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Photos Show The Lingering Radioactivity At Chernobyl And Fukushima (mashable.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from Mashable: In areas of Russia and Japan that have been decontaminated by the government, allowing for people to move back, life has tried to continue but evidence of radiation remains. Greg McNevin, a photographer working with the environmental group Greenpeace, set out to visualize the radiation that persists in many of these areas. The resulting project juxtaposes radiation data onto long exposure photographs from the affected regions. Using a programmable LED rod that when connected to a Geiger counter (a device that measures ambient radiation) translates the analog signal into a light display, McNevin walked through long exposure photographs he was taking of affected areas, showcasing the live radiation data his counter was reading.
update your fears
Why take any notice of these Geenpeace jerks? They have lied in the past and when caught out claim that it is justified, in order to draw attention to an issue (what they consider an issue anyway).
When looking at that map, bear in mind that the scary red threshold, 19 microsieverts per hour, corresponds to the natural radiation level of Guarapari’s beach, a popular Brazilian tourist attraction.
And background levels in Ramsar, Iran, are even higher: 250 mSv per year, which is 28.5 microsieverts per hour. Yet studies showed that people living there had a slightly lower rate of lung cancer.
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It's not a photographic art series. It's a piece of public deception to further Greenpeace's agenda. They try to silence critics by adding the disclaimer "it's just art, it doesn't mean anything" but meanwhile they have reinforced the image of "nuclear power is dangerous" in the minds of the majority of people who don't even bother to read what the lines mean and who don't know that it's perfectly normal for granite stone to emit higher radiation levels.
Typical of Greenpeace. Scare tactics with total disregard of the facts, and hiding behind some lame excuse like "it's just art, it doesn't mean anything".
Meanwhile you can expect news networks to pick this up and show the pictures while saying how all this radiation is threatening the health of those poor school children.
If everything _could_ be decontaminated what other problem is there?
Firstly, due to the evacuation the area was not repaired after the earthquake, and has not been maintained for over five years now. There is a lot of damage, and paying for fixing it is now complicated by the fact that TEPCO is partially liable and legal time limits for insurance claims have run out. This has now moved to the lawsuit stage.
Actually fixing the damage is going to take much longer now. Some areas have huge amounts of contaminated waste that needs to be disposed of, and discussions about where to put it are still on-going. In other areas nature has been left unmanaged. Animals need to be culled, plants removed and cut back, and damage done by roots fixed. Many buildings now need to be simply pulled down and replaced.
Then you get to personal possessions. Most of them need to be discarded (contamination) and replaced. Lots of insurance claim wrangling. People can't go back until that is at least substantially completed, because they need basic things like home appliances and furniture. Of course, all utilities need fixing, e.g. the water network has decayed and started severely leaking in places with full restoration estimated at several years.
Services need to be replaced. Hospitals and schools refurbished. New staff need to be found and hired because many of them have moved away. New shops need to be brought it. Existing businesses have suffered massive losses, with all their stock being lost and employees simply moving away. Keep in mind it has already been five years, so people who could get work elsewhere often have, and most of the people returning will be elderly and retired, and thus in need of care and reliant of local services.
It isn't clear if those communities will ever fully recover now, and if they do it will take decades.
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The problem it illustrates is the utter ignorance of Greenpeace and those that push this crap around like it has some merit. Think how many people will look at this and believe the creator actually could distinguish between background and non-background radiation. Or that the levels shown need be even remotely concerning.
Its even worse than that. They claim they can distinguish between background and Chernobyl radiation, but that is impossible to do with a radiation detector. What they erroneously assume is that background radiation is steady, and that all that changes while you walk around are due to Chernobyl. This demonstrates the ignorance of the author, because background radiation varies as you move around, and probably accounts for all of the measured radiation they show. Evidence of their ignorance is even further shown in the schoolhouse, where they assume there is no background radiation. Basically, they just arbitrarily decided what to call Chernobyl radiation. They have no clue.
Actually you can distinguish natural and man made isotopes with a gamma-ray spectrometer. There are various energy peaks associates with each radioelement that can be easily identified. For instance Cs-137 is what is usually measured to map areas of contamination from things like Chernobyl. You are right about the background radiation varying everywhere, and with no scale these 'charts' are useless.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
You are correct, there are chemical testing methods and others to define the source, but as I said it can not be done with radiation detectors/Geiger counters as were used. I didn't mention the fact that background radiation actually varies while staying in one spot.