Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Downplaying the Risks from Chernobyl


A myth promulgated widely by the nuclear industry is that the Chernobyl exclusion zone is now a wildlife paradise.  Evolutionary biologists Timothy Mousseau and Anders Moller have demonstrated through their collaborative research programs that in-migration is what keeps the animal populations going because of the genetic degradation resulting from their cumulative exposures to radiation (see my post here explaining Mutations and Germ Line Mosaicism).

Recently, scholars Lowry and Fairlie disputed the chernobyl fantasy used to downplay nuclear risks:
Lowry, David and Fairlie, Ian (2019, May 26). Downplaying the danger of Chernobyl. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/26/downplaying-the-danger-of-chernobyl

Tom Allan’s report [see footnote] of his holiday inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone (Nuclear reaction, Travel, 25 May) was both misleading and dangerous in its assertions. He gives the impression that the radiation dangers are minimal: “less radiation risk than on a single transatlantic flight”, according to his ornithologist Belarusian guide, Valery Yurko.
The problem around Chernobyl is not average radiation exposure but the millions of highly radioactive hotspots of radioactive particles spewed from inside the destroyed Chernobyl reactor core. The entire exclusion zone area has suffered from serious forest fires in the 33 years since the catastrophe, re-suspending these hot particles into the atmosphere and spreading them around.
See my discussions of radiation-induced genetic instabilities, including germline mosaicism, here:

5 comments:

  1. From IFL Science
    stayed. Clean Futures Fund
    The CFF estimates that over 250 stray dogs live around the nuclear power plant, at least 225 dogs roam the empty streets of the former Soviet city, and hundreds more live in the surrounding countryside. Many of these are dogs are suffering from malnutrition and are at serious risk of disease, namely rabies from other dogs or wild animals. There also appears to be no dogs older than the ages of six to eight years old, the CFF says, suggesting that life is pretty tough. The majority of the dogs, live to be only 3 years old.

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    Replies


    1. Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl and, Chernobyl is as bad as it gets. Where does that leave us?
      Most people are oblivious. Most of the ones who have a glimmer, hide like silly asses, as if it will go away.

      Chernobyl Series
      Watch it, if you dare

      https://www.hbo.com/chernobyl

      Trailer of Chernobyl

      https://youtu.be/s9APLXM9Ei8

      Watch ot if you dare!

      Delete
    2. Eve Ott
      @OttEve

      Franco wanted to murder every third male to combat leftism. Our US government seems to have taken a page out of his book over the decades in Latin America.
      View conversation ·

      Delete
    3. Conrad Miller MD a doctor who went to Ukraine and Belarus, after Chernobyl on
      olympics and FukushimaWatch "Fukushima Update March 2019" on YouTube
      https://youtu.be/O4MID3am_qI

      Delete
    4. Hate to say it. It is true though. Expect a nuclear accident in the United States soon.

      Trump has deregulated supervision of the 97 old nuclear reactors, in America.
      Sixty of the old, beat-up, reactors are in flood zones and hurricane zones. The others are so old and decrepit, that any inclement-unpredictable weather, could cause a nuclear accident.
      The soil in much of the Midwestern United States, Southeastern USA, and in the Southern United States is saturated with water from flooding, this year. That is the way it is now, in May 2019.
      The soil is saturated from atmospheric rivers of rain, moving in quickly and, dumping their massive loads of water. The atmospheric-river phenomenon has been going on, for more than 10 years now, in the United States.
      Atmospheric rivers of rain that come out of nowhere.

      Hurricanes have grown progresssively worse and more numerous, in the past 10 years .

      A deadly one-two punch of spring floods and later, tropical storms and hurricanes, is upon us again.
      The combination of flooding-saturation and then serial Hurricanes, cause Mega Climate Disasters. The Climate-Disaters, increase the probability of a Nuclear Accident in the United States.
      We saw it with Hurricane Florence in Carolina, Harvey in Texas, Maria in Florida and Puerto Rico.

      Places like Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, are saturated with water now. The waters of the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Of Mexico are hotter and higher, than they ever have been. People could not go to the beach, along much of the Gulf of Mexico on Memorial day because, the surf flooded the beaches. The beaches were flooded, from high winds and storming in the Gulf of Mexico. Similar phenomenon preceded the Horrendous Hurricane seasons, of the past few years.

      Delete

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