Headline, February 12 2025/ HONOURS : ''' CITIZENS'* SCIENTISTS CALLINGS '''

HONOURS : 

''' CITIZENS'* SCIENTISTS 

CALLINGS '''

'' ENVIRONMENTALLY SHATTERED LIVES '' : ESTEEMED Global Founder Framers of !WOW! : '' How many Students-Citizens-Scientists '' do we have on !WOW! - for testing environment, water quality, food etc? '

ALLOW ME THE HONOUR to ask esteemed Karan Thapar sahib from Great Mother India, and esteemed Hassan Nisar sahib from Proud Pakistan. ' Sires, any such honours? Can you do any such delights on your programmes?'

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY RISES TO GIVE MS. KOBAYASHI - one of Fukushima's citizen scientists - a standing ovation.

Every year when winter finally loosens its grip on northern Japan, Tomoko Kobayashi begins what has become an annual rite for her and small band of collaborators.

They head out with measuring devices to keep tabs on an invisible threat that still pollutes the mountains and forests around their homes : radioactivity.

In her car, Ms. Kobayashi follows a route that she now knows by heart, making regular stops to probe the air with a survey meter, a box with a silver wand that looks and acts like a Geiger counter.

She uses it to detect gamma rays, a telltale sign of her radioactive particles that escaped when three reactors melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 after the undersea earthquake sent a towering tsunami crashing into the coastline near the plant.

She and a group of fellow residents of Odaka, a small community near the plant, spend days collecting readings at hundreds of points, which they use to color-coded maps of radioactivity levels emanating from nuclear particles still scattered across the countryside.

Ms. Kobayashi is one of Fukushima's residents around the plant who responded to official cover-ups and silences by acquiring their own measuring devices and teaching themselves how to use them.

THEY DEFIED a government that at first tried to prohibit nonprofessionals from measuring radiation and later just ignored them.

Almost 14 years after the meltdowns, the citizen scientists persist, fueled by smoldering distrust of authority.

While their numbers have dwindled as some grew old or moved away, many, like Ms. Kobayashi remain vigilant, eager to make their voices heard or simply to reclaim control of lives shattered when towns around the plant were evacuated or contaminated.

They have created new communities with their networks of like-minded people. By filling gaps left by government inaction, they have grown proficient at measuring and mapping invisible radiation, leading to what experts have called a democratization of expertise.

This grass-roots embrace of science is an enduring legacy of the Fukushima disaster and a path to self-empowerment. 

'' Around the world, we have seen a growing contempt for expertise, but these citizen scientists are going against that trend, '' said Kyle Cleveland, a sociologist at Temple University in Tokyo who has researched perceptions of radiation during the Fukushima crisis.

'' They are using knowledge to understand their environment and claim legitimacy for their grievances.'' 

While the citizen scientists were often the only source of radiation numbers in the months after the meltdowns, these days they play watchdog, verifying the government's figures and providing a level of detail that officials still won't. 

After falling for several years, radiation outside the plant has plateaued at levels often still many times higher than before the accident.

Some groups have achieved considerable expertise in detecting these invisible particles.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Building a Better World, continues. The World Students Society thanks Martin Fackler.

With most respectful dedication to Mankind, The New York Times, The Global Founder Framers of The World Students Society - the exclusive and eternal ownership off every student in the world - and then Students, Professors and Teachers .

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless