DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Japan hit by a 8.8 Earthquake, Tsunamis follow.

This is really freaky. Methinks the bay wants its land back.

Water Coming Up

Candy92:

All I can offer to your questions is this: We're witnessing forces that have been in play since before Mankind began recording his time here. These are the same forces that inspired the great writings that we all know of throughout our written history. They were in play when Hominids first used pictograms to record life stories, and they were in play BEFORE Humans (as we know them to be) walked this ball of blue.

We can't wrap our brains around it because Mother Earth is simply too big, too powerful, and too unfathomable for us to own.

We keep trying, and we make progress all the time... but events like this show us how little we've learned- and how much we still need to know.

Events such as these make us all feel a biit small and overwhelmed... and I'm not sure that it's a bad thing, in total. Why? Because we're talking about thousands of years of intellectual understanding, compared to MILLIONS of years of nature.

As for your questions about the timing of such things... in the span of geologic time, they probably represent .0001 of a second, in Human terms. In other words- a blip on the screen.

THAT'S how insignificant we are, in the Big Pic.

That doesn't take away any of the tragedy we're seeing, trust me. It breaks my heart of hearts to see fellow citizens of the world suffering through something like this.

Perhaps what will mark us as Citizens of This Time will be the way in which we respond to our Fellow Humans in their time of need. We may not be able to contain the forces of Mother Nature, but we can leave our imprint upon her timeline by our efforts in the here and now.

So long as there are people to tell Our Story- be it in cave writings or in 'storageable digital media'- each generation will learn from the past, and take the appropriate measures to help us survive such catastophies as we move forward.

Events like this humble us all... and force us to ask The Big Questions. I truly trust and believe that as long as we keep asking, we'll find the answers... and our species will survive.

As a species, we tend to think of ourselves as "in control," "the most advanced life forms on the planet," "masters of our own fate," etc. Events such as this remind us how fragile and vulnerable we are. It might be the same reason that despite our theological differences, most of us believe in the existence of a Higher Being- God, if you will (or any number of other names that serve the same purpose).

In some way, it's the only thing we paltry Humans can use to wrap our brains around the enormity of such events, and frame them in terms that we can comprehend.

I do believe that the shape of the Earth's land masses have been evolving nd changing for millennia- becuse of phenomena just like this. As a species, our understanding of Time is based upon the span of a Human Life... and what's 30-80 years, compared to the timeframe of a planet's life span?

We can see this one of two ways:

1. a tragedy of epic proportions
2. Ma Nature doing what she does, despite how important we THINK we are.

My guess is that #2 is closer to the truth (...no matter how bad it hurts).

Cleveland.com is reporting one of the nuclear reactors may face impending meltdown. I hope this spurns the international community to set a precedent in regards nuclear facilities and their proximity to coastlines. Not trying to impasionate, just a thought.

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We can see this one of two ways:

1. a tragedy of epic proportions
2. Ma Nature doing what she does, despite how important we THINK we are.

My guess is that #2 is closer to the truth (...no matter how bad it hurts).

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I concur.

This is a bit off the subject, but I feel the fabled City of Atlantis most likely was destroyed in a similar event.

Problem is there is not a whole lot of "middle of nowhere" places anymore.

There are apparently Two different plants with problems, similar spellings.

One has detected strong possibility of melted fuel rods and has had an explosion in a pumping system. They are preparing to dump seawater onto the core in an emergency cool-down procedure. This from CNN.

The danger, as with a meltdown, is that they get a steam explosion that shatters the containment vessel. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, and how big the blast is, a large section of Japan could be uninhabitable for the next thousand years or so.

This would be from radioactive particles, these plants cannot have a nuclear explosion.

Do you mean "cannot" as in, we can't AFFORD one,...or is it impossible ?

Thank you for that clem!

Not possible. The material used in a nuclear reactor, or at least the vast majority of them, is not enriched enough to cause a nuclear explosion. Wyndmere, outside of Detroit, pretty much ended using more enriched material.

What you get is extremely hot metal hitting a quantity of water, which it eventually will, and causing a steam explosion. This shatters the core into lots and lots of very deadly little particles.

This is an absolutely worst-case scenario, which even in this extreme situation has not happened yet. Outside of Russia, these things are built like a tank. Inside a bank vault. Inside a concrete bunker.

What will probably happen will be a radiation release worse than 3-Mile but nowhere near Chernobyl.

Couldn't they build reactors in the ground? I don't know if that would make a difference in function and safety.

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We can't wrap our brains around it because Mother Earth is simply too big, too powerful, and too unfathomable for us to own.

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Are you on peyote?

I think it's just plate tectonics at work.

You mean as opposed to a 6-foot thick, steel-reinforced concrete dome? That's enclosing the casing around the actual core, which I think is around 4-inches of steel. Maybe several hundred feet deep in a cave, but then you would need such a big hole for piping water in and power out, plus workers, that it really wouldn't matter. There's a cost-benefit ratio involved.

