Damage being done to the Pacifics eco-system due to the Fukushima incident

[overtone]

OK, I apologise for not stating this explicitly before; I didn't think it needed pointing out, but, since you insist:

The Fukushima ecosystem is still there.

Whatever you may mean by "the Fukushima ecosystem" ( there is no such thing, but doubtless you intended to refer to something, so - - - ) it has nothing to do with this thread, which is explicitly about the hundreds of interrelated ecological structures and systems of the northern Pacific Ocean.

You don't know much about them. Nobody does. That does not mean you can assume they have suffered no damage from Fukushima. That does not mean you can claim cesium and potassium are interchangeable in them because they are in the same periodic group of elements. That does not mean you can assume the exposure regime of all the parts of them is measured by the current dilution of cesium in the open water of the plume. And so forth. These assumptions are not safe. They are absurd, actually - trivially dismissed as soon as read. But if you insist, we have much reason to doubt them. I posted some - by no means exhaustively, as they are plainly nonsense from dozens of points of view, but enough for discussion. You have not addressed this reasoning.

 

I really don't think you want to rely on "my citations list is longer than yours". First of all, others have linked to supporting info, so you are not four up on anyone else

I am four up on links relevant to my argument - as specifically referenced, in the part of the post carefully overlooked by you. I was pointing out that the repeated demands for "evidence" from people who have provided none and refused to recognize mine, are not respectable contributions to any discussion of anything I have posted here.

 

You provided this link http://www.cfact.org...shima-disaster/and called it " a blog synopsis with an acceptable tone of voice" and it agrees with what everyone else has been saying.

That's why I called it "acceptable", meaning acceptable to you. I had hopes you would accept the evidence therein, supporting the argument I was making, because of that.

 

The positions you are arguing against. Then later on you … well, quite frankly, I can't adequately summarize your subsequent contortions

No kidding. I have pointed that out five or six times now.

You are apparently unable to summarize, paraphrase, refer to, or provide evidence that you have bothered to actually read carefully, anything I've posted. That's a bit odd, no?

 

The bottom line is that I don't think anyone knows what you are really arguing, because you have not made yourself clear, and you contradict yourself from post to post. That's on you, not on others.

I have not contradicted myself even once. Claiming contradictions, insisting on them where they do not exist, is on you, not me. Start by desisting from such bogus rhetorical tactics.

All I can do is post - in simple, ordinary sentences, stuff that cats and dogs can read. I'm trying to discuss the thread topic, and nothing else. Reread it if you've forgotten what it is, start over by dealing with all my posts as if they were concerned with ecosystem damage from the Fukushima emissions into the Pacific Ocean, and this waste of time bs should disappear.

For example:

 

"Although some radionuclides are significantly elevated, dose calculations suggest minimal impact on marine biota or humans due to direct exposure in surrounding ocean waters" which something you have been disagreeing with.

No, it isn't. I have never disagreed with that. I have disagreed with the clownish presumption of thinking that direct exposure to the current open water concentrations of cesium would be the expected or dominant or even important cause of ecosystem damage in the Pacific Ocean - that one could draw reassurance from the current open water dilution of the cesium in the plume.

 

overtone, you've been asked long ago to provide evidence.

And you've been asked to follow the argument, so that the evidence and argument presented would become visible to you.

 

But by all means, continue to insist that you aren't discussing dilution. - -

- - - -

You could include how when you say dilution you don't mean dilution, in all of that.

Or I could, after multiple reasonable responses to that tactic, simply label it, and you, appropriately. And then the terminally confused moderation suspends me, instead of you. Interesting situation. You get to lie, I don't get to call you on it.

 

This is you not discussing dilution.

I have never not "discussed dilution". Likewise, neither has Swansont, Cuthber, and everyone else. Since long ago (say, post #7, #11, various by Strange throughout, etc) several posters (not me) have been emphasizing the fact that the cesium in the open water of the plume is currently very dilute, and arguing from that dilution the negligibility of risk to the exposed ecosystems from the Fukushima emissions into the Pacific Ocean, the dilution of the cesium in the plume has been a major fact in this thread.

Swansont is the one claiming to have not "discussed dilution". That was immediately after he and others claimed that the current open water dilution of the cesium in the plume supported - by various calculations involving the greater concentration of potassium etc - the "conclusion" (there was no relevant argument, so "assumption" is the better term) that the risk of ecosystem damage in the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima emissions was negligible. Address your attempted sarcasms to him. Thank you.

