Lately there's been overwhelming and near-hysterical media frenzy about the Fukushima nuclear reactors (which, by the way, cannot become nuclear bombs), and the frenzy is fed in part by the fact that there's a lot of scientific ignorance and misinformation about nuclear power and radiation (here is, for instance, the usually flippant xkcd doing yeoman's work with its explanatory graphic of everyday radiation levels). I don't want to underplay the very real concern. See also information on nuclear reactors, radiation, and Fukushima posted by the blog of MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. (I'd also like to point out its comment on nightmare scenarios flooding the media -- they have "varying degrees of scientific merit," which is diplomatic Nerdish for "there's a lot of BS out there.")
But amid it all, though, I can't help feeling that the Fukushima coverage has all but forgotten the much greater and far more terrifying crisis everywhere else in Japan: the humanitarian one as millions of Japanese struggle to cope amid the devastation.
Aid and relief workers are piling in (here is a riveting account by an Australian aid worker), but the need is unfathomably vast ... and every little bit helps. Let the specialists keep on Fukushima, but for God's sake, let us all please do what doesn't require such expertise -- and by that I mean everything we can for the folks. The next time you're tempted to flip out about Fukushima, I challenge you to give $5 to a charity working in Japan.
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