Maybe some of us live in Japan so lets share what's going on

I thought I'd start such a topic. I've been a long time resident of Japan on and off since the mid 70's and am a permanent resident here. I actually live kind of in the countryside of Japan, but my location is convenient to the trains and shinkansen and the nearest rice paddies. There is no entertainment close by, so now that I found ATS, I guess I'll hang out here and post and learn stuff about Japan. Was a nice place to live until you find out about the pension plan. Health insurance is reasonable and one thing I haven't understood is why the heck doesn't America follow something like what Japan has. Yes, it is true about low wages for government health workers and price caps on medical expenses, but private doctors seem to do well for the most part. Well anyway, let me see if I can post a picture from my computer. If not can someone tell me how to do it.



Fruits and vegetables being measured for radiation.

My first post, so I don't know exactly how to do this yet. Sorry guys.









:

I am not live in Japan ,but you know this site ?
enenews.com...

candlestick
I am not live in Japan ,but you know this site ?
enenews.com...

Thanks candle. I'm not a worry bird at all. But this Fukushima stuff is really mind boggling and you guys on this forum really know your stuff about nuclear energy. I only know what the farmers say around the sake drinking tables.

Thanks for link. Looks interesting. Much appreciated.

musicismagic

Thanks candle. I'm not a worry bird at all. But this Fukushima stuff is really mind boggling and you guys on this forum really know your stuff about nuclear energy. I only know what the farmers say around the sake drinking tables.

those farmers said what?You live in Fukushima ?(I guess more farmers in Fukushima...)

Japan?
Japan is great.

Hello from Tokyo!
Just hanging and chilling.... and, not too often, a little bit of illing.
The way i see it is either imma get cancer from the fallout or the cigarettes.

demus
Japan?
Japan is great.

Japan maybe great, but the politicians aren't.

disregardingeverything
Hello from Tokyo!
Just hanging and chilling.... and, not too often, a little bit of illing.
The way i see it is either imma get cancer from the fallout or the cigarettes.

Hey, how ya doing DRE. It must be a bit scarey living in Tokyo. Do you guys still worry much the still active fallout of the radiation.

the owlbear
Hey, any country that you can get a pair of used schoolgirl panties as easy as a Coke ...they're all right.

That whole Rape of Nanking thing is going to catch up with them someday, though.
good luck with that

edit on 10-4-2014 by the owlbear because: (no reason given)

It's weird, isn't it. I wonder what type of people actually buy them from the vending machines. LOL

musicismagic
I thought I'd start such a topic. I've been a long time resident of Japan on and off since the mid 70's and am a permanent resident here. I actually live kind of in the countryside of Japan, but my location is convenient to the trains and shinkansen and the nearest rice paddies. There is no entertainment close by, so now that I found ATS, I guess I'll hang out here and post and learn stuff about Japan. Was a nice place to live until you find out about the pension plan. Health insurance is reasonable and one thing I haven't understood is why the heck doesn't America follow something like what Japan has. Yes, it is true about low wages for government health workers and price caps on medical expenses, but private doctors seem to do well for the most part. Well anyway, let me see if I can post a picture from my computer. If not can someone tell me how to do it.



Fruits and vegetables being measured for radiation.

My first post, so I don't know exactly how to do this yet. Sorry guys.









:

So, what have you heard from the farmers?

How bad do you think the fallout is/will be?

What do people in Japan think/feel about the radiation from fukuskima?

Here is a little write up about the Fukushima meltdown.

TOKYO — In the chaotic, fearful weeks after the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, in March 2011, researchers struggled to measure the radioactive fallout unleashed on the public. Aoyama Michio’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 times as high as contamination after Chernobyl, the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Two months later, as Mr. Aoyama prepared to publish his findings in a short, nonpeer-reviewed article for Nature, the director general of the institute called with an unusual demand — that Mr. Aoyama remove his own name from the paper.

“He said there were points he didn’t understand, or want to understand,” the researcher recalled. “I was later told that he did not want to say that Fukushima radioactivity was worse than Chernobyl.” The head of the institute, who has since retired, declined to comment for this article. Mr. Aoyama asked for his name to be removed, he said, and the article was not published.

The pressure he felt is not unusual — only his decision to speak about it. Off the record, university researchers in Japan say that even now, three years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, they feel under pressure to play down the impact of the disaster. Some say they cannot get funds or university support for their work. In several cases, the professors say, they have been obstructed or told to steer clear of data that might cause public “concern.”