Meanwhile, my original attempts at discussing the thread topic are still there, awaiting an actual response to their content, evidence, argument, etc. #6, #8, #24, #29, and so forth. Takers?

Here's a suggested starting point:

 

the difficulties posed by the absence of a unit such as the Seivert for measuring even a small part of the Pacific ecosystem risk. That is a hint, or clue, to the sheer size of the information void and arena of ignorance involved. The Seivert is imperfect, and has its problems, but nothing like those posed by the absence of the knowledge base necessary to establish such a unit.

We have no unit of ecosystem risk, by which to begin to get a handle on what the exposure regime has threatened or possible accomplished in the way of ecosystem damage. So the discussion would be general and vague and hypothetical even if we had a good handle on the ecosystems at issue, the exposure regimes they have suffered or are suffering, and the fate of the cesium within them (or anywhere else, for that matter - we've lost much of it). So it would require good will and honest rhetorical dealings and so forth.

Too bad.

Edited April 25, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Whatever you may mean by "the Fukushima ecosystem" ( there is no such thing, but doubtless you intended to refer to something, so - - - ) it has nothing to do with this thread, which is explicitly about the hundreds of interrelated ecological structures and systems of the northern Pacific Ocean.

I mean the ecosystem that could be affected by the events at Fukushima.

Again, I apologise for failing to spell out for you something that I though (and others seem to have found to be) obvious.

 

Since most of it's in the pacific, it is clearly relevant to the thread.

 

And, while I agree that the deep oceans are poorly studied, I still think that people would have noticed any catastrophic changes there.

Part of the reason I think that is that there are pages on the web explicitly dedicated to research in that field. for example

https://www.whoi.edu/main/topic/fukushima-radiation

 

Were you not aware of this?

 

So, when I say the ecosystem is still there I mean that people have checked, and it's still there.

And that, in turn, means it's reasonable for me to ask of actual evidence of harm before I worry about it.

 

Perhaps you would like to finally "come to Jesus" and provide that evidence?

[swansont]

You don't know much about them. Nobody does. That does not mean you can assume they have suffered no damage from Fukushima.

 

No, you have to go by evidence. Of which you have presented none.

 

That does not mean you can claim cesium and potassium are interchangeable in them because they are in the same periodic group of elements. That does not mean you can assume the exposure regime of all the parts of them is measured by the current dilution of cesium in the open water of the plume.

Those are the data that are available to us. If you have other data, please present it. If you have a model that predicts that these contaminants will somehow spread and preferentially race to the bottom of the ocean, please present it.

 

And so forth. These assumptions are not safe. They are absurd, actually - trivially dismissed as soon as read.

Any claim can be dismissed. It's a matter of whether that's based on sound science and reasoning, or it's being done arbitrarily. And many of these things you have dismissed are not assumptions, but actual data and fact.

 

I am four up on links relevant to my argument - as specifically referenced, in the part of the post carefully overlooked by you. I was pointing out that the repeated demands for "evidence" from people who have provided none and refused to recognize mine, are not respectable contributions to any discussion of anything I have posted here.

Then I have no clue what your argument is. You have done little to clarify it. Screaming at us for not understanding is like talking slower and louder when speaking with someone who speaks a foreign language.

 

That's why I called it "acceptable", meaning acceptable to you.

But that's not what you actually wrote. You just said acceptable tone, and the implication is that it was acceptable to you.

 

I had hopes you would accept the evidence therein, supporting the argument I was making, because of that.

I do accept the evidence in that post. And the conclusion, that the impact on the ecosystem is minimal. Glad you agree.

 

No kidding. I have pointed that out five or six times now.

 

You are apparently unable to summarize, paraphrase, refer to, or provide evidence that you have bothered to actually read carefully, anything I've posted. That's a bit odd, no?

 

Not really, when you include the part where I'ver asked you to clarify your position a few times. That's how it's supposed to work, if you say something confusing: you get asked for clarification. What you are supposed to do is make a clearer argument, rather than kvetch about how people are misunderstanding you.

 

I have not contradicted myself even once. Claiming contradictions, insisting on them where they do not exist, is on you, not me. Start by desisting from such bogus rhetorical tactics.

You said the blog post had an acceptable tone, then said it wasn't. It doesn't matter that you meant to say something else. What you actually said is a contradiction.

