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Photos Show The Lingering Radioactivity At Chernobyl And Fukushima (mashable.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the nuclear-legacy dept.

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.

11 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. radiation compared to what? by cowdung · · Score: 5, Insightful

    for it to be meaningful they should show other parts of the world for comparison.. I'm sure they'd find some inhabited places with higher levels of natural radiation.

    1. Re:radiation compared to what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This.

      I was expecting something like a map, but turns out it's just a photographer being cute and pretending it means something. N'mind there's a note "it's only art"; that's not how it's gonna be taken and he knows it. And really, this is just too sensitive to cherry picking for the prettiest pictures with the most LEDs lighting up.

    2. Re:radiation compared to what? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not all radiation is the same. The stuff that can accumulate inside your body and slowly irradiate your organs for decades is much more dangerous than external radiation that can't penetrate the skin.

      Besides, the issue of "hot spots", that is areas that have not been fully decontaminated, is only one of many problems preventing people returning to Fukushima.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:radiation compared to what? by coastwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The artist is welcome to do my basement, my house is built on granite and radon gas is a recognized problem in this area. The photos are interesting and have artistic merit, Greenpeace however are just behaving like cancer. I support environmental awareness and have done since the 70's but I regard Greenpeace as an enemy of the environment because of their moronic publicity.

      --
      Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    4. Re:radiation compared to what? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I take full decontamination to mean nothing measurable above the background level.

      Then you have a different definition to the Japanese government and the residents of Fukushima. They consider decontamination to be fully complete when the danger is reduced to a level safe for human habitation. Unfortunately we are a long way from there, because while the ambient radiation levels are acceptably low there are still many areas with dangerous levels of contamination.

      The main issue is that much of what was release from Fukushima Daiichi is now in the environment, in the soil and in plants and animals. If it gets inside humans it can damage internal organs that are normally protected from radiation by skin and flesh.

      This sort of contamination is hard to detect and hard to clean up. You can't just wonder around with a dosimeter, you need to do a careful inspection and dig up the surface soil. Digging is inevitable, as construction takes place, animals forage, children play, people tend their gardens etc. The government was hoping that removing the top layer of soil would mostly fix the problem, but it hasn't. Material from un-decontaminated areas keeps migrating back, or they miss some spots and have to return multiple times.

      Even once that is complete, it doesn't do anything to address over five years of decay, lack of repairs to the initial earthquake damage and the fact that many key parts of the community no longer exist or have moved away permanently.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:radiation compared to what? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In any article of this type, you can stop reading at "Greenpeace."

  2. Art by Elledan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I agree with the only knowledgeable person in that 'article' that this is just a type of art, with no scientific or social usefulness. Without the data being recorded (was the sensor calibrated?) known, realising how useless official 'safe limits' for radiation are (often lower than naturally occurring background radiation), and the Linear Non-Threshold (LNT) model having been discredited decades ago, one can at most say that they put it together in a pretty fashion.

    But since we're talking about Greenpeace here, the PR mouthpiece for both the fossil fuel and solar/wind industries, I'm not shocked at this.

    --
    Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
    1. Re:Art by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not supposed to be a scientific study, there are plenty of those available. It's to draw attention to the problem, since many people seem to either be in denial about it or just hoping it goes away. There is a reason why people don't return to Fukushima, and this is an interesting and eye-catching way of illustrating it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Art by michelcolman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's to draw attention to the problem, since many people seem to either be in denial about it or just hoping it goes away.

      What problem? The problem of abnormally low radiation levels in nursery schools near Fukushima? Because that's what that picture is actually showing: lower than background level.

      If they took the same kind of pictures in the Alps, they would probably be all red.

  3. Re:Greenpeace proven Liars by Goaway · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am extremely outraged about things done by big businesses and governments.

    But I also so dearly, dearly wish I could wholeheartedly support Greenpeace without being a hypocrite. But I can't. I really want to, but I can't.

    They lie and they deceive, and they oppose things that are objectively speaking both good for the environment, and absolutely necessary in order to prevent catastrophe.

    I just really, really wish they got their act together. Or that somebody better came along to take up the cause.

  4. Three Mile Island and natural radiation by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, people were pointing out radiation found all over the state. The problem was, they had no baseline. The radiation was naturally occurring and had been there all along. At the nearby Limerick power plant, they installed monitors on the entrances to make sure workers were not getting exposed at work and taking radioactive dust home with them. One worker keep setting the sensors off, when he came to work. Here his house had a serious radon problem in the basement. This is what brought the problem of radon in homes to national attention. This shows the problem with detecting and cleaning accident contamination. How do you know you have taken the area back to the natural level before the accident, when it has been radioactive all along?