So what can I do? - Fukushima 1 year later (Part 9)

The past few days I’ve been writing about the Fukushima disaster, what happened right afterwards and how’s it’s affected us. But what can we do about it? How can we keep safe?

Well, for starters I would say that knowing is literally half the battle. If you don’t know about radiation or where and what is dangerous you can’t do anything. So you have to take the time to learn if you don’t know already. Again, I would recommend looking to Wikipedia for info on radiation and its effects. To learn where levels are high, you have to in part rely on government info. Here are links to radiation survey maps and online monitoring data (tho the readings by prefecture part should be taken with a grain of salt).

But it shouldn’t stop there. You have to take action to ensure your safety and the safety of your family. I have two main recommendations:

1. Buy a Geiger counter. Government stooges and radiation “experts” on TV have done their best to discourage this, but that’s a load of crap. They all say how counters you buy online are unreliable and that we should look to the government and their expensive machines to tell you where it’s safe and where it isn’t.

But that’s overlooking one key point. As I stated before, radiation danger doesn’t go up in leaps and bounds like it does with heat. Even if your Geiger counter is off by 30%, it will still be a good gauge of the level of danger. Yes, the numbers you get might not be useful to publish, but they can give you an idea of an area’s real level. For example, if you measure a spot as having 1.5 uSv/hr with a machine that has around 30% error, it means the real measurement is anywhere from 1.05 to 1.95 uSv/hr, which isn’t going to kill you right off, but I wouldn’t pitch a tent there either. It’s a good gauge.

Note: You still do need to get a good counter, because there are a lot of piece of shit readers for sale that don’t have enough sensitivity to be relied on in any way. I recommend the Soeks Ecotester or the DosRae2 (accurate but doesn't measure beta).

2. Eat Safely. This means looking at labels and watching the news. The “Show your support by eating,” (tabete ouen – 食べて応援) BS being tossed around on TV is a joke. I won’t touch anything made in Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi or Ibaraki until they start printing that it’s been tested and the amount discovered on every label. I would also avoid foods labeled as being just “made in Japan” for the time being. You never know what that really means. If they want me to support farmers from those areas directly, I say we cover their losses with relief money and settlements.

Also, some foods have a tendency to absorb more than others from the soil. These include dark green leafy plants like spinach and broccoli, and also white vegetables like soybeans, potatos and daikon, as well as mushrooms. I would especially avoid getting these items or rice from areas near Fukushima, just to be safe, at least until they start printing accurate measurements.

When you know more, know what is safe and what isn’t, and where hotspots have been detected you have to let the info get out. If a park has high background levels, tell the local government, tell your friends, and tell everyone.

Japan is not a nuclear wasteland. It is still a peaceful, beautiful country. The areas around the quake and nuke zones have suffered a lot, and radiation has spread. But we can make things better. Rather than sticking your head in the sand and hoping it’ll just go away, we have to look the problem straight on and try to do something about it.