Oy vey, this is painful to watch, but it looks like Fukushima has paid off well for Gundersen (new website design, time to travel around the country, etc.).
To specifically critique the video, read below.
It might come as a shock, but there are people who are health physicists who study the sort of stuff discussed by these buffoons. Yet, Gundersen uniquely only mentions Kaltofen (who isn' t a health physicist) when trying to fear monger. Why? Because Kaltofen is playing along.
It is a very rough estimate to compare automobile air consumption to human breathing consumption. For an auto, it depends on the size of the engine, how long driven per day, and the speeds it is driven at. For humans it depends on the activities one engages in. Kaltofen tries to cover his exaggeration by including the disclaimer that the number is derived from a "hard working adult".
To illustrate the difference, here are estimates from the Canadian Meteorological Centre. Humans at about 10,000 l/day and a 4-stroke engine at about 75,000 l/day. Now, maybe the Japanese don't drive as much per day as maybe they are all strenuously working, but one has to actually have data to make those claims.
Of course car air filters don't have nasal hairs or mucus. Nor do they sneeze or cough. Nor do they have phagocytes or macrophages. But those are just facts, they can be ignored for the video.
Radioactivity on kids' shoes!!!! OMG!!! And worse....shoelaces!!!! SHOELACES!! OMGG!!!
But not to worry, kids in Seattle, your shoes are clean.
Mrs. Gundersen raises a point about background radiation. Kaltofen is right, background radiation (radon in his example) poses a cancer risk. And any Fukushima radiation will add to that risk.
But throughout the entire video they all avoid any discussions of what the relative risks are.
Why?
Because they're tiny. And they don't want to discuss that.
Regarding "rays", hot particles, and Quality Factor, I sensed some intentional obfuscation. It is complicated, but there was no clarity provided by those clowns.
Both photons ("rays") and beta or alpha radiation (particles, not to be confused with hot particles) can ionize tissue. A hot particle is a piece of matter (much larger than radiation particles) which contains a radioactive element which may be emitting one or more of those radiations. That particle might be outside of your body or in your body.
If the hot particle is outside your body, the alpha or beta radiation tends to lose its energy traversing the air, your clothing and your dead skin layer. Photons typically retain their energy and deposit some of it (ionizing tissue) as they make their way through your body.
If the hot particle is inside your body, any photons will behave the same way. They will pass through your body depositing energy as they traverse. Alpha and beta radiation will deposit all of their energy within a small volume of tissue around where the particle resides. The photon is said to have Low Energy Transfer, whereas the alpha has High Energy Transfer. Even though the beta radiation will deposit its energy in a small volume, the primary interaction mechanism with tissue produces more photons, so it is considered LET. The Quality Factor (QF) is related to the degree of energy transfer by radioactivity (hot particles, aerosols, etc.) deposited in the body. By convention (ICRP 103) LET radiation has a QF = 1 and HET radiation has a QF = 20.
So we can compare doses (risks) between different radioactive materials whether they're inside or outside your body.
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