On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:30 +0000, "Robert Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Does anybody else think that today's hysterical media coverage of the
> ongoing problems at the Fukushima nuclear plant is ridiculous
> unscientific scaremongering?
>
> Here are some of today's front page headlines:
>
> 'Just 48 hours to avoid 'another Chernobyl'' - The Daily Telegraph
> 'Britons told to consider leaving Tokyo as nuclear crisis escalates' -
> The Guardian
> 'Japan feels chill as crisis depends: Britons advised to leave Tokyo
> while engineers battle to stem radiation leaks' - The Times
> 'Out of control: Reactors on the brink; Radiation leak spreads; Brits
> told: Quit Tokyo' - The Sun
>
Except for the first headline, do the other headlines not just report
facts (what people are told)?

And below, the quotes, are they made by science journalists?

Are you in favour of censorship?

Alexander Hellemans






> The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has encouraged this sense of
> impending doom with its current advisory for Japan
> (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-coun
> try/asia-oceania/japan), including:
>
> "We advise against all non essential travel to Tokyo and north eastern
> Japan given the damage caused by the 11 March earthquake and resulting
> aftershocks and tsunami. Due to the evolving situation at the Fukushima
> nuclear facility and potential disruptions to the supply of goods,
> transport, communications, power and other infrastructure, British
> nationals currently in Tokyo and to the north of Tokyo should consider
> leaving the area."
>
> However, elsewhere on the FCO's website is this contrary assessment of
> the risks by the UK Government's chief scientific adviser, John
> Beddington, including the following
> (http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=566811882):
>
> "Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario.
> If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the
> pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level, you can get
> this, you know, the dramatic word "meltdown".  But what does that
> actually mean?  What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core
> melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor
> of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials
> ... that is likely... remember this is the reasonable worst case, we
> don't think anything worse is going to happen.  In this reasonable worst
> case you get an explosion.  You get some radioactive material going up
> to about 500 metres up into the air.  Now, that's really serious, but
> it's serious again for the local area.  It's not serious for elsewhere
> even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have
> nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres.  If you
> then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e.
> prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of
> Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the
> radioactive material down do we have a problem?  The answer is
> unequivocally no.   Absolutely no issue.  The problems are within 30 km
> of the reactor.  And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had
> a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500
> metres but to 30,000 feet.  It was lasting not for the odd hour or so
> but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up
> into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time.  But even in
> the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30
> kilometres.   And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no
> evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation.
> The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the
> water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the
> problems came from.  That's not going to be the case here.  So what I
> would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area
> and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people
> working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it's really not an issue
> for health."
>
>
>
> Bob Ward
>
> Policy and Communications Director
> Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
> London School of Economics and Political Science
> Houghton Street
> London WC2A 2AE
>
> http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
>
> Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
> Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
>
>
> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic
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