Coverup of the Devastating Impacts of Nuclear Radiation: Establishing an International Citizens Radiation Monitoring Network

By Washington's Blog
Global Research, March 16, 2011
Washington's Blog 16 March 2011
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If we could rely on the Japanese and American governments to inform us of any danger, we wouldn’t have to be so vigilant.

But given the American government’s cover up of the severity of the BP oil disaster, the health risk to New Yorkers after 9/11, and numerous other health issues, we will have to educate ourselves.

For example, the U.S. Surgeon General has recommended that West Coast residents stock up with potassium iodide, while other government officials say that is unnecessary, because radiation levels will not be high enough. But no government has disclosed radiation readings in the West Coast, so we can’t verify for ourselves whether or not there is currently any danger. See this and this.

As ABC News notes, experts says that Japan has a long history of nuclear cover-ups.

The New York Times points out:

The different radioactive materials being reported at the nuclear accidents in Japan range from relatively benign to extremely worrisome.

The central problem in assessing the degree of danger is that the amounts of various radioactive releases into the environment are now unknown, as are the winds and other atmospheric factors that determine how radioactivity will disperse around the stricken plants.

BBC reports (scroll down on left side):

Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima’s reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunami …

Indeed, Goto said:

“It is difficult to say, but that would be a core meltdown. If the rods fall and mix with water, the result would be an explosion of solid material like a volcano spreading radioactive material. Steam or a hydrogen explosion caused by the mix would spread radioactive waste more than 50km. Also, this would be multiplied. There are many reactors in the area so there would be many Chernobyls.

And Goto accused the Japanese government of deliberately withholding vital information that would allow outside experts help solve the problems:

For example, there has not been enough information about the hydrogen being vented. We don’t know how much was vented and how radioactive it was.

The former editor of the Japan Times – Yoichi Shimatsu – states that after a high-level government meeting, “Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” and that censorship of what is really occurring at the plant is being overseen under the Article 15 Emergency Law.France is also accusing Japan of downplaying the nuclear threat.

And Haarertz notes:

Since the Japanese government has not provided accurate information regarding the possible threat posed by the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, experts in Israel and abroad are divided on the scope of the disaster and the ramifications for the environment.

There are some very incomplete real-time monitoring networks such as this and this. But the number of monitors is very small and incomplete, and it is hard to know who runs the networks.

So we must harness the power of the Internet in order to educate ourselves.

How?

Simple … Everyone who has a geiger counter can post a live stream to the web like this guy:


Live video chat by Ustream
(and these guys).

Make sure you give your location (city, state and country) so people know where you are, the make and model of your geiger counter, and the units of radiation being counted (i.e. counts per minute, milli-roentgens per hour or micro-sieverts per hour).

When enough people do this, we will have a citizens radiation monitoring network, and we won’t have to rely on the lack of information coming from governments.

Please
Articles by: Washington's Blog

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