“Getting involved in this sort of research is dangerous politically,” said Otaki Joji, a biologist at Japan’s Ryukyu University who has written papers suggesting that radioactivity at Fukushima has triggered inherited deformities in a species of butterfly. His research is paid for through private donations, including crowdfunding, a sign, he said, that the public supports his work. “It’s an exceptional situation,” he said.

The precise health impact of the Fukushima disaster is disputed. The government has defined mandatory evacuation zones around the Daiichi plant as areas where cumulative dose levels might reach 20 millisieverts per year, the typical worldwide limit for nuclear-power-plant workers. The limit recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection is one millisievert per year for the public. Some scientists argue that below 100 millisieverts the threat of increased cancers is negligible. But as Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radiation risk and a former scientific secretary to Britain’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters documents here, there are numerous instances in which lower levels of emission have produced cancers.


Radiation reading taken in IitateVillage, September 2013. This reading of 15.23 microsieverts per hour translates into 133.4 milisieverts a year - far above govt. limits.


In an effort to lower radiation and persuade about 155,000 refugees to return home, the government is trying to decontaminate a large area by scraping away millions of tons of radioactive dirt and storing it in temporary dumps. Experts at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology put the cost of this project at $50 billion — widely considered an underestimate.

The chance to study in this real-life laboratory has drawn a small number of researchers from around the world. Timothy A. Mousseau, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina who has written widely on Chernobyl, studies the impact of radiation on bird and insect life. He has published papers suggesting abnormalities and defects in some Fukushima species. But he said his three research excursions to Japan had been difficult.

In one case, a Japanese professor and two postdoctoral students dropped out of a joint research paper, telling him they could not risk association with his findings. “They felt it was too provocative and controversial,” he said, “and the postdocs were worried it could hamper their future job prospects.”


Timothy Mousseau collecting samples in Japan in July 2011.


Mr. Mousseau is careful to avoid comparisons with the Soviet Union, which arrested and even imprisoned scientists who studied Chernobyl. Nevertheless, he finds the lukewarm support for studies in Japan troubling: “It’s pretty clear that there is self-censorship or professors have been warned by their superiors that they must be very, very careful,” he said.

The “more insidious censorship” is the lack of funding at a national level for these kinds of studies, he added. “They’re putting trillions of yen into moving dirt around and almost nothing into environmental assessment.”

Long before an earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima meltdown, critics questioned the influence of Japan’s powerful nuclear lobby over the country’s top universities. Some professors say their careers have been hobbled because they expressed doubts about the nation’s nuclear policy and the coalition of bureaucrats, industrialists, politicians and elite academics who created it.

Mr. Aoyama, who now works at Fukushima University, sees no evidence of an organized conspiracy in the lack of openness about radiation levels — just official timidity. Despite the problems with his Nature article, he has written or co-written eight published papers since 2011 on coastal water pollution and other radiation-linked themes.

But stories of problems with Fukushima-related research are common, he said, including accounts of several professors being told not to measure radiation in the surrounding prefectures. “There are so many issues in our community,” he said. “The key phrase is ‘don’t cause panic.”’

He is also critical of the flood of false rumors circulating about the reach of Fukushima’s radioactive payload.

Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s department of marine chemistry and geochemistry, in Massachusetts, who has worked with Mr. Aoyama, said he has spent much of his professional energy fighting the rumor mill. The cause is not helped, he added, by institutional attempts to gag Japanese professors.

“Researchers are told not to talk to the press, or they don’t feel comfortable about talking to the press without permission,” Mr. Buesseler said. A veteran of three post-earthquake research trips to Japan, he wants the authorities to put more money into investigating the impact on the food chain of Fukushima’s release of cesium and strontium. “Why isn’t the Japanese government paying for this, since they have most to gain?”

One reason, critics say, is that after a period of national soul searching, when it looked as if Japan might scrap its commercial reactors, the government is again supporting nuclear power with plans moving ahead to open several reactors in 2014. Since the conservative Liberal Democrats returned to power, in late 2012, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has begun trying to sell Japan’s nuclear technology abroad.

Much of the government funding for academic research in Japan is funneled through either the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science or the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Proposals are screened by government officials and reviewed by an academic committee.

Shoji Yusuke, a spokesman for the ministry, cannot say how many proposals for studying the impact of radiation had been greenlighted, but he insists that the application system is fair. ‘‘The screening is conducted by peer review, so we don’t direct or don’t favor one particular research field,’’ he said. ‘‘We assess applications purely from the scientific point of view.’’ The Japan Society also says its applications process is not politicized.

Many independent scientists, however, contend that rather than simply defend what is a piecemeal approach to studying the disaster, the government should take the lead in creating a large, publicly financed research project.

