Is this worse than Obama pretending to drink Flint’s water?

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Nah Obama’s is way worse because the Flint water actually was (and is afaik) dangerous, whereas the Fukushima water release is perfectly safe and everyone freaking out over it are just scared of nuclear shit.

    Do not give anti-nuclear people an inch, or they’ll do things like shut down all the nuclear power plants in Germany while still burning coal. The people scared about this are no different from anti-vaxxers and you should treat them the same

    Eating the fish is a dumb pointless stunt, obviously, but unlike Flint people who are worried about this are wrong, and should be properly educated rather than taken seriously.

    • commiewithoutorgans [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I studied some nuclear engineering in University (professor was an expert on Radioactivity and Environmental Accumulation, but I just took some classes out of interest). I think people are rightly worried, but radioactivity is one of those topics that is almost impossible to teach without a lot of explanation or background. I see many takes that I understand are entirely incorrect, but also understand that environmental accumulation isn’t a super widely studied phenomenon (pretty much the only tests done are after accidents, where that professor and his like 15 worldwide co-experts rush off to after every spill or accident to study as much as possible for years). That leaves scary gaps in our knowledge, and it’s understandable to be skeptical and conservative in how we treat those gaps. That includes this one, so I don’t want to take a strong stance, honestly, except that education should come first then decisions can be made which the people agree with.

      Tritium is not one I know much about (my professor was a big fan of weather patterns/soil deposits from rains and his studies from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island where this was not studied), but I do know that that professor gave us exams specifically on the problems of Fukushima and was entirely convinced that this was a non-issue even if they dumped it all out in only a few months. And he said this in like 2018. This is entirely an appeal to authority and nobody here knows me to trust it, but just a bit of extra info.

      He was also much more nervous about a concentrated location in barrels due to well known accumulation that could occur if those leaked on land (soils, again)

    • privatized_sun [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Do not give anti-nuclear people an inch

      Getting rid of a few reactors is a bad idea, but so is building thousands of them:

      2011: "Why nuclear power will never supply the world’s energy needs”

      news summary: https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html

      full PDF: “Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?” https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5/6021970/06021978.pdf

      people scared about this are no different from anti-vaxxers

      TIL a needle can semi-permanently create zones like in Stalker

      • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        It would take eons for exclusion zones to add up to all the land taken up by non-nuclear sources of energy lol. But since human civilization dropped the ball in the 20th century, there’s little point in arguing for a nuclear-dominant grid with thousands of reactors nowadays. May as well do like 80% renewable and 20% nuclear generally speaking.

      • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        It’s not supposed to supply 100% of the world’s energy needs, it’s supposed to be a transitional source to move away from fossil fuels and then to renewables. We can build both renewable and nuclear, or we can build renewable and fossil fuels. One of these is much more harmful for the environment. In an ideal world we could just go 100% renewable immediately, but unfortunately that isn’t an option. So it’s better to go with the “less harmful” option than the “will literally kill the planet and all of us” option instead.

    • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      You’re wrong. The water is probably safe, but the chance of it being unsafe is not negligible. There are a huge range of possible contaminants in that water besides tritium and radiation. And even if the only things to be worried about with that water are radioactivity and tritium levels, you’re relying on agencies and companies with very vested interests to lie, to tell the truth.

      I’m not saying it’s definitely unsafe, but at the same time, there’s a definite possibility it is.

  • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Worked great for this guy:

    CW: Ghoul

    On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.[7][13] However, the State of New Jersey ordered the Bayway plant to be closed a few days later, and Jersey Standard was forbidden to manufacture TEL again without state permission. Production was restarted in 1926 after intervention by the federal government.

    Midgley later took a leave of absence from work after being diagnosed with lead poisoning.

      • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’d very much like for you to be right, and you probably know better than me on this subject, but I also have an instinctive distrust of the whole “I’ll eat/drink a little to show you it’s safe” routine.

        • SmokinStalin [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I mean tbf most people before (midgley, Obama )WERE fucking lying or got sick themselves. which is why this is a dumbass stunt that doesn’t actually build trust.

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Midgley’s legacy is the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and freon.[28] Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley “had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”,[29] and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed “an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny”.[30] Fred Pearce, writing for New Scientist, described Midgley as a “one-man environmental disaster”.[26]

      LOL damn

    • fr0ggi [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Knew he sounded familiar… “strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted.” loool

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    No. But only because Chinese health and safety is looking over this guy’s shoulder and frowning, while Flint residents were left to take Obungler at face value.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    The Monsanto vampires that claimed glyphosate was safe enough to drink and were put to the test by having a glass of it put in front of them with the cameras rolling was a Jokerfying moment for me.

    Unnecessary spoiler alert:

    spoiler

    No glyphosate was drank.

    • YuccaMan [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Shoutout to hbomberguy for exposing us youngins to the absolute gem of that gormless shill flopping about like a fish on the dock after being dared to drink weed-killer

  • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    oh damn imagine if people ate fish that was subjected to some entity dumping random shit in the ocean. now that would be quite bad, good thing this phenomenon is localized entirely to the coast of fukushima