I'm so angry at so many people right now.
I'm not going to get into it in detail, but it seems like this disaster (every disaster?) is increasingly becoming an opportunity for every scaremonger with a political agenda to come out of their holes and exploit everyone's natural fear for their own ends.
Right now, it's the reactors. The reactor situation in Fukushima is undoubtedly bad. It could become really, REALLY bad. But it is not at all the world-damaging Chernobyl disaster that all the anti-nuclear freaks say it is. Nor, however, is it the simple, peaceful, nothing-to-worry-about-here cakewalk that the pro-nuclear freaks say it is. People are going to have serious problems because of this. Some people may get sick, some might die, people are certainly going to lose their homes.
But there is no harmful radiation in Tokyo, no nuclear fallout spreading across the globe. The radiation levels at the gate to the power plant (.4mSv) are less than a 4th of the natural background radiation you would get living in Denver for a year (1.8mSv).
Not a place you want to take a nap, not, but for 99% of us it's NOT DANGEROUS. Right now. The brave men and women trying to fix this are, of course, in another situation, and my heart and thoughts go out to them. But for most of us, there is no danger at all.
Does that mean we shouldn't be watching? Of course not. The situation could get worse. But that is always the case, isn't it? So watch, take precautions, but for pete's sake...Don't let the idiot media and the agenda-filled grandstanders cloud your judgment.
But the worst part? The really really bad part? All the time they spend telling you how awful the reactor situation is is time taken away from the true problem in Japan. At least 10,000 people, men, women, children. Gone. Some never to be recovered, to be given their final rest where their families can tend to their graves.
Thousands more...Millions? Homeless, with nothing at all to their names now. Homes, cars, jobs, everything--gone. NOW.
So let the technicians and the emergency workers take care of the completely unmeasurable risk of radiation coming from Fukushima. Because tonight, in Miyagi, it's going to snow. There aren't any more stocked grocery stores. There's no electricity to heat, no water to drink, no food to eat.
What sounds like the bigger problem to you?
Did I mention you can donate to the Red Cross and help those people?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
How About Some Perspective?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Quite right again. However, this is all made worse by the incompetence of the Japanese authorities in getting information out. They do it an hour after someone else does it for them, which makes them look devious, even if it is just PR-incompetence. It's a great way to make people panic.
Mr. S,
I certainly agree that the PR could be handled better, but at the same time all the panic I see is in the foreigners. The English media is making a total mess of this, as usual. The Japanese media might not be so much better in terms of real information distribution, but they seem much less inclined to fan the fires.
Companies are running out of Potassium Iodide in the USA because people have been so scared by the alarmist reporting. That's crazy.
No doubt the Japanese national character has more stoicism in it than the North American (myself, Torontonian), for good and for ill.
Post a Comment