AndyH
Well-known member
A post by Mycologist Paul Stamets on continuing releases of radioactive water from Fukushima:
Source: https://www.facebook.com/PaulStamets 6 Jan 2014
Source: https://www.facebook.com/PaulStamets 6 Jan 2014
Continuing the discussion:
"Again.... the problem is compounding and if the radioactive leaks are not stopped, there will be increasing concentrations, and some plumes will pollute the food chains, especially proximate to Fukushima or areas impacted by concentrated streams. It is good people are concerned - they should and must be - but this is an unfolding disaster, with few good options in sight, and becomes more problematic every day.
I concur with David Suzuki on this
http://ecowatch.com/2013/10/09/fukushima-radiation-safe-to-eat-fish/
It takes one generation to pollute - and many generations to clean it up. My father was a nuclear scientist/engineer and we argued many times about the danger of nuclear waste. He conceded that the storage of nuclear waste could be a ticking time-bomb if we could not contain it, especially the long lived radionucleotides.
We owe it to future generations to be ecologically rational. Fukushima is not the last nuclear power plant to crash. And I think the argument that nuclear power is the solution to offset global warming is inherently flawed if we do not find a solution to these types of disasters and the spent fuel.
We are doing experiments with Lawrence Livermore Labs on the feasibility of up-channelling Cesium 134 (safer for the lab tests) from the soil into the mushrooms. A quirk of nature is that mushrooms are very high in potassium, up to 5+%, and some mushrooms can substitute cesium for potassium, metabolically. The concept here is to remove cesium from the top few inches of soil, the mycelium will up-channel to cesium into the fruitbodies, thus decontaminating the soil without having to discard it - yet another ecological disaster. The mushrooms are then sequestered, and the problem is reduced (not solved) by several orders of magnitude. The research is on-going, and species-specificity is one of many factors. (Some species hyperaccumulate cesium better than others.)
Be aware, keep informed, be skeptical, and read the research. We are on this Earthship together. We need a new ecological/economic metric that places value on the long term consequences inflicted by those whose motivations are short term and solely profit driven. I think investing in nature, rich in solutions which have tested over millions of years, is the first place to look for answers. This is deeply personal to me: Nature speaks to us - will we listen ? I am trying to."