Meanwhile in.
[MUSIC]
Meanwhile in Japan,
they've got a plan to make our
waters a little bit funkier.
The US has backed Japan's
controversial decision to release
over 1.2 million tonnes of
contaminated water from
the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant
into the Pacific Ocean.
Climate envoy John Kerry said
during a press conference in Seoul
on Sunday that he was confident
that the Japanese government would
continue following due procedures.
So they have this water that was
contaminated during that disaster,
it has been treated.
Although people disagree about
exactly to what extent it's been
treated.
They say that the water is totally
safe to drink.
I will say that's what they said
in Flint too.
So I don't know,
it's a bit of an international
controversy here with China and
South Korea objecting to the plan.
They say that the sheer volume of
contaminated water flowing into the
Pacific could become a health, food
safety, and environmental hazard.
Others are worried about
the possibility of a Mothra type
situation coming from this.
But radioactive tampered with
water, even if it's been treated,
is going to make people
really uncomfortable,
especially when you're talking
about the volume that they are.
>> I never know what's going to
happen with those things.
So from time to time you'll see
a little conservative left in me.
And sometimes I think, all right,
so we got the nuclear waste and
we're throwing it in the ocean.
It'll eventually be fine, right?
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, what like,
20,000 years, it'll be fine.
>> Yeah, so how bad is it?
So how wrong am I?
Of course, it's a bad idea.
On the other hand, by the way,
I don't know what to do with it.
And I don't know if you have
that answer either.
But, okay, a bunch of fish
are going to die and stuff and
they're going to.
What did you say,
the Mothman prophecies are going to
come true or something?
>> That's another concern, I said
Mothra, but I'm even more worried
about the Mothman prophecies.
>> Yeah, okay, but
then what happens?
Do we have radioactive sushi for
the rest of our lives?
>> The attack of all major
metropolitan areas by [CROSSTALK].
I guess if you're
asking what's next then it's
Mecca mothra to counteract it.
[LAUGH] >> You've got to up
the ante for the sequel.
>> Sure. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> I think this is the time of
the night when I confess,
I don't know what the Mothra is.
>> It's from Godzilla.
So the Mothra is a Godzilla.
>> Then I feel better.
because I thought it
was a technical term.
>> No, [LAUGH].
>> No one else thought that,
just to be fair.
>> Gamma, the gamma is- >> Mm-hm.
>> Just keep pretending that all
the giant beasts in Godzilla,
just that Cenk doesn't know of,
are really scientific terms.
>> No, but the hilarious part was,
do I fake it and go, I mean,
I'm concerned about the Mothra
coming out of the ocean.
[LAUGH] >> I wish that you had.
[LAUGH] >> My only regret is that I
have apparently capped out on my
knowledge of Godzilla.
I don't have any, you said Kujir,
I don't know any others,
unfortunately.
There's a baby Godzilla,
I do know that.
Cuter than you'd think.
Anyway really fast, we can talk
about Godzilla in a minute.
But Japan has been storing
the water.
It's about 1.2 million tonnes,
enough to fill 500 Olympic-size
swimming pools,
in more than 1000 tanks following
the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
That's obviously a lot of water.
They've been dealing with it for
a long time.
I understand wanting to do
something about it.
I mean, you can't store it forever.
Potentially, there are concerns
about the level of
transparency about what's
been done to the water though.
Because back in 2018,
the Tokyo Electric Power Company
Holdings admitted that not all of
the radioactive material, it
claimed to have filtered out of the
water, had actually been processed.
So some of the claims at that point
at least about the level of
filtering that had been done turned
out not to actually be true.
It was being exaggerated.
Now, there's been a few more years
for that to be dealt with.
They say it's drinkable,
that's a challenge that I'd
like to see them do.
Bear in mind though,
that if this does happen, and
it looks likely that it
will happen, especially with the US
siding with Japan, here.
The discharge of the water is set
to begin in just a couple of
years in 2023.
It's not going to be released all
in one go, but gradually over
the course of 20 to 30 years.
So it's still going to be in there,
it's still going to be filtering
around producing three-eyed fish.
But It's not like they're just
going to do a big wave of toxic
water at the very least,
I don't know.
Does that make you feel
better about it?
>> Well, first of all,
that only makes me confirm my
hypothesis that sushi is going to
be radioactive for 20 to 30 years.
>> [LAUGH] Okay, nailed it.
Second of all, if you need anyone
to drink the water to make sure
it's safe, we've got
Senator Hickenlooper for you.
So he'll drink anything.
He's like Mikey from the old
Life Cereal commercials.
>> [CROSSTALK] likes it.
>> Yeah, let's let's note for
the record that there is
a Senator Hickenlooper.
And we have not heard one
peep from him.
>> No. >> Isn't that amazing?
