Image shows radioactive water seeping into the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
This illustration has been cycling the internet for a while and though other sites and individuals have debunked it, Snopes finally got on it.
Let me tell you why this irritates me so.
For starters, I have no patience for the wild stories that people love to post on Facebook. Many of them can be disproven via a simple Google search, yet with social media as it is these days, people are far more likely to panic over half-cocked or outright false stories without checking their sources. It seems that source and fact checking has retired to the great research heaven in the skies. There are times I want to jump on a story but learning the hard way has shown me that individual research can go a long ways. So when I see people running wild with these stories, it just makes me want to tear my hair out.
You can't believe everything on the internet. Check your sources. Check the source's sources. I thought that this was an established standard. If you can't find anything to prove or disprove something, but it seems shady, sit on it a while. Look for some more information. If it proves to be true, commence freaking out. If it proves to be false, either sit in relief that you narrowly avoided looking idiotic or if you did have a Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever freakout, own up to it and show people the new, improved, factual story so that they don't make the same mistake.
The other really, really big thing that bothers me is how this sort of misrepresentation of facts cheapens the event. If the radiation levels disperse as estimated, then people won't look at that as a bullet narrowly dodged; they're going to point the finger at this graph (which doesn't relate to radiation at all) and say "Look at those stupid scientists. They said it would be THIS BAD", and that isn't an overstatement. This legitimately happens. People don't understand that science is not like history; it is ever changing and evolving. New things are discovered, old things are question; it is a field that is ever moving forward. Yet many people do this because they fail to understand that change is the very core of science and that it is not a stagnant field.
So when something comes along like this, hyped up by the unknowing masses via social media, it makes it even harder for the people studying the actual issue to make the facts known. People have already been freaked out by what they see. They don't want to listen to some measly EPA guy who specializes in this. There is nothing wrong in taking stories and statements with a grain of salt; there is nothing wrong with saying, "Hey, I know that this is how they expect it to be but I'm concerned it may be worse." A healthy dose of concern doesn't do any harm. But arm flailing refusal to believe in the facts presented to you is asinine.
Imagine this. You're sitting outside with a friend and you say, "Boy! The sky sure is clear!" and they respond with, "Hell no, it's cloudy as fuck." So you escort them around your yard and show them several times that the sky is indeed clear of clouds. Your friend refuses to believe it.
"WeatherBug said it was cloudy today. It's cloudy."
So frustrated, you take them on a short car ride. While on this car ride your friend spots a vapor trail left behind by an airplane. Immediately they start screaming in your face, "CLEAR SKIES, HUH? WHERE ARE YOUR CLEAR SKIES NOW?! WHAT IS THIS? A CLEAR SKY CONSPIRACY?".
You try and explain what a vapor trail is to your friend. They instead whip out their phone and proceed to show you a dozen pictures of clouds that look vaguely like vapor trails. You try and tell them that hey, it may look kind of like a cloud but it isn't a cloud in the traditional sense. One vapor trail does not a cloudy sky make. But instead of listening to reason, they pull up Facebook and show you an AMAZING picture of multiple vapor trails someone took at an air show and ten thousand idiots who have circulated the picture claiming them to be clouds and that it just proves how dumb weather people are.
And at this point, you just kill your friend because there's no living with them any more.
That's an exaggeration of the situation, but for those of us who are fans of science and study within the scientific field, the frustration felt is much the same. Something might look like something, something might be incorrectly labeled as something, but that does not make it correct.
Further more, the argument that some make about how it doesn't matter what the graph really means, only the end result, is dishearteningly ridiculous. People should be aware of the issue; it may have some ecological impacts that are deleterious to the Pacific and certainly to the lives of those around the area where radiation is highest. The fact that a corporation held back on the details and glossed over the severity of the leak definitely deserves attention; it has some frightening ramifications of how much power corporations have worldwide.
The ends does not justify the means when it ends up in a mass of people who have their facts frightfully wrong. People tend to set themselves up on pedestals when it comes to these kind of things. I know because I've been one of them. It's easy to jump all over the stories that discredit something you take a stance again, and it's equally as easy to turn to mouth frothing enragement over a story that might support something you take an interest in or holds personal value to you.
When a story like this is encountered, again, the best thing to do is fact check. Snopes is a good site for a quick check over rather something has weight or not. Otherwise, some picky Googling past panicked headlines is always worth a moment of your time. Having been a person experiencing keyboard warrior outrage, I can tell you that fact checking will save you from having to swallow some embarrassment down the line.