this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
81 points (96.6% liked)

News

23252 readers
2930 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
81
'Safe and delicious': Japan's PM eats Fukushima fish to dispel worries after water release (www.euronews.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Japan's Prime Minister ate fish caught off Fukushima's coast on Wednesday to alleviate fears after the controversial release of water from the disabled Ōkuma nuclear power station.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and three Cabinet ministers enjoyed sashimi fished off the coast of Fukushima at a lunch meeting on Wednesday, in an apparent effort to dispel safety concerns following the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

According to Economy and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who was at the lunch meeting, Kishida and the three lawmakers sat down to a spread of flounder, octopus and seabass as well as boiled pork, fruits and various vegetables in the leader's office.

"We eat in support of the Sanriku Joban region. All seafood items from Sanriku Joban are full of appeal," Kishida told reporters who were invited to film the meal.

all 21 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is such a non-issue it's ridiculous. There is honestly more of a danger from heavy metals in the fish they ate than from radiation. Tritium is a very, very low level beta-emitter, and at the concentrations they're releasing (less than 1500 Bq/L, ~4E-8 Ci/L), drinking nothing but water contaminated at that level for an entire year would yield a dose rate of less than 4 mrem/year (based on the NRC math that 60,900 pCi/L for a year yields a dose of 4mrem). For context, 4 mrem (40 μSv) is the amount of exposure you receive in a flight from NYC to LA.. That is damn near a rounding error on the average yearly exposure to members of the public.

But people gotta be scared because Joe Public doesn't really understand radiation, and fear sells.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who loves sashimi, I'm secretly hoping that demand will drop sufficiently so that prices will be lowered.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

For me the fish would have to be flown in from Japan. Which would expose the fish to more radiation than the water. Hmmmm

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder how many more public people would scream to stop eating fish if you told them that fish has mercury in it

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It amazes me that this story has continued to ruin in the media, it's simply fear mongering nonsense to suggest that the extremely diluted minor smidge of radiation that might be present in a water sample collected after this controlled release could in any way be dangerous.

You're in more danger from radiation flying on a plane, and the media isn't constantly screaming about how we should never ever get on a plane.

Honestly, it just depresses me. Anyone who's looked at the facts for 30 seconds knows there's zero story here, and yet the media continue to assume we're uneducated idiots who can be easily manipulated into being scared of the big bad radiation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FUD about nuclear has been standard in the media for decades

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Spread fear, get clicks. "If it bleeds, it leads" has been an adage in journalism for decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's what happens when you keep the monsters unknown. Instead of actually telling people what it actually is, you just say "this very VERY bad 100% dangerous" and the people will get paranoid about it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This sounds like that episode of The Simpson, except of course it’s safe duh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

First thing I thought of. Write an article when the fish start growing three eyes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Wait, sir! Not the spikey one! ...

...Dammit, we lost him."

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While I understand the science behind the release of the wastewater; I also really do understand why people are so willing to ban this.

It doesn't matter if it is safe to eat or not. People have a right to not partake in fish from the Fukushima area. Nobody should have the right to conceal origin information about food items in general, particularly not when food may contain things that are potentially impactful to a person's health.

40 μSv might be a "Safe" exposure over time; but that doesn't mean it's completely without health impacts. People are within their rights to avoid that extra dose if they feel the risk is unnecessary; no matter how small that risk may be.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

40 μSv might be a “Safe” exposure over time; but that doesn’t mean it’s completely without health impacts.

It is, though. The water is literally less radioactive than normal ocean water.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Okay, but are there verifiable health impacts? Because I haven't heard of any so far.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I agree wholeheartedly about not concealing origin information when food may contain things potentially impactful to their health. The difference is that even drinking straight tritiated water (at the Japanese release concentration) as your only beverage for an entire year is 1/10th the exposure you would get from a single mammogram. There is zero potential for any health impacts from this release of tritiated water. I direct your attention to this well-sourced chart from Randall Munroe to give a good visual on different relative radiation doses. One year of drinking tritiated water at a concentration of 1500 Bq/L (the concentration its being released at, and about 1/10th of the WHO limit) gives a dose of approx. 40 μSv, the same as the cross country flight in the above graphic.