Finally: News about the radiation on the US from Fukushima

Ever since the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan blew, I've wondered how much radiation hit the US. And since then, I've seen nothing, nothing about it from media or our government. That surprised me a bit--I'm very naive about far too much--and disappointed me. Finally, today, an article on the internets: California Slammed With Fukushima Radiation "The Journal Environmental Science and Technology reports in a new study that the Fukushima radiation plume contacted North America at California 'with greatest exposure in central and southern California', and that Southern California's seaweed tested over 500% higher for radioactive iodine-131 than anywhere else in the U.S. and Canada: Projected paths of the radioactive atmospheric plume emanating from the Fukushima reactors, best described as airborne particles or aerosols for 131I, 137Cs, and 35S, and subsequent atmospheric monitoring showed it coming in contact with the North American continent at California, with greatest exposure in central and southern California. Government monitoring sites in Anaheim (southern California) recorded peak airborne concentrations of 131I at 1.9 pCi m−3." As the post then so wisely and succinctly says: "Anaheim is where Disneyland is located." Just in case you're thinking no one's out there or effected.

But wait! There's more! There's much, much more! (Naturally) In addition, radioactive debris is starting to wash up on the Pacific Coast. And because the Japanese are burning radioactive materials instead of disposing of them, radioactive rain-outs will continue for some time … even on the Pacific Coast. Nice, huh? So what are our respective governments doing about it, if anything, you might ask? Your answers: Instead of doing much to try to protect their citizens from Fukushima, Japan, the U.S. and the EU all just raised the radiation levels they deem “safe”.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that high-level friends in the State Department told him that Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing that the U.S. will continue buying seafood from Japan, despite that food not being tested for radioactive materials.

And the Department of Energy is trying to replace the scientifically accepted model of the dangers of low dose radiation based on voodoo science. Specifically, DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley Labs used a mutant line of human cells in a petri dish which was able to repair damage from low doses of radiation, and extrapolated to the unsupported conclusion that everyone is immune to low doses of radiation… Isn't that all just lovely? So, finally, what is our government's response to information and data going foward? Great question: American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation, and are not testing fish for radiation. If you weren't sick before, you probably should be now. (If after all that, you really are nauseous--not surprisingly--the comments at the links below have some magnificent, very dry and ascerbic wit to them, if that helps). Links: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-13-30/california-slammed-fukushima-radiation; http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/update-fukushima-0; http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/fukushima-radiation-highest-ever-exceeding-capacity-measuring-device-fuel-likely-leaking; http://www.zerohedge.com/article/no-amount-radiation-released-japanese-nuclear-reactors-not-safe; http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/radioactive-iodine-blankets-much-europe-everyone-points-fingers

This is mid-March?

While working Saturday, an ice cream truck came by. Today, the 13th of March--still winter--it is forecast to be 82 degrees. Tomorrow? 86 degrees. (Keep in mind that's nearly 90). Now? The lady next door is running her lawn mower. So I ask you---THIS IS MID-MARCH??

Climate Change? Global warming?

We've had a fairly bitterly cold January this year, here in the midwest. We've had a lot of cold, cold days. Plenty of freezing temperatures.

And that's no surprise.

January is, like the rest of the continent, our coldest month.

But this weekend, the last day of that coldest month of the year, the temperature, thankfully, shot up to 70 degrees.

I don't know what it was officially but it was wonderfully, blissfully, forgivingly warm.

And sunny.

Sure, we had some pretty good winds with it, too, but hey, we took it, for sure. It was welcome relief from winter.

At about 10 o'clock in the morning--still fairly early in the day--I was walking the few blocks back from a weekly breakfast get-together, when all of a sudden I saw a few robins in a nearby backyard--3 or four.

January 31st.

I have to tell you, as a kid, I walked to school every day.

No, it wasn't "uphill both ways in the snow" but all my brothers and sisters and I walked to school. It was only less than two miles to school--too close to be bussed and way before children weren't safe on our streets.

So over the years, I've virtually always paid attention to the flora and fauna I passed on these walks, at whatever age and whatever the locale.

Come Spring, on these walks, it's safe to say I always remembered when the robins came back to our city.

That would have been a big day for me.

I would have announced that, at least to family.

So I remember that robins came back, what? March? April?

Like I said, that was a big day and time for me.

Like most of us, I loved the warmer, sunnier, longer days of Spring. Any sign they were 100% returned was huge for me. Shoot, that would have been true for most of us here in the dreary, gray and brown midwest.

So I know, as a child, the robins used to leave.

And they didn't return for a long, long time.

Now, it seems, they don't really leave our area.

And maybe that only means officially, scientifically, a one-degree change in our median temperatures. Maybe even just a half point change.

Not a big thing.

Yet.

But it's a change.

There have been letters to the editor of the local newspaper--The Kansas City Star--saying "so much for global warming" or some such idea.

Well, when you put together the fact that last year was still officially one of the top ten warmest years, with this, either the return of robins at the end of January--or the fact that they never left, it that's the case--it seems to make the point that things are changing.

And maybe we should do what we can to clean up how we live, so the future won't be so dirty or potentially negative otherwise.