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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.

6 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 michelcolman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The pictures are indeed quite deceiving.

      "A school in Starye Bobovichi, Bryansk Oblast, Russia.", oh my, look at that white trail of radioactivity going up the stairs of that school!

      Then you read the explanation: the bars are just where the guy passed with the detector, and white means "background radiation". That means that there's absolutely no extra radiation at all. But that's not what it looks like when uninformed people see the picture.

      Then orange and red mean a "higher radiation dose". How much higher? Twice the background level? Three times? Ten times? That's still way less than you get when living in the mountains or visiting a Brazilian beach.

      If they would make the same kind of pictures in other places, they would look the same or a lot worse while no nuclear incident has ever happened anywhere near them, and local people are perfectly healthy.

      The only picture that worries me, is the one of the nursery school in Soramame Fukushima City. Radiation levels there are so low there, I wonder if those children are getting enough bananas.

    3. Re:radiation compared to what? by michelcolman · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      http://webecoist.momtastic.com...

  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 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.