Don't worry folks. 500% radiation levels on California beaches only red painted plastic forks.

Health officials in California are now telling residents not to worry after a video uploaded to the internet last month seemed to show high levels of radiation at a Pacific Coast beach.

The video, “Fukushima radiation hits San Francisco,” has been viewed nearly half-a-million times since being uploaded to YouTube on Christmas Eve, and its contents have caused concern among residents who fear that nuclear waste from the March 2011 disaster in Japan may be arriving on their side of the Pacific Ocean.

Peterson told the Review he was “befuddled” over the ordeal, but suggested the culprit could be something not too sinister — such as red-painted eating utensils buried on the beach.

Well there you have it. Nothing to fear here and this should put an end to all the panic. I wish people would stop bringing their take out food to the beach leaving their red painted eating utensils laying around everywhere like cigarette butts. If you think burying them in the sand will hide your littering ways, you're wrong because hand held radiation detectors will find them. Anyway, it's safe to go back in water. Have a nice day.
rt.com...

Here's the video in question:

Lol... I'm just wondering why eating utensils would be radioactive in the first place. That is hilarious. But not quite as hilarious as them thinking "red painted eating utensils" is a more probable explanation than Fukushima. What kind of drugs are they smoking.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


It would appear that 'Occam's Razor' only works when you want it to.

FlySolo
reply to post by ChaoticOrder

 

It would appear that 'Occam's Razor' only works when you want it to.

The "simplest answer" is very often subjective anyway. What one person thinks is simple another might see as complex, and vice versa. The correct answer is not necessarily the simplest, it's the answer which fits the data and observations.

While I do think that we will (or maybe already have) experienced the effects of the Fukishima disaster in the United States, it has yet to have been confirmed. Take this article for example.

experts have discovered radiation hot spots measuring 1,400 per cent above normal background levels

After studying a dirt sample in a spectrum analyzer, the substance was found to contain radium and thorium, which are both naturally occurring radioactive elements. No evidence of cesium-137, the fissile material used in the Fukushima reactors, was discovered, leading Weiss to conclude that the radiation had no link to the nuclear plant in Japan.

As you can see there are reasons to be concerned but I don't believe it has anything to do with Fukushima at this point. The real question is why is so much radioactive material showing up now that has nothing to do with Fukushima?

www.infowars.com...

Why didn't they just blame it on cigarette butts? Plenty of them out there and there have been studies that show cigarette tobacco does have radiation. At least then maybe more people would do something about all the butts on the beach and the side of the road. That would explain the elevated radiation levels almost everywhere?

I know where the radiation is coming from, as do most of the posters on ATS!

who gives a fork.

Wait till the cars start washing up

reply to post by FlySolo


To me, Occam's Razor is almost entirely bull #. Almost.

While it does have it's functions, the logic behind it is unacceptable for me, for most occasions.

Sometimes, the so called "simplest explanation" is proven to be wrong. And the most absurd and most out of this planet's ideas and theories were proven to be right.

I mean, according to Occam's Razor, the Ptolemaic Model would be correct and so is the Geocentric model. I mean, they are the simplest explanation among various other theories. Earth is at the center of everything.... the Sun is a giant fireball that rotate around us....

Well it is only California. We would not lose much if California went away actually. The only problem is if California is unsafe then the knuckles heads out there would move my direction which is not good for the rest of the country. We need to immediately put up a giant fence around California to keep everyone there. Just a thought.....

Radiation, like light, follows the inverse square law. This means that (succinctly) a detector of the size of the one used in the video would not be capable of detecting a source that is the size and intensity of a plastic fork (or even several forks) more than a few feet away.

What he is detecting in the video is an increase in radioactivity generally in a large area of the beach.

What I also see is a lot of hype based on an uneducated perspective. I haven't heard a straight answer yet about whether or not a variation in background radiation level of a factor of 5 is normal for that area.

Sorry but it made me laugh with him using the terminology
that it was "Red-Painted Plastic Forks" as if they were
actually painted, instead of red plastic forks.
It's all bogus anyway.

Cheers
Ektar

500% background levels which are incredibly low is still, very, very low.

Perspective is definitely needed here, which obviously many people still lack.

You go on and live in a state of fear over a next-to-nothing situation, and I'll keep going about my life.

Flame away!


edit: Found a gem of a site which may help the more analytical gain the much needed perspective they require to quell their irrational fears:

Natural RadioActivity

Of particular interest. The worlds oceans contain 41 exabecquerel (1 million terabecquerel) of uranium. Remember that OMG, trillion bq number produced to scare the poo out of the ignorant some time ago?? Yea, perceptive is key, kiddos.

reply to post by jrod

I know where the radiation is coming from, as do most of the posters on ATS!

Where?? If you think it is from Fukushima, than why is it much more radio active in places like Virginia Beach? Or try some Brazilian beaches that millions of people a year seem to have no problem with, but are many times more radioactive than California. Sand, especially granite sand, can be quite radioactive, should we dig up all the sand, or close all the beaches found to have high radiation levels? And move everyone out of Colorado too? Very radioactive up there.

reply to post by BugOut

Just a thought.....

No. It is much less.

reply to post by GaryN


I'm on the side that thinks the background levels on the Pacific have increased over the last couple of years.

Of course there is background radiation everywhere, sometimes magnitudes larger in some areas. IF Fukushima is the cause, we should be concerned.

We are concerned.

Ok, so I have a bit of news about this...
I live in the San Francisco Area and most the kids in my children's school have been out with stomach/diarrhea issues.
I recently was violently ill for 3 days an didn't go to the hospital but our oldest kid got violently sick last night so we had to take him to the E.R. What we were told was really surprising....
Turns out we came in contact with Swine Flu and the hospital beds were full of people suffering from it. We are a hardy bunch so they just prescribed Josh (our oldest some nausea/diarrhea medicine an sent us home. BUT while we were talking to the doctor we asked if he thought it could be radiation sickness and he said "Confidentially YES" the majority of the stomach bugs affecting the kids/adults in our area is low level radiation sickness from Fukushima and there's nothing to be done about it and he couldn't say much more than that.
So in a nutshell yea there is a fair amount of radiation affecting our area and causing bouts of minor nausea in all of us, but nobody will admit to it for fear of losing their Job.
We had swine flu and that is just a BRUTAL sickness but that was completely different from what's affecting schools attendance in our area.
I heard it first hand so I know it to be true but as far as proof well like everything there's not a lot to be had.

Stick a Geiger probe in an old orange-red Fiesta-ware coffee cup and it will register thousands of CPM

reply to post by NewsWorthy


If the doctor truly believes it's from radiation, why didn't he prescribe potassium iodide for your children? Since children are so much more susceptible to thyroid damage, causing cancer and other diseases , it would seem to have been a no-brainer.

Responsible beach goers on the West coast should monitor the beaches. If it has radiation there, then stay off the beaches. I
am sure time will reveal the whole outcome of this event. The people in charge of those west coast state's beaches probably don't want to alert people ruining the incoming economy resulting from the tourism dollars of vacationers. The states would lose vast incomes and people would move and relocate. It would be a financial disaster of epic proportions. People might even panic.

I wouldn't lay down on the floor at the hospital in the x-ray room. All the rad particles fall to the floor and last for who knows? Who would lay on a beach loaded with radiation and take a swim in it? It is what it is sadly.