#radiophobia — Public Fediverse posts

As part of sustaining the traditional #radiophobia in #Germany the Umweltministerium is periodically posting[^1] this scary map. Its purpose is to demonstrate that the negative effects of #Chornobyl disaster last even 40 years after it happened. The color coding for Cesium-137 content is the essence of this manipulation, because red suggests its something dramatically exceeding the norm but the scale next to it shows the highest content is ~48 kBq/m2.

Let’s now convert it into actual radiation dose ingested by a potential consumer. The calculation is conveniently provided by Germany’s own Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz[^2]

The ingestion of 80,000 becquerel caesium-137 corresponds to an exposure of about 1 millisievert for adults.

For reference, a single CT full-body scan delivers 10–30 mSv. So if you somehow consumed all mushroom completely covering 1 m2 of the “polluted” land you’d receive 0.05-0.15 of a CT scan (because the max is 58 kBq/m2 and in the example above they use 80 kBq). But the BfS example actually also conveniently refers to the actual mushroom consumption too:

The consumption of 200 grams of mushrooms with 1,000 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram results in an exposure of 0.0025 millisievert. This is considerably less than the radiation exposure during a flight from Frankfurt to Gran Canaria. However, if adults eat such a mushroom meal each week, they will receive an additional annual radiation exposure corresponding to about nine flights from Frankfurt to Gran Canaria. Expressed in numbers it is 0.13 millisievert.

P.S. human body naturally emits ~5 kBq from potassium-40 (K-40) all the time

[^1]: https://xcancel.com/UmweltBW/status/2048133845828956468?s=20

[^2]: https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/_functions/cs137-nahrung.html

Wow, the #BBC4 show, “Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World” really leans hard on the victim blaming #radiophobia crap.

#Fukushima #nuclear

A long standing meme in the German anti-nuclear scene is how you can't eat mushrooms from German forests, as they're tainted by cesium-137, decades after the Chernobyl disaster. What are the facts?

Yes, there is a slight uptake of it in mushrooms. But you would need to eat amounts roughly similar to the amount of mushrooms an entire supermarket has, to get a dose of up to the level of normal background radiation in Germany. Or eat at least 2 kg to get the radiation exposure of a flight and return from Frankfurt/Main to New York City.

This is for the most radioactive parts of German mushrooms.

The legal level for food is at a level of if you eat only this for an entire year, then you will accumulate a dose of half the background radiation of the Ore Mountains (in German 'Erzgebirge') or Bavarian Forest (German: 'Bayerischer Wald'). Which would be an accumulated dose of 1.6 times the national average and 1/25th of the known threshold for observable radiation effects (cancer chance increase by 2 percent points compared to natural cancer risks).

In other words: German mushrooms are harmless from a radiation exposure standpoint, the regulation around it is just overly cautious.

Source below.

#Radiation #Germany #Radiophobia #Chernobyl

https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/lebensmittel/pilze-wildbret/pilze-wildbret.html

More "radiation is not bad for you" radiophobia claptrap from the guy who says Chernobyl is a garden, and Fukushima wastewater is just water:

"Was decontaminating Fukushima worth billions spent?"

As always with this shoddy work, the study only considers external gamma wave levels, while the primary risk to people in Fukushima is internalizing radioactive particles. Limit your inquiry, but globalize your conclusions.

#radiophobia #nuclear #NuclearPower #Fukushima #Chernobyl

https://asiatimes.com/2023/10/was-decontaminating-fukushima-worth-billions-spent/

The Mind Controller

Moscow has quite a bit of these ugly cellular towers. They appeared relatively recently and they have history.
For a long time Moscow had three cellular operators and no shortage of tall buildings and other structures for them to put their antennas in. Attics, rooftops, radio masts were divided between the Big Three. Then a fourth operator tried to enter the market. The Big Trio didn't like the idea much and they refused to share space, in fact they made sure it was hard for the unwanted competition to get any so their reception sucked. Then the fourth operator somehow struck the deal with street lighting company and got permission to install "hybrid lamposts" combining radio mast and street lights. https://friends.deko.cloud/display/d0446be5-915e-6660-724b-317134152755