Just for a little perspective, Denver is sitting at about 35 CPM right now with a tendency to go up over 50 from time to time. No city in Japan has reported over 19 CPM and radiation levels are [b]going down[/b].

here’s an informative article about what radiation is and how it’s meanured for those interested

http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate  /faqs/radiation.html

note the table that shows the various sources of exposure in mrem

the Fukushima plant is reported to be leaking about 1 mrem an hour [b]at the epicenter[/b]. That’s about the same rate as commercial air travel. Let’s not forget that the radiation levels are at a small fraction of that at the edge of the evacuated zone. Also, let’s not forget that radiation does not travel, contaminated materials travel, and as irradiated dust travels it disperses in three dimensions. While detectable the dust cloud from the reactors was hundreds of times lower in radiation than the 10 mrem EPA deems as safe for air in US cities.

And the more it costs to build the “safest possible” nuclear reactors also means those reactors may no longer be producing cheap electrical power. They may not be cost effective anymore.

None of the reactors will last forever and the final disposal bill may well come when none of the countries who have them can afford to dismantle them safely. Those waste disposal sites will have to be every bit as safe and “fool proof” as the reactors themselves and they will have to devise a way of doing so that can effectively “last forever”. And all that care and expense will be spent producing nothing of practical use to the consumer. But those costs will also be passed onto the consumer or taxpayer. If the utility company that built them goes bankrupt – the bills will have to be paid by the governments. That is, if they are in any condition to pay them.

If population growth alone were enough to ensure a happy and prosperous future, countries like India and China would have been the most magnificent and wealthiest countries on the planet for the last 1000 years. Instead they are developing countries with enormous numbers of extremely poor people. They both have deplorable environmental protections. There is no guarantee that the wealthier countries of today will remain that way, even 100 years from now.

And the more it costs to build the “safest possible” nuclear reactors also means those reactors may no longer be producing cheap electrical power. They may not be cost effective anymore.

None of the reactors will last forever and the final disposal bill may well come when none of the countries who have them can afford to dismantle them safely. Those waste disposal sites will have to be every bit as safe and “fool proof” as the reactors themselves and they will have to devise a way of doing so that can effectively “last forever”. And all that care and expense will be spent producing nothing of practical use to the consumer. But those costs will also be passed onto the consumer or taxpayer. If the utility company that built them goes bankrupt – the bills will have to be paid by the governments. That is, if they are in any condition to pay them.

If population growth alone were enough to ensure a happy and prosperous future, countries like India and China would have been the most magnificent and wealthiest countries on the planet for the last 1000 years. Instead they are developing countries with enormous numbers of extremely poor people. They both have deplorable environmental protections. There is no guarantee that the wealthier countries of today will remain that way, even 100 years from now.

People, if immediate relief to help those stranded in Northern Japan aren’t going to happen soon, you will be seeing way more dead bodies in the coming months due to starvation. Something that can be entirely preventable if the mass media would stop focusing so much on the nuclear threat and their hypotheses.

BBC is perhaps the only place that minutely posts the pleas for help in the city of Minamisoma, where 71,000 are cut off from supplies (no food, no clean water, and no heat). Do your part and urge the mass media to bring more focus back to the victims at hand.

The increase in average global temperature results in increased evaporation from the oceans and increased energy in the atmosphere. And whatever goes up must come down. Global warming means more storms (hurricanes, typhoons, blizzards, snowstorms, rainfall) of greater magnitude and duration.

RationalSkeptic, you are unlikely to notice an increase average global temperature of a few degrees. But you are likely to notice the resulting climate changes, such as the record snowfall in upstate New York that you cite.

The scientists who are concerned about the effects of increasing CO2 in our atmosphere have been predicting adverse changes in climate for decades. Global warming does NOT mean more sunny days.

I could never understand what those memory tress mentioned in the movie Avatar actually had to recall? It would have been a very repetitive recall