Sunday 8 September 2013

Tokyo gets Olympics despite Fukushima

Yesterday the IOC awarded the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo.

The Japanese delegation to Buenos Aires, where the decision was made, was forced continually to defend Tokyo from the accusation that it was in danger from Fukushima radiation. Even prime minster Shinzo Abe had to answer questions from IOC delegates and reassure them that radiaton levels in Tokyo were lower than in Paris or New York.

While it's some comfort to know that IOC delegates were not disturbed enough by Fukushima misinformation to vote against Tokyo, it is far from ideal that the issue had to be raised at all.

It is hard to imagine anything in the universe that will affect the Tokyo Olympics less than radiation from Fukushima Daiichi. Radiation from the accident is measurable now only in parts of Fukushima prefecture itself. Athletes will receive massively more radiation in the international flights going to Japan than from radiation in Tokyo. The irony is that genuine (or at least measurable) threats to health in a big city, such as smog, went completely unmentioned by the IOC or journalists covering the announcement. On the other hand, if actual contamination - in the form of air pollution - were taken seriously, perhaps the Beijing Olympics, for example, would not have been held at all.

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