Oh, quit your bitchin.
There are several posters here who know MUCH about most things radiation/nuclear. And they have posted good things here on the SDMB in various threads regarding such things recently. They mostly get ignored, mis-interpreted at an often near criminal level, or made fun of.
I’m 100% serious. Give us some factual information, some scientific data, a single document that explains the risks of airborne contamination of food, at what level is it risky to consume milk with Cesium in it? What’s the cut off point?
If you are starving and the only food is radioactive, what’s the better path? Starving or eating some food that contains Cesium? What is the relative risk? How does it differ depending on your age? When should you take iodine pills to prevent thyroid damage? How can you measure radioactivity yourself?
Is there anything you can do to lower exposure? What do you do if you experience symptoms? What are the symptoms? How much Cesium will produce symptoms?
There are a shitload of question out there. People want to know.
That nobody here even knows the answers, much less simply shares any real data, but then want to tell us how everything is safe, that gets my sarcastic bitch mode going.
Sorry. It’s just how I am wired.
What exactly do you want?
You complain that no-one else is having a serious discussion about this stuff. Then you say that you will compose a guide to radiation. Then you ask why such a guide doesn’t exist, and complain that people want to know this stuff.
You’re very good at telling us how you could do things, and how no-one else is doing those same things. But you’re very bad at actually doing the things that you say you can do. Your only purpose here appears to be to complain that no-one, including you, is doing the things that you think should be done.
I thought that you said you know all this stuff. After all, if you don’t know it, how could you write a “an easy to understand guide to nuclear material, radioactive poisoning, fall out, what all that complicated shit means”?
Everything I would write is from various sources. All this information exists, it just doesn’t exist in any form to be able to either understand it, compare it, or access it like a single document would do.
The biggest failings are all the official guides, none of which include figures for immediate danger from radioactive material falling on their crops, homes or drinking water.
In fact, the official documents are all slanted towards explaining how little radioactivity you get from living near a plant. And how much more coal plants produce. And how the little bit of Cesium is from Chernobyl and past above ground nuclear testing, none of it has any realistic data or calculations to help somebody in the midst of a serious situation at all.
Then there is the reporting of current levels “near the plant”, or “possibly released from the plant”, or all the other fucking nonsense coming from TEPCO.
Of course you can backtrack the figures based on how much is showing up in the screens in Denver, and figure out how much is really being released. Which works out to more than Chernobyl already. But, and this is important, it’s not showing that much core material being released, which is a lot different than Chernobyl.
Of course the heavy elements will fall out faster (over the ocean), and a lot of it is going into the ocean with the water they are using constantly. But based on the figures, it’s mostly core material leaking, and not fuel rods burning.
This is one of them good news bad news situations.
Out of curiosity, are you assuming the radiation levels near a reactor must be higher than near a coal plant, and any conflicting information is a sign of slant?
No, I’m pointing out how ALL information about radiation avoids any mention, much less any advice, on a disaster at a nuclear plant. No information at all. Nothing.
It’s not that there is no plan, it is that nobody even thinks a plan should be considered.
This is why the whole situation in Japan is so fucked up. THEY HAVE NO DISASTER PLAN FOR NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AT ALL.
Earthquakes, yes. Tsunamis, yes. Nuclear leak? Nothing.
It’s not like they haven’t had leaks and fires at other plants. Or the current one.
There is no plan for it. Much less helpful information for the people who might be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
In a case like this, ignorance breeds fear. Fear can breed panic. A lack of information is a bad thing. If you know what is happening, you can take rational action. Do something.
But not knowing, that breeds a special kind of unease.
Yes, but the issue is complicated, the reality is that you did not like the answers, nor I think you would understand that there is controversy on the levels that are considered safe.
And that would indeed be another good reason to demonstrate all that you are serious by making those tables yourself, in the real world probabilities still rule and tables regarding rates of risk do exist, but organizations have different opinions and methods on how to calculate that risk.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/heast/docs/heast2_table_4-d2_0401.pdf
(PDF file, methodology and caveats at the end of the tables.)
Of course then one should wonder about the quality of the sources FX (not a mastermind) is using.
Of course this is after even a university paper was produced to point out that most researchers think that for example the danger from Plutonium is like 10 to 200 times more than radioactive cesium, and you told us that it was 10 million time worse. So I have very little hope that you would do anything with the risk table.
Like I said a long time ago and it is still valid:
We know that the theater is on fire, it is ok to scream “Fire!” to the crowd, what is not ok is to report to the crowd that the exits are locked when not even you know that.
I find this premise unlikely. I think it is more probable that you’re too lazy to look for such information and too inclined to reflexively dismiss it if it is handed to you.
No, it not OK to scream fire in a theater. If you know there is a fire, you should quickly and quietly leave, while dialing 911, and report it to the theater manager as well. All the while quickly heading for the exit.
Screaming fire will cause a panic.
The theater manager can be responsible for getting everyone out of the place, not you. It’s not your job to scream anything.
Plus, you want to be out of their before the stampede starts.
Does this mean that you will now quickly and quietly leave? Somehow I doubt it.
Yeah, let the others burn… fuck 'em! Better they die horribly than risk panic…
Sorry, but we are not in fantasy land, in real life I have seen reports and recreations that show that there is usually one person or a few that run away screaming “fire”, there is no need for anyone else to do it. Panic does not necessary comes out as many do know that there are exits or fire extinguishers. What yo are doing is, once again, telling others that you think that there are no exits.
If you are still thinking that the later is not conductive to panic you are indeed an idiot.
The danger of fire is usually smoke, and in the case of a crowded hall, people being crushed by a panic, or trampled. Unless there is some horrific fast burning fire, smoke is the real danger while leaving. (in the past fires were indeed bad in theaters, due to the film stock being highly flammable)
If you can get people out for another reason, you can avoid panic. Or you could pull the fire alarm on the way out and fuck everybody up.
So it’s okay to yell “fire” in a theater.
It must also be okay to yell “radiation” then, when a nuke plant has explosions and the government orders an evacuation. Right?
Right?
Right, you blind man that still does not see the monumental straw man. What is not right is to claim things that they should assume that no one is checking for Plutonium levels and that the danger from it is 10 million times worse that what they are reporting.