 

All I can do is post - in simple, ordinary sentences, stuff that cats and dogs can read.

Maybe you should write in sentences humans can read and understand.

 

No, it isn't. I have never disagreed with that. I have disagreed with the clownish presumption of thinking that direct exposure to the current open water concentrations of cesium would be the expected or dominant or even important cause of ecosystem damage in the Pacific Ocean - that one could draw reassurance from the current open water dilution of the cesium in the plume.

If the damage isn't coming from the cesium, where is it coming from? If the current levels of activity aren't the right metric for measurement, what is?

 

IOW, instead of just telling us we're wrong, tell us what you think is right.

[overtone]

Then I have no clue what your argument is.

As I noted, multiple times. Correct. And in acknowledgment of that, how about you try silence? There's a possibility somebody wants to discuss the thread topic.

 

 

Maybe you should write in sentences humans can read and understand.

If by "humans" you mean "you", that's beyond my capabilities. I can't do it.

 

Look, for example, at this:

 

 

That's why I called it "acceptable", meaning acceptable to you.

But that's not what you actually wrote.- - -

Here's what I actually wrote, in response to a poster (you) who was being a pill:

 

Here's a blog synopsis with an acceptable tone of voice, for example - http://www.cfact.org...shima-disaster/

Acceptable, there, obviously means acceptable to us all - you especially, because the post was addressed directly to you.

 

I do accept the evidence in that post. And the conclusion, that the impact on the ecosystem is minimal.

There was no such conclusion. There is no such "the ecosystem". and so forth.

The evidence - I quoted a selection from it - supported my observation that local accumulations and concentrations of cesium and other emissions from Fukushima in bottom sediments and organisms (among all the other places) were a reasonable concern, and could not be dismissed by presumption. The reason it supported my observation was that it provided an example of just that - cesium from Fukushima accumulating in some local populations of bottom feeding fish, far in excess of its general open water concentration, because it was accumulating down there where they were feeding.

 

 

You said the blog post had an acceptable tone, then said it wasn't.

I have no idea what I posted that anyone could honestly read as "then said it wasn't". It's not a quote, it's not a paraphrase, it's related to nothing I've posted anywhere. Therefore my sole possible response is to, once again, say "no, I didn't".

 

Or this:

 

 

I have disagreed with the clownish presumption of thinking that direct exposure to the current open water concentrations of cesium would be the expected or dominant or even important cause of ecosystem damage in the Pacific Ocean - that one could draw reassurance from the current open water dilution of the cesium in the plume.

 

If the damage isn't coming from the cesium, where is it coming from? If the current levels of activity aren't the right metric for measurement, what is?

 

 

There is absolutely nothing I can do about that. The post says "direct exposure to the current open water concentrations of cesium", the response says "cesium" - who can predict that?

 

And many of these things you have dismissed are not assumptions, but actual data and fact.

Nope. There are only a couple, not "many", and they are assumptions, all quoted and discussed and shown to be such via evidence and argument.

The one that set it off was the assumption that the eventual extreme dilution of the open water cesium as this emission plume crossed the Pacific, to the point that its current concentration in the open water of the plume represents a vanishingly small, negligible risk to anything upon direct exposure (smaller even than the negligible and familiar risk from the radioactive isotopes of naturally occurring potassium)

was reliable reassurance that the Fukushima emissions were causing and had caused little or no harm to the ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean.

Since I pointed out that such an assumption on such a basis was nonsense, begging the exact questions at issue for a variety of reasons (several listed in multiple posts, from bioaccumulation to lost emissions to distant ecosystem influences), and many valid reasons for concern about the effects of Fukushima emissions on the ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean remain, the thread has stalled in a morass of irrelevancy. So be it.

Edited April 29, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

So, still no evidence of harm to the Pacific's eco-system.

Until that changes, perhaps you are the one who should try silence.

[overtone]

So, still no evidence of harm to the Pacific's eco-system.

Ecosystems, plural.

 

Aside from a giant plume of remnant cesium still wandering around in the open water, the disappearance of most of the bad stuff into unknown parts of the Ocean and its ecosystems, the known and possible risks of such material to biological entities, the measured accumulations of Fukushima effluent in a few studied organisms, and so forth and so on,

 

no evidence at all. We await the results of relevant research, currently not available.

 

 

 

 

Until that changes, perhaps you are the one who should try silence.

