People living near Japan - Are you ok?

[YuukiCrossPudding]

I feel better knowing that I wasn't the only who thought about this song orz

lol I know this song too, and gonna cover it or fandub it with my horrible voice xDDD

Well I saw on the news, and I think the radiation will not reach too far away. because it's just a minor explode, and the radiation not too wide or etc.

but the radiation is still increasing more and more. and there's also a check up for the people in Japan near the nuclear reactor, too check if they got the radiation or not.

There are these dudes (sorry I really don't know their names) who have started text scares. They said that the radiation would reach our country and it would cause acid rains, so we should stay inside when it rains. OR ELSE, we'll have our heads shaved off, have our skin burned or cancer. Classes are even cancelled because of that damn text.

But you know what? It didn't fool me. It says " a nuclear power plant exploded in Fukumi, Japan. " I said to myself, "duuur, there's no such place in Japan as Fukumi, it's Fukushima."

These dudes are playin' off with everybody when serious things are going on. Are these things happening there too?

lol, yeah people scared and some people try to fool everyone, actually in my country there's some project to build nuclear reactor plant, for electricity. and the citizen live near the project for the plant blocked and seal the buildings and such...
hmm... I don't know if that's a good thing or not...

Fukumi?! xDDDD
if the radiation just small, the disease it'll give probably start small too. but it can be disappear depend on our body metabolism... that's what I get from the news in my country. xD

[Celestie]

You know what?
This whole incident is really pissing me off.

There are these dudes (sorry I really don't know their names) who have started text scares. They said that the radiation would reach our country and it would cause acid rains, so we should stay inside when it rains. OR ELSE, we'll have our heads shaved off, have our skin burned or cancer. Classes are even cancelled because of that damn text.

But you know what? It didn't fool me. It says " a nuclear power plant exploded in Fukumi, Japan. " I said to myself, "duuur, there's no such place in Japan as Fukumi, it's Fukushima."

These dudes are playin' off with everybody when serious things are going on. Are these things happening there too?

Please, don't think too hard about these idiots, they exist everywhere and surface in worst times because it's when they can harvest reactions and attention because that is what those trolls are, attention-starving poor dudes. I almost pity them. But only almost. You are too kind to them, don't waste your time on them, it's just satisfying them.

I feel better knowing that I wasn't the only who thought about this song orz

lol I know this song too, and gonna cover it or fandub it with my horrible voice xDDD

Yay for minds thinking alike? I actually found the song only shortly before last Friday and then it happened. Now it's gonna be the song that will accompany me through my final exams as well as the crisis...
And covering it...wow, since there are parts where Rin sings very, very high, you already have my support for even making up your mind in doing it.

And the problem remains, if the power plant fails to keep the radiation in, Japan will forever be contaminated and I seriously don't want that to happen, both because I want to go to Japan in the future as well (that's the more selfish part of my reasoning), and because of the people living there....they won't leave, but they don't want to be contaminated, either. They have had it hard enough these past days.

But even if there were 100k casualties (there are far less, fortunately), Japan still has more than 120 million inhabitants, so in the big picture they will barely make a difference in that aspect.

True, so true. But if the contamination happens, the death toll over the course of time will rise, even if it doesn't happen within the timeline of the actual crisis but only as a result. T_T

[Avaible]

True, so true. But if the contamination happens, the death toll over the course of time will rise, even if it doesn't happen within the timeline of the actual crisis but only as a result. T_T

Yeah, let's hope the world will be spared such a development.

And the problem remains, if the power plant fails to keep the radiation in, Japan will forever be contaminated and I seriously don't want that to happen, both because I want to go to Japan in the future as well (that's the more selfish part of my reasoning), and because of the people living there....they won't leave, but they don't want to be contaminated, either.

Same reasons for me, I want to go to Japan in the future - it would be nice if there still was a Japan to go to then.
It's frustrating to be limited to watch the events, instead of navigating them.

[Chrizine]

there's some crazy ppl in youtube that say the earthquake and even tsunami didn't happen at all.
many trolls commenting on the youtube video. >A<
I'm so angry at them! they said it's just government strategy or something etc.
just crazy, I didn't know there's such cold people!

