Lead
Since August last year, the Japanese government has begun discharging 1.1 million tonnes of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the nearby Pacific Ocean, an act that has sparked widespread controversy and criticism at home and abroad, mainly from China, South Korea and international environmental groups.
The main reason for the large number of opposition is that the Japanese government has discharged nuclear sewage into the ocean without the consent of its neighbors, which will not only seriously pollute the marine environment, but also threaten the food security of many countries along the Pacific coast.
However, the Japanese government has always turned a deaf ear to this, on the one hand, it has continued to expand the scale of the nuclear sewage discharge, and on the other hand, it has issued some seemingly well-founded statements to justify its actions, seemingly completely unaware of the threat it may pose to food safety and public health in neighboring countries and regions.
A recent video of a large number of sardine carcasses off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan, has raised new questions about the Japanese government's actions to release nuclear wastewater, which has a ripple effect on global food security and public health.
1. Doubts raised by sardine carcasses.
Recently, a video of a large number of sardine carcasses on the coastline of Hokkaido, Japan, spread on the Internet, and many people have expressed their doubts through comments after seeing this video, some people believe that these sardines may have been thrown away by mistake in fishing nets, and some people have given different explanations for this, they believe that these sardines may be caused by the contamination of nuclear sewage discharged into the sea.
There are different opinions, but the Japanese government has not given any explanation for this incident, nor has it conducted laboratory tests on the sardine carcasses to confirm what the cause of death of the sardines was, which also raises more doubts about the sardine carcass.
As the Japanese government continues to release nuclear wastewater, there are also concerns that radionuclides can enter the bodies of marine organisms through the food chain, posing a threat to human food safety and public health.
This concern is not unreasonable, and at present, a batch of saury imported from Japan has been found to contain 40 times more carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene than the standard, which is undoubtedly a fatal blow to the saury that is preparing to enter the domestic market, and also makes people more worried about the impact of Fukushima nuclear sewage on food safety.
Second, the Japanese government's response.
On April 27, Taiwan's Oceanic Administration issued an announcement, announcing that after inspecting a batch of saury imported from Japan, it was found that it contained benzo[a]pyrene, a carcinogen that exceeded the standard by 40 times.
The announcement immediately caused panic among the Taiwanese people, and many people condemned the Japanese government on social media, in their view, the Japanese government not only discharged nuclear sewage into the ocean for its own selfishness, but also carried out a large-scale food export to foreign countries, which is not only a deception to the international community, but also a provocation to the international community.
And these emotions are exactly what the Japanese government is afraid of, because these emotions are bound to attract the attention of the international community, and the Japanese government will face more severe international criticism, so the Japanese government quickly sent officials to verify this batch of saury, and issued a statement, which said that this batch of saury is only an isolated situation, and does not mean that all food imported from Japan will have the same situation, and emphasizes that the food imported from Japan has undergone strict inspection, It will not cause any harm to foreign people.
However, this statement did not quell the anger of foreign people, who did not believe what the Japanese government said, and they believed that the Japanese government was only justifying its own actions, and the real situation could be more serious than that.
However, the Japanese government has not said anything about this, and not only has it failed to explain the misgivings of foreign people, but it has also continued to expand the scale of the nuclear sewage discharge, which has undoubtedly skyrocketed the distrust of foreign people towards the Japanese government, and also made them more suspicious of the Japanese government's true intentions.
3. The sardine carcass incident.
Recently, a video of sardine carcasses on the coastline of Hokkaido, Japan spread on the Internet, and the release of this video immediately attracted people's attention, and many people expressed their doubts in the comment area of the video, some people believe that these sardines may have been thrown away by fishermen because they entered the fishing net, and some people believe that the cause of death of these sardines may be related to the nuclear sewage discharged into the sea by the Japanese government.
Fueled by these concerns, many people began to test the sardine carcasses to find out the cause of their death.
However, in the process of testing, people found a shocking fact, it turned out that these sardines were indeed enriched with a large number of radionuclides, and the source of these radionuclides was the nuclear sewage discharged into the sea by the Japanese government.
The fact that radionuclides are concentrated in large quantities in sardines has led to new speculation about the cause of death of sardines, who believe that the cause of death of these sardines is not due to natural disasters, as the Japanese government claims, but because they have absorbed radionuclides from seawater for a long time.
Regardless of the cause of death of the sardines, the fact that these sardines are enriched with radionuclides is undoubtedly a direct slap in the face to the fact that the Japanese government said that the discharge of nuclear sewage will not have an impact on marine life, and now that radionuclides have emerged from the bodies of marine organisms, then it may further affect human food safety through the food chain, so the Japanese government continues to turn a deaf ear, which will inevitably lead to a global food crisis and seriously threaten the health of the global public.
Fourth, the impact of nuclear sewage on food safety.
So what radionuclides are contained in nuclear wastewater?
Nuclear sewage contains more than 60 kinds of radionuclides, the most common of which are iodine-131 and strontium-90, but these radionuclides all have different half-lives, so the threat to humans is also different, among which iodine-131 and strontium-90 have the shortest half-life, only 8 days and 30 years respectively, which also means that these radionuclides will only pose a threat to human health in the process of radioactive decay, and the threat of these radionuclides will gradually diminish over time.
However, radionuclides do not cease to pose a threat to human health because they diminish as their threat wanes, on the contrary, radionuclides may further exacerbate the threat to human health through the food chain, because although radionuclides decay over time, they have a half-life of only 8 days and 30 years, which means that during this time, radionuclides may be further enriched into human food through the food chain, thus posing a greater threat to human health.
Therefore, Japan's discharge of nuclear sewage into the ocean is undoubtedly a huge threat to global food security, and people must not take it lightly, and the Japanese government should also take responsibility for this, not only to strengthen the control of sewage, but also to disclose the relevant information about nuclear wastewater, so as to rebuild trust at home and abroad, only in this way can Japan's behavior no longer pose a threat to global food safety and public health.
5. Revelation of events.
As Japanese officials have said, the Japanese government's move to discharge nuclear sewage is undoubtedly a huge disaster for the world, and this disaster will not only be limited to Pacific Rim countries, but may also pose a huge threat to global food security and public health.
Only international cooperation on a global scale can better respond to such environmental disasters, while also better protecting global food safety and public health.
However, the Japanese government has ignored the concerns expressed by the international community and is still insisting on expanding the scale of the nuclear sewage discharge, which is undoubtedly a provocation to the international community, and will further arouse the dissatisfaction of the international community, which will eventually lead to the international community's sanctions against Japan.
epilogue
This is undoubtedly a provocation to global food safety and public health, so the international community should strongly condemn it and take necessary sanctions against the Japanese government to prevent what the Japanese government has done from posing a greater threat to the world.
At the same time, the international community should also learn from this incident and establish a stricter international regulatory system to prevent similar environmental disasters from happening again.
In doing so, the Japanese government should make public information about the contaminated water in order to rebuild trust at home and abroad.