So we are not to discuss the risks and dangers of damage to any Pacific Ocean ecosystems until someone has done years of research no one has yet begun into matters currently largely unknown, and found either actual damage or lack of it.

 

That's consistent with the similar response of this forum faction to several other questions, namely this one: in the absence of research and consequent lack of demonstration one way or another, the scientific position is that none of the risks or dangers of something are valid concerns for any reason.

 

The presumption, given ignorance of fact, is to be safety - regardless of argument or implication or risk or reason. And this presumption is not to be questioned - it is unscientific to discuss risk or possible damage or threat until after the actual harm has been demonstrated to have occurred.

 

And that is the official position of this "scientific" forum.

Edited April 30, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Have you forgotten that it's over four years since the accident?

People have been studying the ecosystem (singular, unless you can show how the different parts of it are isolated from one another and don't interact) and there's not been much evidence of lasting damage.

 

So, it's not a "presumption" any more, it's an observation.

Edited May 1, 2015 by John Cuthber

[overtone]

People have been studying the ecosystem (singular, unless you can show how the different parts of it are isolated from one another and don't interact) and there's not been much evidence of lasting damage.

So which is more objectionable there: the two or three outright falsehoods stated, the false framing implied, or the weasel wording that betrays the author's actual awareness, in the back of their mind, that what they are saying is not quite right (much evidence of lasting damage)?

 

Briefly:

1) Either the hundreds of subsystems or whatever you want to call them in the Pacific are separable to a relevant degree, and can be discussed separately, or 2) "the ecosystem" has not been studied - pick one. Because very little is known about a whole hell of lot of Pacific Ocean ecology, and nobody is studying most of it now or ever has. This, for example, is still possible in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator: http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/new-deep-diving-whale-discovered-140216.htm

 

You can't call an ecosystem "studied" when you are finding brand new species of whales in it. You can't call an ecosystem "studied" when its major geographical and geological features were first discovered less than forty years ago, and most have not even been visited. And you certainly can't call the effects of dumping large amounts of radioactive isotopes from a broken nuclear reactor "studied" when you don't know where most of it went, you don't know what lives where, you don't know how most of the resident organisms handle the stuff, and you don't know the exposure regimes imposed on anything anywhere.

 

 

 

Have you forgotten that it's over four years since the accident?

Gee, a whole four years? So that means that if some jellyfish populations drifting and still-fishing near Japan picked up extra cesium, and if the turtles that eat them were forming eggs at the time or sequestering the stuff in egg-critical organs, the hatchlings from those eggs will be getting to reproductive age now - and if we knew any of this, and we knew what was normal, this year or next we could assess the harm if any from that exposure if any.

 

Btw: Have they found the cores yet? That's about how much time it took to find the core of the Three Mile Island reactor. Before they found the core, the estimates of total emissions were more uncertain - large error bars - because they didn't know exactly what had happened. The exposure regimes from TMI, btw, - even of people, one of the best studied organisms on the planet - are still debatable and controversial estimates.

 

Meanwhile, ecological damage from Chernobyl is still turning up - new findings - nearly forty years later (http://www.ecology.com/2014/03/23/radioactive-microbes-plant-decomposition-chernobyl/) ; that set of ecosystems has been studied for centuries (we have an idea what "normal" is) and is easily accessible, plus their exposure regimes are fairly well known now (the actual exposure regimes were not described accurately for many years, but we think we have a handle on them now - and we at least aren't finding major new species of trees or tigers every so often, and the majority of the emissions have been accounted for in general terms - what went approximately where and when. )

Edited May 5, 2015 by overtone

[swansont]

 

You can't call an ecosystem "studied" when you are finding brand new species of whales in it.

 

Oh, baloney. People find new species all the time, and they do it because they are studying the ecosystem. This sounds like it was taken from the "we don't know everything, therefore we know nothing" school of erroneous thought.

[John Cuthber]

So which is more objectionable there:

 

Set up a poll and find out.

 

 

Or, better, you could actually find some evidence of damage.

Oh, hang on, if I say that you will point out that there really are some problems (at the very least some members of the species homo sapiens have been greatly inconvenienced.)

So, it looks like I'm stuck with being scientific about i

t and not claiming that there are precisely zero issues.

Feel free to mistake that for weasel wording.

 

Please feel free to gainsay my assertion that there's "not much evidence of lasting damage".

 

And here's my previous "weasel wording" on it.