That lack of official commitment pushes the responsibility for research and analysis entirely onto struggling professors, said a Japanese biologist – one of several who demanded anonymity for fear of reprisals from their university and the government. “It’s not that there is not funding for research into Fukushima. It’s that the state has not shown much support for research into evaluating the impact on living things,” he said.

Mousseau agrees: “If we’re ever going to make any headway into the environmental impact of these disasters, statistical power, scientific power, is what counts,” he said. “We get at it with massive replication, by going to hundreds of locations. That costs money.”

I think these site may help also.
matome.naver.jp...
blog.livedoor.jp...

OP ,you don't want to tell me what the farmer said?

Question for you:

Is the birth rate as low as the media says?

Why do you think it is that low? (not what the media says, what you observe)

Just realized my questions were off topic. So I'll add a on topic comment. I lived in Germany where the Chernobyl cloud went over, on an American military base. Every woman who gave birth within a year afterward (including me) had a child with a defect of some kind. My daughter had a heart issue, my bff's daughter had no ear.

candlestick
I think these site may help also.
matome.naver.jp...
blog.livedoor.jp...

OP ,you don't want to tell me what the farmer said?

edit on 10-4-2014 by candlestick because: (no reason given)

Candle, I only know about what the tea growers concerns are and the is that the leaves fall off the shrubs and they blame it on the radiation.

Thanks for the 2 sites. That is one reason I started this thread is share info about Japan, not so much about Fukushima, but Japan as whole.

grandmakdw
Question for you:

Is the birth rate as low as the media says?

Why do you think it is that low? (not what the media says, what you observe)

Just realized my questions were off topic. So I'll add a on topic comment. I lived in Germany where the Chernobyl cloud went over, on an American military base. Every woman who gave birth within a year afterward (including me) had a child with a defect of some kind. My daughter had a heart issue, my bff's daughter had no ear.

edit on 10-4-2014 by grandmakdw because: to get on topic

I think the birth rate kind of varies around the countryside. My belief is that there are fewer children per household in all major cities, but for some reason that itself is not true too. There are waiting list for preschool kids to get into the 3 year kindergarten schools in many areas, yet, there are schools that are closed due to lack of children. We only have one child and I can say, it is very expensive these days to raise children here. Recently the government pays $200 a month per child to help the cost in raising a child. It's not enough in most cases.

reply to post by musicismagic


Oh I see.The English website with more information may banned in Japan but those Japanese websites seem easier to read for you.I can read 汉字 on there only.

I lived in Japan 2012 and 2013 I even worked for a company that certifies stuff...
We even had a nuclear lab where they do measurements.
One of my colleague was involved in measuring the radiation arround Fukushima and we talked a lot about it.
The reality is 30km outside of Fukushima (I am talking about land, not sea) the radiation is lower than here in Germany in Munich.
I even did my own measurements in Tokyo and Osaka.
There is a lot of fear mongering going on and there are a lot of scientific reports, that report the same as I just said.
This is by no means good, since inside this 30km it is still pretty bad, but it is not as bad as a lot of people want other to believe it is....
And I will not post anything else in this thread, I don't like this threads, because as soon as I give my opinion on it I am called a shill even though I nearly never try to post in this threads.

btw. if anybody wants to know which company, I will give the information via PM I don't want to post it here.

edit:

grandmakdw
Question for you:

Is the birth rate as low as the media says?

Why do you think it is that low? (not what the media says, what you observe)

Just realized my questions were off topic. So I'll add a on topic comment. I lived in Germany where the Chernobyl cloud went over, on an American military base. Every woman who gave birth within a year afterward (including me) had a child with a defect of some kind. My daughter had a heart issue, my bff's daughter had no ear.

edit on 10-4-2014 by grandmakdw because: to get on topic

Japans birthrate has been low since years, they have one of the fastest declining population in the world.

Btw. the Chernobyl stuff is what I wanted to express with my comparison to Munich, a lot of Europe has high radiation and we still live a normal life.

Oh I see.The English website with more information may banned in Japan but those Japanese websites seem easier to read for you.I can read 汉字 on there only.

That's "hanzi", isn't it? Whereas kanji would be 漢字. So you can read chinese, but not japanese - meaning, that you don't know how to read かな/カナ?

Would be clearer if you had just said in english, what you meant.

Shoujikina

Oh I see.The English website with more information may banned in Japan but those Japanese websites seem easier to read for you.I can read 汉字 on there only.

That's "hanzi", isn't it? Whereas kanji would be 漢字. So you can read chinese, but not japanese - meaning, that you don't know how to read かな/カナ?

Would be clearer if you had just said in english, what you meant.

Yeah ~I thought you folks can read that .^ ^|||