Japan's Meltdown

The earthquake and even the tsunami may pale in comparison to what is coming.

The news today was full of ominous reports of a possible meltdown of one reactor core, releasing plutonium, which is extremely dangerous in the radiation particle comparisons. One nuclear physicist claims if they must abandon the site because that reactor is releasing high levels of radiation into the environment, meltdown of at least two other reactors is likely also.

Claims of an event worse than Chernobyl circulate the web.

Meanwhile, here in Oregon, unbeknownst to me, until today that is, snow, falling in Pendleton, and even in Roseburg, contained oil. The snow left oily sheens on cars and windows. How could this be?

I wonder if the cause could be the oil refinery fire after the quake in Japan. Snow forms around particulates in the air and in this case, I guess it was oil particulates.

Where there was snow, at least the oil fell from the sky. Where there was no snow, are we breathing that in?

I think we've screwed our planet over fairly well. Will Oregon be at risk if one, two or three reactors are out of control in Japan? I have no idea. We've already had very tiny levels of radioactive iodine carried over. Plutonium is far more dangerous, I heard.

We often get winds off the Pacific here, right out of Asia. We've been the unfortunate recipients of air pollution here in Oregon from as far away as China and even Russia.

There's not much we can do about these things. Not now. Too late.