 

1 it was a monumental cockup

 

Edited May 5, 2015 by John Cuthber

[swansont]

 

Acceptable, there, obviously means acceptable to us all - you especially, because the post was addressed directly to you.

 

No, that's not obvious. You speak only for yourself in these matters. It is dangerous to assume that you speak for others.

 

 

But OK, then, let's look at the blog post.

 

"Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast aren’t in any danger."

 

"radiation probably has reached the West Coast but it’s not dangerous "

 

"overall concentrations of radioactive isotopes and therefore radioactivity in the Pacific will increase from Pre-Fukushima levels, but it will be way less than what was seen in coastal Japan and definitely not enough to be harmful elsewhere"

 

"the West Coast and the Aleutians will see radiation levels anywhere from 1-20 Bq/m3,while Hawaiian Islands could see up to 30 Bq/m3"

 

"Some fisheries in Japan are still closed because of radioactive contamination. Bottom fish are especially prone to contamination because the fallout collects on the seafloor where they live. Contaminated fish shouldn’t be making it to your grocery store, but I can’t guarantee that so if you are worried just eat fish from somewhere other than Japan.

Fish from the rest of the Pacific are safe."

"Fischer et al. figured out exactly how much damaging radiation you would receive from eating a tower of tuna rolls. Seriously. Science is just that awesome. Supermarket tuna hunters would receive 0.9 μSv of radiation, while the outdoors subsistence tuna hunter would receive 4.7 μSv. These values are about the same or a little less than the amount a person receives from natural sources.

To put 0.9 μSv of radiation in perspective check out this awesome graph of radiation by xkcd. You’ll get the same amount of radiation by eating 9 bananas. "

"the Pacific and its inhabitants will not be fried by radiation from Fukushima. I certainly feel safe eating sustainable seafood from the Pacific and so should you."

I don't have a problem with any of those statements. And yet, when John Cuthber cited 100 Bq/m3 (i.e. higher than the article) you went on for several posts about how it was wrong and meaningless to boot, among other things. I asked then and I asked now, how is this post acceptable, but another nearly identical (but slightly more conservative) estimate draws your ire?

And how do you reconcile this with the fact that this "acceptable" post draws multiple conclusions, and you have repeatedly admonished everyone on the thread that we cannot make conclusions because we lack information.

Those are the inconsistencies in your posts I have been talking about.

[overtone]

Acceptable, there, obviously means acceptable to us all - you especially, because the post was addressed directly to you.

No, that's not obvious. You speak only for yourself in these matters. It is dangerous to assume that you speak for others.

Yes, it is obvious that that's what I meant. I was speaking for myself in the matter of what I myself meant by "acceptable" when I myself posted that.

 

And as it turned out I was right, you did in fact find the tone of that article acceptable, so my wild chance lucked out. How unexpected.

But it did not persuade you to read or follow my posting, such as the argument supported by the quoted fact from the article, so no good came of it.

At which point I gave up. You will not read anything I post honestly, or attend to its content, for reasons I can do nothing about and will no longer attempt to do anything about.

 

Those are the inconsistencies in your posts I have been talking abou

And nothing I can say will persuade you to give up talking about these "inconsistencies", none of which exist in my posting.

 

I don't have a problem with any of those statements.

Good for you. I don't either. Fine list of quotes. Completely irrelevant, of course. Nothing to do with anything I've posted here. Why don't you post them to somebody else, or even better in another thread? If necessary, start one. Call it "Risks to human health from Fukushima emissions into the Pacific Ocean". I promise to avoid it - uninteresting topic, by and large, given the dilution of the plume and the monitoring of the commercial fisheries, but it seems to fascinate you, so have at 'er.

Edited May 6, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Still waiting for the evidence of damage.

[overtone]

Still waiting for the evidence of damage.

Come back in a few years: if there has been massive enough damage to some visible enough ecosystem maybe some evidence of it will have turned up, even without the indicated research efforts.

.

Edited May 6, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Come back in a few years: if there has been massive enough damage to some visible enough ecosystem maybe some evidence of it will have turned up, even without the indicated research efforts.

.

I already waited a few years, and there has been research.

 

Anyway, it's a bizarre approach to take.

 

1st man "He's a bank robber!"

Policeman "Got any evidence"

1st man- "Wait a few years"

Policeman- "that's not evidence, it's slander".

Edited May 6, 2015 by John Cuthber

[overtone]

I already waited a few years, and there has been research.

