Jiji Tsushin (3/13/2013) headline reporting on the survey was even more dire: ３６％が「米国に重大な被害」 - 36% think "grave damage in the US".
36%? Grave damage?
Here's Rasmussen page on the survey on the 2nd anniversary of the nuclear accident in Japan (3/11/2013):
36% Think Radiation From Japanese Nuclear Disaster Hurt the U.S.
Monday, March 11, 2013
It’s been two years since an earthquake and tsunami triggered an explosion at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, and more than a third of Americans think radiation from that accident is likely to have done significant harm to the United States. Still, most Americans believe nuclear power plants at home are safe.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 36% of American Adults believe it is at least somewhat likely that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant did significant harm to the United States. However, that includes just nine percent (9%) who think that scenario is Very Likely. Fifty percent (50%) of adults say it’s not likely the radiation did any harm, including 17% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on March 9-10, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
The wording of the survey question:
1* It’s been two years since the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. How likely is it that radiation from that plant did significant harm in the United States?
2* How safe are nuclear power plants in the United States – very safe, somewhat safe, not very safe, not at all safe?
3* Should more nuclear power plants be built in the United States?
Coverage of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident by the major media outside Japan, including the US, pretty much ended by the end of March 2011. I was writing many posts each day starting March 11, 2011, and distinctly remember the foreign coverage dropped off significantly around March 23, 2011. There was nothing more to explode, nothing exciting to see or hear. By the time April rolled around, there was hardly any coverage. That was my unscientific impression, anyway.
If I were to answer the first question, I would answer "not sure". NOA did publish the data on contamination from the rain after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, but the EPA in California didn't bother even measuring radioactive particles in the atmosphere. EPA in northern California relied on "volunteers" to collect air filters at the measuring stations, as it fit their "lifestyle", and the air filters were sent by mail to a laboratory in Alabama. I haven't seen any systematic, official measurement of agricultural produce except in the very early days (EPA stopped emergency monitoring on May 2011).
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7 comments:
"Coverage of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident by the major media outside Japan, including the US, pretty much ended by the end of March 2011."… Not in Europe, and especially not in hysterical Germany, where many still think that the death toll is due to the nuclear accident.
Two years after:
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article114366195/Roth-im-Strudel-der-Atomopfer-von-Fukushima.html
From Claudia Roth, head of German green party, 2 days ago on Facebook:
"Heute vor zwei Jahren ereignete sich die verheerende Atom-Katastrophe von Fukushima, die nach Tschernobyl ein weiteres Mal eine ganze Region und mit ihr die ganze Welt in den atomaren Abgrund blicken ließ. Insgesamt starben bei der Katastrophe in Japan 16.000 Menschen, mehr als 2700 gelten immer noch als vermisst. Hunderttausende Menschen leben heute fernab ihrer verstrahlten Heimat. Unsere Gedanken sind heute bei den Opfern und ihren Familien.
Die Katastrophe von Fukushima hat uns einmal mehr gezeigt, wie unkontrollierbar und tödlich die Hochrisikotechnologie Atom ist. Wir müssen deshalb alles daran setzen, den Atomausstieg in Deutschland, aber auch in Europa und weltweit so schnell wie möglich umzusetzen und die Energiewende voranzubringen, anstatt sie wie Schwarz-Gelb immer wieder zu hintertreiben. Fukushima mahnt."
"Today, two years ago, the terrible Fukushima nuclear disaster happened, which, after Tchernobyl, let another whole region and with it the whole world stare in the atomic abyss. Overall, 16,000 people died, with another 2700 still missing. Hundreds of thousands still live far from their irradiated home. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.
The Fukushima disaster has shown us one more time, how uncontrollable and deadly the high-risk nuclear technology is. We must therefore do everything to abandon it as fast as possible, in Germany but also in Europe and worldwide, instead of dithering like the black-yellow [conservative CDU - economic liberal FDP party coalition]. Fukushima calls."
In many German minds, tsunamis occur everywhere, especially in Bavaria, and carefully avoid cities and any inhabited regions, striking only nuclear plants…
About above, very funny from freiewelt.de: Claudia Roth nominated for Nobel Prize for discovery of "Rothium":
"Das chronoretroradiolethale Element wird nach seiner Entdeckerin "Rothium" genannt und ist völlig verstrahlt. Rothium 600, das sogenannte Claudia-Isotop, enthält zeitreisende Killer-Neutronen mit einer Rückwertzeit von zwei Jahren, die die 16.000 Menschen retroaktiv zu Tode strahlten, bevor sie ertrinken oder sonstwie dem Erdbebeben bzw. Tsunami zum Opfer fallen können."
"The chronoradiolethal element is named after its discoverer 'Rothium' and is fully irradiated. Rothium-600, the so-called Claudia-isotope, contains time-travelling killer neutrons with a 'back-life' of two years, which can retroactively kill by irradiation 16,000 people, just before they
would have drowned or otherwise fallen victim to the earthquake or tsunami."
Ms. Roth seems to be carelessly improvising her writings indeed.
Similarly, Tepco too carelessly disregarded all advice to beef up safety measures at Fukushima and its handling of the nuclear disaster that followed the earthquake was indeed improvised.
Overall, the damage caused by Tepco to Japan has been estimated to be 3.11 gazillion times larger than the damage caused by Ms. Roth statements to Germany. Both Tepco and Ms. Roth have gone unpunished so far.
Beppe
"significant" is a pretty fluid term. Is it something that can be measured or something causing a crisis? They also don't seem to give people much as far as levels of harm.
There were low levels of contaminated foods found in the US with some even on the east coast. The US govt refused to do any involved or ongoing food testing. They told everyone that 1200 bq/kg in food is safe and to shut up.
Most of the concern and anger in the US is that we don't get to know what is in our food. People should have the choice to know and decide for themselves if they want to ingest amounts of cesium or not. The US adopted a "don't test and you don't have a problem" method of government. What do you expect from a country that spent about a decade nuking their own population.
@Beppe: Unfortunately, you're a bit mistaken, concerning the damage Ms. Roth and her friends (Robin Hood, Ausgestrahlt, Greenpeace, Nie wieder Atom, IPPNW, etc.) caused - in the seventies-eighties, this led to Germany preferring coal over nuclear. In those decades, coal killed in Germany the equivalent of ca. 1 Tchernobyl every year (300 TWh x ca. 30 †/TWh). As bad as it may be, the Fukushima disaster will never match this!
Also, the industrial trend in Europe is: if green activists complain about some 'dirty' process (pollution, CO2), just do it elsewhere (China, India, etc.) and then import the stuff. Not really an improvement overall…
I'm actually surprised that the research company found that many people in the US who even knew and/or remembered what "Fukushima" was or is. From my personal experience in California, having tried to talk to people about it (although nowhere near 1000), I can say that not too many people had even heard of the nuclear accident. If they had, their knowledge was limited to "reactor(s) blew up, some radiation released, everything under control, everything safe."
*mscharisma*
@5:08 as always, it depends on how you do the math... for the nuclear industry you count as a victim only if you get hit on the head by a falling fuel rod.
For example, smoking alone would grant someone to be counted out of Chernobyl victims.
Jobs and pollution moving to other countries are a result of currency exchange rates and "free trade" agreements: if adequate import taxes were levied to compensate for lax regulation on environmental and working conditions standards, for differences food and rent prices etc. many fewer jobs would move outside Germany.
On the other hand, nuclear industry sent on its knees Belarus and has now a chance to do the same to Japan. Within another 25 years it might be France or the US.
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