Just clicking....
A couple of hours ago there was an explosion at one of the plants that they were having trouble with and now there is breaking news on CNN that the plant MAY be having a meltdown.

not sure what you were getting at, but they had a camera on the nuke plant when it blew and they showed pictures of the building that housed one of the reactors and the containment vessel and it looked like the only thing left was steel trusses.

http://my.firedoglake.com/twolf1/2011/03...plant-in-japan/

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It should be a lesson to those who think that humans are so powerful and important that we can destroy it. I am always amused at those who believe our power is so much stronger than the planet.

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Pfft, I can think of a few ways to destroy the earth, at least as we know it. Your argument that "because nature kicked our butts this time, therefore humans aren't powerful enough to destroy it" doesn't make logical sense. It might depend on what you mean by "destroy." To me, destruction is what's happening to the rainforest daily, acres are slashed and burned for mediocre farming land that goes infertile in years because of how poor the soil is. Destruction is the loss of biodiversity like the eastern cougar and bengal tiger in the wild. In these ways we can affect the ecosystem of earth through destructive means and toward negative outcomes.

Are we at the whim of the planet? Yes, most definitely. Can we affect change on the Earth and destroy its ecosystem? Yes, most definitely. Saying that these somehow correlate is a non-sequitur.

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The extent of the damage and severity of the explosion is not yet known, but early reports are saying that the containment unit was not damaged. The evacuation radius has been increased to 20km.

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That was in the posting below the video. However if you were to go off a lot of people's reactions you would think that was an extinction level event that occurred there. All I'm saying is don't freak out because someone on TV might say its going to be like living in a video game called Fallout 4: New Japan. That doesn't make it true. These guys are infamous for stretching the truth to get ratings.

If you want to watch english coverage from Japan

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

Pfft, right back at ya, not surprising it would come from you.

I didn't say we couldn't damage our environment or that we shouldn't do everything possible to protect species and everything around us. However, believing everything we do will destroy this planet, and those who believe we are so powerful as to control the climate and many other ridiculous notions are an interesting group.

Some of you laugh and point at those who believe in things that can't be seen or proven, and yet do the exact same thing and look at the people who don't believe in your conclusions with ridicule and contempt.

You guys are just as funny as you claim those on the other side are.

Let's let this rest and go back to focusing on people suffering and the tragedy that is happening right now.

Who knows man. I know when I drove threw new orleans, and the surrounding area 9 months after katrina, the devastation was overwhelming. To see entire neighborhoods destroyed, and shopping plazas just wiped out, is something I will never forget. It's almost 6 years after, and parts of the city still havn't rebuilt. The destruction I seen from this earthquake, parts of Japan will never be the same, just like new orleans.

Well lets hope that Japan's version of FEMA is more competent than ours

I ignore certain posters for comments you just quoted, and love the feature for it.

Nicely done sir, not sure I could have said it better myself

When I heard that on whatever news I was watching at the time my jaw literally dropped. They also just said that Japan moved eight feet closer to the U.S. That is unbelievable.

It also shifted the earth's axis.

I think the news people are confusing two things.

The experts have pretty well confirmed some melted fuel rods. That is NOT a "meltdown". This is when the core melts through both containment vessels, this has not yet happened.

The two are connected, melted rods are one step away from melting through the containment, but they are not the same thing.

This is, however, some deep and serious stuff.

just looked at a bunch of photos.... it all just reminds me of pictures of Nagasaki & Hiroshima. Entire regions are just flattened and wiped out of existence.

@Buck
I don't like ignoring people, takes away all the fun

@Jules
I'm not sure who "you people" are other than those who respect a logical argument, and not one based on gut-feelings, opinion, and fervor. We affect weather patterns all the time through our actions. Mount Kilimanjaro's de-icing is the perfect example. No, it's not because it got warmer (a result of global warming, etc.), it's because the cloud forest surrounding the mountain got burned to the ground, reducing the amount the watervapor pushed up the mountain, resulting in gradually less ice deposited. Over time this results in less and less ice. That's an affect that we caused on local weather pattern shifts. It's not a simple process to affect change, but it is possible.

What do you mean by destroy? A person can make the argument that the Earth and it's biosphere are one. Without the biosphere, this planet is no different than Mars or Venus, a barren, rocky, planet. To destroy the essence of Earth, what sets it apart from the rest of the inner planets, is to destroy it's ecosystems.

Buck apparently has to ignore people who think differently than he does. How enlightened and open minded. It's always funny when people who use the ignore function and then have to announce to everyone who they ignore. It's their way of shouting, "I don't like you!". LMAO.

I thought I made it clear that I did not want to further this conversation in this thread. We've both made ourselves clear. I've heard people just as intelligent as you believe yourself to be make very good scientific arguments to back the opposite viewpoint.