There has not been research. You haven't waited nearly as long as it took for other such mishaps, such as Chernobyl, that were much better understood ecologically in the first place. And waiting is no guarantee - without the knowledge base or the research, the evidence of actual damage will be visible only by luck and insight regardless of its severity or scale. There might never be any visible, for sure. Do you find that reassuring?

 

The evidence that ecosystem damage is a reasonable possibility and a matter of reasonable concern we have in spades, of course. It is not reassuring. And it would be the thread topic. But apparently I'm the only guy interested in that.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, it's a bizarre approach to take.

My approach is perfectly ordinary. What's bizarre is that after seven pages of this you still don't seem to have clue what it is. Evidence of damage? I am supposed to provide the unavailable, after seven pages of asserting the improbability of its existence and emphasizing the concerns inherent in such a situation? Edited May 6, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

The evidence for the presence of a tiger in my bedroom is also unavailable.

There's a reason for that.

What you are labelling as "perfectly ordinary", is worrying about that tiger.

[overtone]

The evidence for the presence of a tiger in my bedroom is also unavailable.

Missing the point again.

 

What is relevantly lacking in that case is evidence for the possibility, the risk, etc, of a tiger in your bedroom.

 

That is not the case with the event of large quantities of high concentrations of nuclear reactor product having been dumped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. Or as it was put above, in reference to several earlier posts and links:

 

 

The evidence that ecosystem damage is a reasonable possibility and a matter of reasonable concern we have in spades, of course.

 

 

So to bring your bedroom analogy into this discussion: we saw a tiger go into your room, nobody knows where it is now, and nobody has looked into your room.

 

You have no evidence that there is a tiger in your room now. You have no evidence that this particular tiger is dangerous to you.

 

So no worries. Right?

Edited May 8, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Missing the point again.

 

What is relevantly lacking in that case is evidence for the possibility, the risk, etc, of a tiger in your bedroom.

 

That is not the case with the event of large quantities of high concentrations of nuclear reactor product having been dumped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. Or as it was put above, in reference to several earlier posts and links:

 

 

 

 

So to bring your bedroom analogy into this discussion: we saw a tiger go into your room, nobody knows where it is now, and nobody has looked into your room.

 

You have no evidence that there is a tiger in your room now. You have no evidence that this particular tiger is dangerous to you.

 

So no worries. Right?

Except that, nobody saw the tiger.

You haven't produced any evidence of a threat.

So what we have is a man who claims he saw a tiger- but nobody else has ever seen it.

There was a brief look for the tiger- no evidence was found.

Yet the man keeps on saying "you are ignoring the risk of the tiger".

And whenever someone asks for evidence of the tiger's existence, he fails to produce any.

 

So, where's the tiger; where's the evidence?

 

( A slightly better analogy might be to use a poisonous tropical spider.

We never saw the spider and, even if it was there 4 years ago the Winters will have killed it.)

[overtone]

Except that, nobody saw the tiger.

You haven't produced any evidence of a threat.

The nuclear reactors at Fukushima melted down in the wake of damage from and earthquake and tsunami, a couple years ago. This released large quantities of various radioactive isotopes (the tigers) into the ecosystems of the northern Pacific Ocean (the bedrooms).

Since then, most of the tigers have not been found - nobody knows where they went - and most of the bedrooms have not been explored - nobody knows where they all are, even.

So:

Edited May 9, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

The problem there is the analogy fails.

Tigers are not rendered essentially harmless by dilution.

Nor is there a background level of "tiger threat" with which we can compare the addition of some finite number of tigers.

 

So, yet again, any actual evidence of damage?

[Strange]

The argument seems to come down to: "There is no evidence of damage but there must be some because ... RADIATION!!!!!"

[overtone]

The argument seems to come down to: "There is no evidence of damage but there must be some because ... RADIATION!!!!!"

You would really like that to have been the argument. You guys have spent 8 pages trying to make that the argument.

 

Because that's the only one that saves you guys from some sharp embarrassment when the cognitive dissonance resolves and this issue snaps into focus.

 

Unfortunately, this is the argument you've been making, somewhat confused (the role of the word "dilution" has been a bit of a puzzle for you) for 8 pages:

 

 

The problem there is the analogy fails.

Tigers are not rendered essentially harmless by dilution.

Nor is there a background level of "tiger threat" with which we can compare the addition of some finite number of tigers.

 

Dude, it wasn't my analogy. I just went with it as best I could.

