Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and three Cabinet ministers ate Fukushima fish sashimi at a lunch meeting Wednesday, in an apparent effort to show that fish is safe following the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that began last week.
Kishida and the three ministers had sashimi of flounder, octopus and sea bass, caught off the Fukushima coast after the water release, along with vegetables, fruits and a bowl of rice that were harvested in the prefecture, Economy and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who was at the meeting, told reporters.
The release of the treated wastewater into the ocean, which began Thursday and is expected to continue for decades, has been strongly opposed by fishing groups and by neighboring countries. China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response. In South Korea, thousands of people joined rallies over the weekend to condemn the discharge.
All seawater and fish sampling data since the release have been way below set safety limits.
This entire Fukushima waste water thing is just the modern plastic straw. Dumping it isn’t great, but fuck, there’s like three billion other things we should be really worried about more when it comes to the environment.
The media’s priorities on particular issues is fucked sometimes.
It’s been amplified to a considerable degree due to regional geopolitics, unfortunately.
While it isn’t great it isn’t terrible either. It just is. Also the media wouldn’t have to force scientists and responsible politicians to explain it this non-issue over and over if the public finally understood that Fukushima disaster is hardly a goddamn disaster. The moronic public opinion in this particular case did way more harm than the actual accident.