Thoughts on the 2014 UNSCEAR Report Regarding Fukushima Radiation Health Risks

I want to post something irresponsibly ill-informed. Please bear with me. I just saw an article (full disclosure: that site is paid for by the World Nuclear Association which obviously colors how I view their perception of the report) that says UNSCEAR's study shows data against rising cancer levels around the Fukushima plant and against increased radiation exposure excepting areas within the 20km evacuation area. Here is their very poorly made power point presentation. I want to get more informed so I can understand what kind of background the report arises from, but I'm finding that more difficult than I originally expected.

It may be just be that I'm incredibly skeptical of anything authorities say about Fukushima. And I think that's reasonable given how much TEPCO and the Japanese government lied, especially directly following the earthquake when they said there was no meltdown whatsoever. So naturally I have to wonder what affiliations UNSCEAR might have. It's not like it is uncommon in the US to appoint regulatory officials who have been CEOs of the corporations they are regulating. Their conflicts of interest ought to exclude them from taking such appointments, but sadly that is not the case. I googled briefly to see what I could find, but the articles that came up inspired little confidence in their journalistic integrity. One of the better ones can be found here.

That's a big part of the problem I have in trying to find the answers I want. It's easiest to find links to sensationalist articles that are in many cases even less credible to me than the news I consider propaganda. One of them claimed that UNSCEAR is "subservient to IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency)" who must approve all its reports. And that the chairman, Wolfgang Weiss, was "a boss" (how incredibly vague) for Euratom, an international organisation founded to create a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe.

Given common sense developed through years of rolling my eyes at committee appointments, it seems any of that could be accurate. But there's a serious lack of trustworthy information.

I'm not saying it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that UNSCEAR is actually an unbiased and independent committee. I'm also not saying that it is impossible that the observed thyroid cancer spikes were an isolated incident linked with the initial meltdown. It could very well be that the protective measures are working outside of the 20km evacuation zone.

What I am saying is that at the end of the day you have to be able to trust the information you're being given if it is to have any value. Neither side of this argument inspires trust, in my opinion. Data collection is a potentially dangerous task, so it takes a dedicated organisation to do it (assuming they really collect the data and don't just estimate it, a practice that has been employed before and that I wouldn't blame them for because getting close enough to collect useful data would be scary). But who supports that organisation? If their findings aren't transparent and their affiliations utterly independent, I wouldn't be willing to stake human lives on them.

The bloggers writing about this stuff, on the other hand, aren't conducting investigations that can override my skepticism with facts. Linking to Wikipedia and copy/pasting supposed affiliations (however much sense they might seem to make) doesn't argue the case. Neither does jumping to conclusions based on observing other unrelated events and circumstances. Good investigative journalism about the Fukushima plant itself could have been reassuring, but the new secrecy act the Japanese government passed last December made matters of nuclear energy a state secret. Reporting on them can earn both journalists and informants years of prison time.

I think it's hard to come out on either side of this issue without being judged either gullible or paranoid. I suppose I'm a little of both and that may be while it's hard for me to buy into the information I'm finding. But without transparency and without investigative journalism what should a reasonable person think? The best I can come up with is that I'm not moving near the Fukushima plant any time soon, and that I doubt any chairpersons of the IAEA will either.

Email: What are your thoughts on raising your kid with regard to language and religion?

I got a question from a friend of mine and thought I'd share my answer here too. Here's his email.

Hey I was curious. Please don't take offense I'm just curious because you have an interesting family life that is very distinct and multicultural. Are you raising your kid multilingual? And if so, English and Japanese? It may seem like a dumb question. But here is an even weirder follow up. And please again I don't mean this in a jerky way it's just been on my mind. What are your opinions on raising your kid religiously? My wife to be is Jewish and I'm a dirty pagan. We are both learning Swedish (and obviously we speak English), but I was wondering about your strategy to incorporate your ethno/religious background in your situation. Me and Demi have talked loosely about how we would do it with our kids, but I'm really curious about your opinions. Sorry if this seems weird lol. I [just] finally got the courage to ask someone who is kinda in our situation but theoretically lol.

No problem at all man. I wouldn't be any kind of friend if I took offense to you asking my advice and opinions. Those are some really challenging questions so I hope you don't mind me taking some time and space to answer them.

Beginning with language, yes definitely the goal is for our daughter to be bilingual. There are a couple reasons for that. First and foremost is because my family doesn't speak Japanese and my wife's family doesn't speak English. To be a part of everyone's life she needs to be able to communicate. There is also the professional benefit of having native level skills in two languages. I've been studying Japanese for nearly a decade and even though I can do business there is still a clear distinction between myself and a native-speaker. I don't know if I can ever bridge that gap completely. I'd like to give my daughter every advantage I can. And I also think knowing/studying more than one language is valuable to a healthy and satisfying intellectual life.

I am not, however, teaching her Hebrew. I also don't speak either Hebrew or Yiddish. I don't see a need for Julie to learn those because while it is part of our cultural history, we have no living relatives with whom we need to communicate that way. We'd do as well to learn any other language we have historical ties to in my opinion (like Gaelic or Latin, for example).

As far as religion goes, I am not at all religiously Jewish and Japanese religion isn't much like what we're used to in the US. There is a lot of tradition and there are many rituals involved, but it's just something they do, not something they live their whole lives by. There are exceptions of course, because there are certainly monks who dedicate themselves to their spirituality. I'm of the opinion that I'm Jewish no matter what I believe in because any of Hitler's followers would have beaten me to death and shot my kid in the street. I feel it is important to understand things about your own history if for nothing else than to know that people who hate you out of ignorance won't see the difference between a religious Jew and a cultural one.

I can't honestly say what I want to tell her is true about spiritual matters. I may just not bring it up and just teach her morality based on the old "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" axiom. Then if she has questions I'll talk to her about it when she asks. Maybe I'll point her towards what she needs to study in order for her to find a doctrine that she finds satisfying. Essentially, I feel that religion is incredibly personal. It's main role in my own life at least is to cope with the indescribable and majestic mysteries of life and the universe. Sorry to get a little more philosophical there than I'd like, but that's roughly how I'd put my feelings into words on that matter. I want her to figure out what's right for her without me having to overexpose her to my own particular system first.

I honestly can't say if I really think those are all the right ways to go about things. Some people take to their parents' religions very easily. Others rebel against them. But if your kid grows up to be a nice person with a healthy appetite for knowledge and the ability to communicate with the people that matter to them--that's pretty much the best I'd ever hope for.

In any case these are just my opinions and I'm not an expert of any kind. But this is what I came up with when asked to put an answer into words long before I'm ready to put it into practice.