 

You've been arguing that the measured dilution of the open water dissolved and smoothly mixed remnants of the Fukushima effluent that have been tracked, all the way to negligible, is evidence of the ecological harmlessness of the rest of it that has not been tracked, from initial dump until now.

 

And that's the best one.

 

We avert our eyes from the one that argued ecological harmlessness from cesium because it was in the same periodic element group as the potassium so much more abundant in the Ocean, and biological organisms treat elements in a given periodic group the same.

 

We likewise, out of courtesy, pass in silence over the argument that accumulations of cesium in organisms are ecologically harmless because they dissolve back into the water when the organism dies.

 

We pay no attention to the continuing and underlying assumption that ecological effects from the initial concentrations either happened or they didn't, but they're over now - with its three corollaries: 1) since we didn't see them at the time, they aren't significant now, 2) if we find no cesium , we find no ecological effects from it, and 3) since there isn't any significant cesium concentration visible, there aren't any effects left either.

 

And of course we accept that cesium is and has been the only Fukushima emission of ecological significance to northern Pacific ecosystems.

 

So back to the best one: a question for you geniuses: At the time of the meltdown, what do you suppose the assumption would be, anyone's, of the fate of that fraction of the cesium in the Fukushima effluent that remained dissolved in the upper level ambient open water being mixed into the whole Pacific Ocean, and never entered into an organism - the fraction that was and remained essentially harmless to organisms and their ecological relationships, in other words?

 

My guess is that pretty much everyone would assume it would be diluted to negligibility and very low hazard levels within a few months at most. I know that would be my own assumption. The Pacific Ocean's a pretty big volume of water, and the upper levels at least do mix well in fairly short time spans.

 

Given that, why not simply point out, during the meltdown, that the stuff that didn't hurt anything would be diluted to harmlessness, so there was no reason to be concerned about ecological damage in the first place?

 

That's your argument now. Why not make it then?

Edited May 9, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

So, still no actual evidence of damage then?

 

 

Nice set of strawmen there.

 

For example

"We avert our eyes from the one that argued ecological harmlessness from cesium because it was in the same periodic element group as the potassium so much more abundant in the Ocean, and biological organisms treat elements in a given periodic group the same."

Nobody actually said that did they?

What was said was that the two metals tend to behave in a similar way (which is boringly true) and the the radiation dose from the small amount of Cs is much less than that from K, (which is also boringly true).

 

"We likewise, out of courtesy, pass in silence over the argument that accumulations of cesium in organisms are ecologically harmless because they dissolve back into the water when the organism dies."

or possibly we just pointed out that bio-accumulation is unlikely for something very soluble and not very biologically useful, which isn't the same thing.

And so on.

[overtone]

Nobody actually said that did they?

Yes, you did. Among other people.

 

What was said was that the two metals tend to behave in a similar way (which is boringly true)

No, you drew a conclusion from that chemical resemblance. You said biological organisms could be assumed to handle them the same way, because of that chemical similarity. You were attempting to make an argument relevant to ecosystem concerns, remember?

 

and the the radiation dose from the small amount of Cs is much less than that from K, (which is also boringly true).

That is a presumption based partly on the aforementioned delusion of biochemical interchangeability, and partly on an assumption of radiation equivalence between the two (they are not identical emitters). In an actual organism or ecosystem, the effective radiation dose - the unit we don't have that would play the role of a Seivert - depends on the location, role, residence time, and other properties of the ingested cesium in that organism and that ecosystem. So no, that is not necessarily true, boringly or otherwise.

And you have now had that pointed out to you at least five times.

 

or possibly we just pointed out that bio-accumulation is unlikely for something very soluble and not very biologically useful, which isn't the same thing.

That would have been absurdly presumptuous, as well, had you said it. But you instead posted a different absurdity: You based your arguments against accumulation on an extrapolation from a short term study of a couple of commercial fish species, and an explicit assumption of biological equivalence between potassium and cesium, - - which means you explicitly assumed cesium to be biologically as useful and "soluble" (wtf?) as potassium.

 

The difference is easy to recall, because I actually went to the trouble of finding and linking research that showed not only bioaccumulation of cesium, but differential bioaccumulation between cesium and potassium (small, but visible) in an ecologically relevant kind of organism. Had I only been dealing with some ridiculous denial of bioaccumulation altogether, I could have saved myself ten or fifteen minutes.

Edited May 9, 2015 by overtone