added.

The Grande America was en route from Hamburg in Germany to Casablanca in Morocco when a fire broke out late on Sunday.

All 27 people on board were evacuated the following day as the fire worsened, before the ship sank some 300 km west of the town of La Rochelle on Tuesday.

"For now the possible pollution risk consists mainly of the 2,200 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board," Jean-Louis Lozier, head of the regional maritime authority, told reporters in Brest on France's Brittany coast.

Lozier said the hybrid ship's Italian owner Grimaldi had indicated that 365 shipping containers were onboard, "of which 45 are carrying dangerous materials", as well as around 2,000 vehicles.

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Microplastic pollution revealed ‘absolutely everywhere’ by new research

The Guardian

Microplastic pollution spans the world, according to new studies showing contamination in the UK’s lake and rivers, in groundwater in the US and along the Yangtze river in China and the coast of Spain.

Humans are known to consume the tiny plastic particles via food and water, but the possible health effects on people and ecosystems have yet to be determined. One study, in Singapore, has found that microplastics can harbour harmful microbes.

The new analysis in the UK found microplastic pollution in all 10 lakes, rivers and reservoirs sampled. More than 1,000 small pieces of plastic per litre were found in the River Tame, near Manchester, which was revealed last year as the most contaminated place yet tested worldwide. Even in relatively remote places such as the Falls of Dochart and Loch Lomond in Scotland, two or three pieces per litre were found.

Plastics 'leading to reproductive problems for wildlife'

“It was startling. I wasn’t expecting to find as much as we did,” said Christian Dunn at Bangor University, Wales, who led the work. “It is quite depressing they were there in some of our country’s most iconic locations. I’m sure Wordsworth would not be happy to discover his beloved Ullswater in the Lake District was polluted with plastic.

“Microplastics are being found absolutely everywhere [but] we do not know the dangers they could be posing. It’s no use looking back in 20 years time and saying: ‘If only we’d realised just how bad it was.’ We need to be monitoring our waters now and we need to think, as a country and a world, how we can be reducing our reliance on plastic.”

The River Thames in London was found to have about 80 microplastic particles per litre, as was the River Cegin in North Wales. The Blackwater River in Essex had 15. Ullswater has 30 and the Llyn Cefni reservoir on Anglesey 40.

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Kicking away the energy ladder – How environmentalism destroys hope for the poorest

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That?

There is a new white-paper out from The GWPF that illustrates the damage being done to people in poorer countries by environmentalists’ obsession with decarbonization in their imaginary quest to stave off global warming. As Dr. John Christy once said:

"Without Energy, life is brutal and short."

 

The report, by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio, says that international bodies and NGOs are trying to prevent poor countries from expanding their use of conventional fuels, have abandoned the so-called “energy ladder”  — the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialised nations.

As Dr Paunio explains, this will have devastating consequences:

“Indoor air pollution from domestic fires kills millions every year. But instead of helping poor people to climb the energy ladder and clean the air in their communities, the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”

What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on power stations, industry and cars, as a way to prevent any shift to industrial power production. As Dr Paunio makes clear, most air pollution in poor countries is in fact caused by burning low-quality biofuels and coal in domestic stoves:

“Trying to blame power stations for indoor air pollution might make greens feel they are saving the planet, but the reality is that they are allowing millions of deaths from air pollution to continue. The body count is going to rival that of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century.”

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