Tuesday, September 20, 2011

60,000-Strong Anti-Nuke Rally in Tokyo: How High Was the Radiation Level?

One demonstrator got curious and turned his personal survey meters on from his home in the high radiation Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture to the rally in central Tokyo.

He found that right by the sidewalk where smartly dressed young people were walking by, the radiation level near the ground under a tree was 0.31 microsievert/hour. It was about 30 meters from the Jingu-mae Intersection near Omote Sando, he said.

The Tokyo Municipal government's official measurement is 0.06 microsievert/hour.

On his blog, he called the experience "surreal", seeing the cheerful demonstrators and seeing the high number on his survey meter.

Much as I admire people finally standing up, I wish there were more people like him, armed with personal survey meter and measuring everywhere. Personally, radiation contamination is a more pressing, immediate problem that people can still do something about it, while stopping the nuke plants is a longer-term project.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

When the movement finally emerges, there has to be a distinction between long-term and short-term goals.

Now, the most important short-term goals include transparency of food supplies (especially for children), ways of informing the public about the correct values of radiation, making viable solutions for discarding contaminated soil, providing for the workers at the plant, providing for the compensation of the evacuees, etc. etc. etc. A lot of tasks which cannot be postponed.

But all of these require awareness that the situation is neither "stable" nor "normal." The show cannot go on as before.

Demanding a complete shut-down of the plants and an exit from nuclear energy may seem as a more abstract goal, but in fact I see it as very practical.

Experts and workers must concentrate on controlling and containing radiation coming from the Fukushima plant. Are there really enough experts to maintain other plants successfully at the same time?

There is only so much energy and strength that human beings can bring up in crisis. Personally I do not think that wasting that energy on running other plants is worth it. I think that all that intelligence and energy by experts, workers and the concerned public must be focused on taking care of Fukushima first.

Where I perhaps agree with you is that people should not put that forth as their only demand and be satisfied if only that question is solved.

Canary back beat said...

I attended to the first two big demos=rallies in Tokyo, first time in my life, you meet amazing people and feel a true vibe of a crew wanting to get rid of the Nukes.

However, I was disspointed when the organizers were asking for foreign corresponsals to help them with this issue...
(Japanese have a population of more than 100 million, smart, well educated and have a great relation with the US, what else do you need?)

In Tokyo there are roughly 30 million people and not even 5% of this population had get out to see these rallies, if your own citizens do not care about this issue for fear or whatever reason outsiders cant help.

As the owner of this blog says Japanese are slow at first but later catch up... Maybe It used to be, but not anymore.
It has been more than 6 months and 60.000? thats less than 1% of Tokyo population, no comments.

I am afraid that they are taking a huge risk to save a very small salaries and face a very uncertain future.

They didnt do their homework, learning from the past...how many nuclear events do we need to learn?

Anonymous said...

Not happy with the deletion of my comment on short-term and long-term goals and the allocation of energy by workers and experts. I would have appreciated an answer, not an imposed silence.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon at 2:53AM, just don't be too quick on your judgment that I deleted it. I didn't. Ask Google to ditch their stupid SPAM filter. I happened to see your comment before I shut down for the day and managed to fish it out from so many anonymous comments that go there. I'm so fed up with the Google's system, I may move to a comment system where you would have to register to comment.

Canary back beat said...

Anonymous at September 20, 2011 1:57 AM.

I agree with you, the show cant go on like used to be.

However leaders like to play golf too much, and changing the rules of the game is a lot of work and headache for them.

This is a change that must come from the bottom.

And my friend I have been living in Tokyo long enough to know one thing, vast majority of nipponjin loooove to be a followers, they admire their leaders, even do if they are beaten by them almost every day-pretty much like a dog, and the worst side is not that they dream awake to be one day like the Dictators that these leaders are.

You have to think like they do, they do not have the common sense that an European or Americans have.

Anyone working in Japan for more than 10 years cant deny this, this is one BIG shock for outsiders that think that Japanese are sophisticated and have an amazing understanding for nature and people...

Anonymous said...

@Canary
"the worst side is not that they dream awake to be one day like the Dictators that these leaders are."

What is the worst side then? (just out of curiosity)

I agree with you about the different common sense (which thus is not "common" sense anymore for me, but folly most of the times), and on the shock. I have been in Japan for only 10 months, enough.