Since he won, not one thing,
not one article's ever mentioned
Hickenlooper.
I forgot about him until I started
thinking about who would be asinine
enough to drink something
radioactive.
I was like, I know, Hickenooper.
So he's the most irrelevant Senator
we've ever had.
I was for Romanoff in the primary.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Romanoff could have made a
difference, he had a pulse, right?
>> Yeah.
>> But to be fair to Hickenlooper
said he didn't want a Senate job.
And I guess he's proving it.
I think his nickname is Salvatore-
>> [INAUDIBLE] he's the absentee
senator.
>> My God.
>> That was a random side point.
>> That was, but I appreciate it.
>> There's this improv game and
there's also a show that they do,
someone on YouTube does it, where
you have to say the most ridiculous
stuff with a straight face and
if you break you lose.
And this seems like one of those
lines in that game where you're
like, the Fukushima plant is going
to release, remember all that
radioactive water they had, they're
just going to put it in the ocean.
[LAUGH] >> Someone's pitching
this idea, all right, hear me out,
you know how the radioactive
plutonium that we have from all
of our nuclear plants, we literally
just bury it forever in concrete.
>> Yeah.
>> Stupid,
let's think outside the box here.
And by outside the box I mean,
outside the box we have it in,
[LAUGH] >> Let's take the box
it's in and pour it in the ocean.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm looking up radioactive half
lives for the isotopes created in
this radioactive waste,
the lowest I see of the ones listed
is cesium 137,
which has a half life of 30 years.
And that doesn't mean that in 30
years, it's not a problem.
That means half of it is not
a problem in 30 years.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, it's 24,000 years for
plutonium 239.
That's how long it's a problem.
And we're like,
clean nuclear energy, as long as we
make sure that all of the waste we
create is buried in concrete for
24,000 years.
>> That is true.
Okay, I don't want to go down
the rabbit hole.
There are newer forms of nuclear
energy generation
that don't produce waste like that.
But you are right about
the stuff that we do have.
>> Okay, I want to tell you
a disgusting story.
You guys ready?
So, when we were young,
and in Turkey, we would go to these
little summer places, these tiny
little apartments, by the water.
And there was always a theory,
that they release the sewage into
the ocean, right but
really we thought and hoped really
far out on the ocean, okay?
And looking back on it, there's
no chance that that wasn't true.
[LAUGH] >> Okay, what else were
they going to do with it?
And it was Turkey in 1978,
let's keep it real, okay?
And if the tide was going out
in the water would be great.
If the tide was coming in, not so
great.
>> Tangy.
>> And we would have to get out of
the water, right?
And so I remember even as a little
kid, this doesn't seem sustainable.
[LAUGH] >> Isn't there eventually
going to be too much poop in
the water, right?
Actually that's not true,
generally speaking, and
things actually got better, right?
So, that's why here now
an unexpected twist,
a note of optimism, right?
I don't know,
maybe we'll figure it out.
Maybe when enough rich people feel
like no,
this this climate change is going
to literally burn down my house.
Let's put a lot of resources
behind.
Because it's panic time, right?
The tide is coming in.
Okay, and
I don't want to swim in this thing.
And so maybe we put a ton of energy
to it, maybe we solve it.
So John, you know the science,
certainly better than I do.
Do you have any optimism there?
Do you see anything on the horizon
where you go, climate change, maybe
this happens and then that happens
and then Beautiful Mind chalkboard,
and boom, it's solved.
>> Maybe,
there are a lot of fanciful,
incredibly unestablished, possible
technologies for carbon capture.
And I don't mean like at
the point of energy generation, but
literally pulling it out of
the air and stuff like that.
There is stuff like that.
But it's not to scale.
It's not necessarily demonstrated.
And the issue is that,
if we wait 50 years and
then put everything we can into it,
you can't draw back down enough
to avoid decades of severe issues.
So I am trying to keep Earth Day
kind of optimistic.
I'm not incredibly optimistic.
I think that we've wasted so
many years.
We're going to waste more years,
maybe just a few, maybe four,
maybe more.
But no, I'm not super optimistic.
>> Yeah, well look, so I think
Elon Musk is smarter in some stuff,
not politics, apparently, okay?
But clearly he's talented in
science, I hope, and
technology, etc.
And that's why I'm actually mad at
him for SpaceX, which is basically,
no this isn't going to work,
we got to get out of here,
we got to resettle on Mars.
Mars is a disaster, okay?
[LAUGH] Or whatever else new planet
you're going to find.
Wouldn't all of your energies be
far better served in trying to
figure out how to save this planet?
>> Yeah.
>> Which I feel like we could,
couldn't we?
[LAUGH] >> Maybe,
I don't want him involved in it,
but yes, other people should.
>> But you see what I'm saying as
a concept.
>> I get what you're saying, yes.