This is for another thread, and it's been argued many times on this board. We aren't likely to change each other's minds at this point. I won't be responding back to anything you have to say about this in this thread, I don't want it hijacked any further into this old argument.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Japan-cent...set=&ccode=

Japan central bank injects funds as stocks plunge
Tokyo shares plunge, central bank injects record funds after earthquake, tsunami

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's central bank injected a record 7 trillion yen ($85.5 billion) into money markets and the Tokyo stock market nosedived Monday on the first business day since an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country's northeast and raised dire worries about the economy.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average fell 487 points, or 4.8 percent, to 9,767.18. Worries about the economic impact of the disaster triggered a broad sell-off that hit all sectors.

The Bank of Japan moved quickly to try to keep financial markets stable. By flooding the banking system with cash, it hopes banks will continue lending money and meet the likely surge in demand for post-earthquake funds.

Immediately after the earthquake, the central bank pledged to "do its utmost," including providing liquidity. A one-day policy meeting was scheduled for later Monday.

Preliminary estimates put repair costs from the earthquake and tsunami in the tens of billions of dollars -- a huge blow for an economy that lost its place as the world's No. 2 to China last year, and was already in a fragile state.

Japan's economy has been ailing for 20 years, barely managing to eke out weak growth between slowdowns, saddled by a massive public debt that, at 200 percent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among industrialized nations.

"In the short term, the market will almost surely suffer and stocks will plunge. People might see an already weakened Japan, overshadowed by a growing China, getting dealt the finishing blow from this quake," said Koetsu Aizawa, economics professor at Saitama University.

The nation's big-three automakers, meanwhile, said they would halt all production in Japan due to widespread damage to both suppliers and transport networks in the region.

The Bank of Japan pledged to pump more money into financial markets when it holds a policy board meeting Monday. There is not much left for the central bank to do regarding interest rates, which are already close to zero.

Tens of billions of dollars are expected to be needed to rebuild homes, roads and other infrastructure -- requiring public spending that will add to the national debt.

"The impact on Japan's economy will be devastating," said Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank. "The long-term economic blow to a country already struggling to lower its budget deficit ... will be significant."

Noting the 1995 earthquake in Kobe cost $132 billion and was the world's most expensive natural disaster, she said it was too early to say whether the losses from Friday's disaster would be on that massive a scale.

Four nuclear plants were damaged in the temblors, causing widespread power outages. In a frantic effort to prevent meltdowns, nuclear plant operators ruined at least two reactors by pumping sea water into them.

In an unprecedented move for tech-savvy Japan in recent decades, Tokyo Electric Power Co. rolled out blackouts of three hours per day to parts of suburban Tokyo and other cities, starting Monday.

And Tokyo trains, which usually run like clockwork but stopped for nearly the entire day after the quake, will be on a reduced schedule starting Monday, to conserve electricity.

"It looks like we are going to be running on reduced electricity for a long time. That is a definite risk to industrial production," said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at New York-based researcher High Frequency Economics.

"For Japan, a nation that lives by the sea, food comes in by the sea, energy comes in by the sea, exports go out by the sea. Everything stops if a quarter of the coastline has been wiped out," said Weinberg who teaches at New York University.

Profits at both Tokyo Electric and Tohoku Power utility are likely to plummet because of recovery costs for the nuclear power plants damaged by the quake, according to Shigeki Matsumoto, analyst at Nomura Securities Co.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's top automaker, as well as Nissan Motor Co. and Honda suspended production at all their auto plants in Japan, starting Monday.

When production will resume is uncertain. The area hit by the quake is a major center for car production, complete with a myriad of parts suppliers and a network of roads and ports for efficient shipments.

"There is no way to get our products out, even if we make them, with the roads and distribution system damaged," said Honda Motor Co. spokeswoman Natsuno Asanuma.

Honda said the production halt will cost it about 4,000 vehicles a day.

Nissan said the tsunami damaged 1,300 vehicles bound for the U.S., including its Infiniti luxury brand, at Hitachi port in Ibaraki state in the northeast, and 1,000 vehicles stored at another center.

Among the plants being shut down is one Toyota had just opened in Miyagi prefecture, within the region hardest hit by the quake.

The factory, Toyota's first new Japan plant in 18 years, had been proudly shown to reporters last month as a welcome development in an otherwise stagnant Japanese auto market. It was set to start producing the Corolla for both the Japanese and North American markets in April.

Electronics plants in the northeast were also temporarily closed, including those owned by Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

But Aizawa, the economics professor, warned against too much pessimism.

A giant disaster can get Japan to pull together and even provide opportunities for construction and jobs as the recovery gets under way, he said.

"There can be a blessing even in misfortune," he said. "Recovery is about regaining a livelihood for people. No one is going to blame Japan or lower its debt ratings for working on a recovery. This is about lives."

new 6.2 aftershock.
new tsunami warning
another nuclear plant blast at reactor #3.