Canary beat back again said...

September 20, 2011 4:31 AM

Ops, typed too fast...I meant thats the worst side, none will say anything to the dictator, because that will mean that is not a proper japanese behaviour...and they would love to be him
they tend not to communicate and assume as understandable and comprehensible with no clue at all...do not ask questions and rise your hand that is the untold rule.

Anonymous said...

Posted here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/nuclear-power-protests-tokyo-japan_n_969385.html
Know what's funny/strange? The Trolls have been absent since this thread appeared yesterday. Wonder what's up...?
Whoopie/Enenews

Anonymous said...

Ok, well... as for the deletion that's too bad since I tried to be precise with my formulations.

It's common knowledge that Japanese supposedly prefer harmony and the group, the principle of seniority over the individual etc.

But honestly I do not think many European countries or the US would be any different about this. Especially in the US I think there would be mass denial if mainstream media didn't report on it. There have been many occasions in the last decade when I would have expected large demonstrations in DC (Bush elections, the wars, Katrina, the bailinf out of the banks, the Gulf oil spill), but there was nothing.

Most people are conformist. That's why, even though this brings me great pain, I do not think that many people in Japan or anywhere else are going to get organized and vocal before they themselves or members of their families get sick.

Germany is a special case. They do not protest among many things which should be protested against, but they have a strong sympathy for Japan and a sense that if a nuclear disaster can happen in Japan, it could happen in Germany as well. This is why their reaction has been so swift and decisive, but their media have been silent on Fukushima since about May.

Anonymous said...

Typos obviously: "bailing out of the banks" and "protest against"

Anonymous said...

Typhoon Roke Nears Japan on Track for Leaking Nuclear Plant:

"Roke, due in Fukushima prefecture in 48 hours, may hinder work to control leakage of water into the basements of the Dai- Ichi reactor buildings, which contained 102 million liters of radioactive water as of Sept. 13, according to Tokyo Electric estimates.

In addition, as much as 500 tons, or 500,000 liters, of underground water is leaking into Dai-Ichi buildings every day through cracks in walls and trenches, Tokyo Electric spokesman Hajime Motojuku said today."

http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LRT18P0YHQ0X01-55Q3QUGH85QRAI9AUOIERT87N2

Anonymous said...

perfect

Atomfritz said...

Great! The Japanese seem to wake up! (Yes, I am hopeful!)

The pictures remind me of the biggest antinuclear rally I was at, it was 500,000 people clogging the town centre of Hamburg (population 1.2 mill).

Imagine a rally of 15 mill people in Tokyo when Japan finally awakens...

Anonymous said...

80+% of japanese are now against nuclear power. You just need a political leader to snatch that advantage and you would see thepower of the 'sheeple'. Japanese are deeply traumatized by this event-quake, tsunami, Fukushima. IMO it will be like the anti smoking stuff-slow to catch on and then -BANG-wake up time. Thanks to the good work here and by concerned citizens taking their own Geiger readings awareness is awakening. They know they have been lied to. It's a toughie to swallow for your average conformist Japanese citizen. If you feel like me that something has died here in Japan since Fukushima, you would be right. Trust in gov is dead. Ditto the electric companies. Still it will be a hard one for Tokyo (30 odd million) to swallow. Whaddaya do? Jobs, lives, realities. Not to mention the hole Japan is in on the energy front. How does the society run itself in the future? Gonna be big changes as Japan heads in to the new energy arena of escalating prices and dwindling resources/growth.

Anonymous said...

I agree with ex-SKF, you must measure as you can not sense the radiation at less than lethal doses. And by the time you've sensed lethal doses it is too late.

Time-lapsed lethal doses at least give an option of avoidance. Measure.

Anonymous said...

Canary back beat wrote:
..."they do not have the common sense that an European or Americans have."...


(cr here)
Unfortunately, "common" sense, isn't very "common" at all -
If Japan is worse than the US that is Very Bad.

(But, I was shocked to learn from this blog how the Japanese school systems work to brainwash conformity and submission into the students in ways I'd never seen in the US.)

That Japan's govt has betrayed their own population and seem to try and doom future generations of children will go down in infamy. (As will various corporations' and govts' complicity in this disaster/coverup.)

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