I can't understand this kind of people either... Horrible things are happening, and they are denying it? Making up silly conspiracy theorys?
I met a guy in a chat room who actually believed this was all caused by testing an atomic bomb. And nothing I said could change his mind...
I really can't understand these people.

[papillon]

It's sad how some people are so fixated on the nuclear issue because they believe there's some incredibly slim chance that it might affect THEM, and overlooking the actual disaster that's already happened. (Not you guys, but there are stories of, like, vast numbers of people in Europe panic-buying anti-radiation tablets. WTF?)

And the problem remains, if the power plant fails to keep the radiation in, Japan will forever be contaminated

... surely, when it comes to nuclear accidents, Japan would already be 'forever contaminated' if you looked at it that way. There were those bombs after all!

[jack_norton]

I can't understand this kind of people either... Horrible things are happening, and they are denying it? Making up silly conspiracy theorys?
I met a guy in a chat room who actually believed this was all caused by testing an atomic bomb. And nothing I said could change his mind...
I really can't understand these people.

Well, there are many idiots in the world

And yes I heard that some people in France are buying those anti-radiation tablet. Meanwhile, in Italy we're trying to compete for the Darwin Award of this year: while all around Europe governments are shutting down nuclear plants (see Germany), here we are about to begin building them, despite the people said clearly that they DON'T want them built.

W GLOBAL IDIOCY!!!

[Chrizine]

while all around Europe governments are shutting down nuclear plants (see Germany)

This is indeed an interesting development.
I mean, I'm against nuclear power plants (producing a lot of rubbish noone knows what to do with), but why is it always necessary that a catastrophe comes to make people see?
The same people who are now shutting down power plants wanted to give them permission to stay in use longer than originally permitted two weeks ago. It's not like the problems about radioactivity have been unknown until these things happened... But suddenly, they change opinion. They could have long done it. Why???

[papillon]

Meanwhile, in Italy we're trying to compete for the Darwin Award of this year: while all around Europe governments are shutting down nuclear plants (see Germany), here we are about to begin building them, despite the people said clearly that they DON'T want them built.

Taking any major policy decision on the spur of the moment because of something that happened halfway around the world with no bearing on your own circumstances is kinda crazy.

That is, for countries whose power plants are not currently built on fault lines, what's going on RIGHT NOW is not all that relevant because it's not going to happen to their plants. The best thing to do would be to observe, see all the different problems faced in Japan, how they're dealt with, how they might have been dealt with better, and what the repercussions will be, and THEN make a decision. At the moment there's a bunch of people screaming that everyone in Japan is going to die and a bunch of people screaming that not one single person has been actually killed by the radiation and it's pretty hard to reach rational conclusions while everyone's screaming.

The eventual decision might be "Okay, our plants aren't going to explode in an earthquake, but if something goes wrong it will be much harder than we thought to contain the problem, even with people working as hard as they can, so we should phase these things out and shut them down in an orderly fashion."

Or the eventual decision might be "Even if things go horrifically wrong, the consequences once people stop panicking turn out to be quite limited and not particularly worse than a non-nuclear plant explosion, so we should continue with our plants and use this experience to shore up our safety procedures."

In any case, "PANIC PANIC SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN RIGHT NOW OMG" is not a particularly reasonable response. Not to mention that, like I said, people are panicking over this potential problem and ignoring the thousands of people who've actually died and the hundreds of thousands of people homeless and distraught from the disaster that already happened.

[jack_norton]

Considering that we now have the tech to NOT use nuclear plant, it seems FOLLY to risk an armageddon just because some corrupt politician or obtuse scientist insists that nuclear power is the way. Solar , wind, sea, water energy are clean, safe and have no downsides.
Germany already produces 25% of the whole power they need with green energy! and I *think* there's more sun in Italy than Germany

But instead is better to build new nuclear plants, which even if they don't explode have "nice" side effects like doubling cancer rate in babies within 5km of their location, and several other minor things that government never tell us about...

[papillon]

Considering that we now have the tech to NOT use nuclear plant, it seems FOLLY to risk an armageddon just because some corrupt politician or obtuse scientist insists that nuclear power is the way. Solar , wind, sea, water energy are clean, safe and have no downsides.

Nothing has 'no' downsides. Only the marketing material will tell you otherwise. Everything has problems, it's just a matter of working out which problems are better problems to have than others. (Last I heard, wind turbines still had a nasty habit of chopping up birds on a large scale. Oops.)

I'm not saying nuclear is necessarily the best way forward, just that a lot of the FUD about it is only FUD.

But instead is better to build new nuclear plants, which even if they don't explode have "nice" side effects like doubling cancer rate in babies within 5km of their location, and several other minor things that government never tell us about...

Consider the health costs of living near a coal power plant. Those things are nasty! And sadly a lot of countries doing the panic thing are pondering using more coal rather than green options, even though coal is in many ways more deadly than nuclear.

[J. Datie]

Considering what's happened to these 40 year-old reactors, which were just about to be shut down this year, I'd say they're holding up pretty good so far. I mean, of course they're going to have to look at this accident and make improvements in safety measures in future plants, but it's not like nuclear is the only power source with health problems. All those oil refinery fires in Sendai aren't going to make it any better to breath.

Oh, and if anyone's worried that Japan's is currently radiated forever!, here's a geiger counter in Tokyo. It went up a little yesterday before coming down, but it really didn't get any worse then, say, Denver.

once people stop panicking

But mass hysteria has a half-life of 300 years!

Solar , wind, sea, water energy are clean, safe and have no downsides.

75 dead isn't really safe... I'm sure if Japan could go completely green they would. I heard a story about a town that built a bunch of wind turbines, but then they never got enough wind to use them properly, so it just ended up being a huge waste of time and money. Obviously, once they have the technology, they'll leave nuclear, and even wind and solar, behind for something better. But for now, everything has it's downsides.

[Avaible]

while all around Europe governments are shutting down nuclear plants (see Germany)

This is indeed an interesting development.
I mean, I'm against nuclear power plants (producing a lot of rubbish noone knows what to do with), but why is it always necessary that a catastrophe comes to make people see?
The same people who are now shutting down power plants wanted to give them permission to stay in use longer than originally permitted two weeks ago. It's not like the problems about radioactivity have been unknown until these things happened... But suddenly, they change opinion. They could have long done it. Why???

Ah, that's because right now Germany is starting it's election campains, we're choosing who is going to sit in the parliament for the next five years - of course there would be a sudden change in propaganda if the people are upset because of our nuclear power plants ...
Well, in three months let's see how much they will hold their promises ...

Germany already produces 25% of the whole power they need with green energy! and I *think* there's more sun in Italy than Germany

Yeah, and last year we sold 40% of all the energy coming from our nuclear power plants - in fact, it wouldn't hurt us to shut down about seven of the seventeen plants we have. The problem remains where to put the trash.

Nothing has 'no' downsides. Only the marketing material will tell you otherwise. Everything has problems, it's just a matter of working out which problems are better problems to have than others. (Last I heard, wind turbines still had a nasty habit of chopping up birds on a large scale. Oops.)

I'm voting for the wind turbines - some hundred birds deaths are less worse than the contamination, which would hurt far more birds (and everything else).

[papillon]

I'm voting for the wind turbines - some hundred birds deaths are less worse than the contamination, which would hurt far more birds (and everything else).

Quick websearch comes up with a scientific paper whose data claims that wind power and nuclear power kill equal numbers of birds a year, but fossil fuel kills 20 times more than either. (Per amount of power generated, not in terms of the overall numbers)

And yeah, if the only problem with wind turbines is dead birds, people will probably rather have dead birds than dead people. I'm not enough of an expert to know if that's the only problem, it was just the first easy example that 'no downsides' is never true. As far as I know wind turbines are pretty good, as long as they keep working (sometimes the birds jam them up, sometimes there's no wind) and as long as you can get the complainers to stop whining about them spoiling the view.

[jack_norton]

I think the best is solar energy - hard to find a downside to that

[Avaible]

Well, where to put the solar cells?
Would be great if we could use the deserts, but that's not too likely since the nations there would probably make some kind of monopol (I don't know any better word in English for it) out of it.