Is Chernobyl Still Dangerous? Was 60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? 409
An anonymous reader writes:
This article has an interesting take on how the media is presenting the current Chernobyl situation. Its author, Ron Adams, is a long time nuclear advocate, so read with that in mind. Adams critiques a recent CBS 60 Minutes broadcast that took pains to show how dangerous the area still is. He writes, "The show is full of fascinating contrasts between what the cameras show to the audience and what the narrator tells the audience that they should believe. ... I correspond with a number of experts in fields related to radiation, radioactive waste management, site restoration, and the health effects of low level radiation. There has been quite a bit of discussion about the misinformation propagated by this particular 60 Minutes segment."
60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:4, Insightful)
No way!
Yes way!
They do get better...
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Yeah wasn't their credibility basically destroyed during Rathergate?
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't know. All of mass media has been pushing propaganda since it became mass media... The rest is just gossip...
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. As we used to say in the Navy, "Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see."
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first two root comments posted are both ad-hominem attacks on 60 Minutes. I've noticed this is pretty common on Slashdot these last few years - every comment section begins with some ad-homs against TFA, become the real debate begins further down. It's as if those early commentators hadn't even RTFA.
Re: 60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:2)
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It's pointy-clicky-approve, rather than investigation of the story.
Then again, this is a glorified blog, not a real news site. They don't have the staff, nor the need, to do research. They are also linking other sources, so it is up to them to do their fact checking.
People have frequently overestimated what Slashdot is for, and then they complain about it. It's not like the format has changed. It's been like this since I started reading it years ago.
It's just less interesting now, and regulars are no l
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. a corporation can't vote, and does not have all of the rights of a natural person. It is true that for many laws, corporations are included in the definition of "person," but that's not the same as saying they are persons legally - there are limits and exceptions.
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Yes, there are. For example, we don't hold them to the same level of accountability as people. We do not punish corporations nearly as hard as individuals. What this says about our morality is as fascinating as the legal reasoning behind the quasi-personage of the state (which is no more a "given" than our morality).
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
Walter Cronkite, "The most trusted man in America", is one of the greatest journalists to ever live.
To say he had no credibility is only to prove how ignorant you are.
in fact it so colors you that we can safely assume you believe that the "mainstream media" has a liberal bias (which also indicates you have no idea what "liberal" even means), instead of a corporate one, and that you further believe that Fox isnt part of the mainstream media, even though its rating and audience and influence are larger than all the other news channels.
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Walter Cronkite, "The most trusted man in America", is one of the greatest journalists to ever live.
To say he had no credibility is only to prove how ignorant you are.
in fact it so colors you that we can safely assume you believe that the "mainstream media" has a liberal bias (which also indicates you have no idea what "liberal" even means), instead of a corporate one, and that you further believe that Fox isnt part of the mainstream media, even though its rating and audience and influence are larger than all the other news channels.
Wow, in response to a post about CBS pushing propaganda. you demonstrate that you swallowed it all - hook, line, and sinker.
Walter Cronkite Biography Reveals His Dark Side [huffingtonpost.com]
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well, since you linked to it from an article on a mass media... am i to believe it's content? or to doubt there was any biography published in the first place... or that mr cronkite even existed?
this is getting meta too fast.
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
Walter Cronkite, "The most trusted man in America", is one of the greatest journalists to ever live.
To say he had no credibility is only to prove how ignorant you are.
Cronkite's hero was Edward R. Murrow, who was the giant whose shoulders Cronkite stood on.
in fact it so colors you that we can safely assume you believe that the "mainstream media" has a liberal bias (which also indicates you have no idea what "liberal" even means), instead of a corporate one, and that you further believe that Fox isnt part of the mainstream media, even though its rating and audience and influence are larger than all the other news channels.
Indeed. News is a business, and it is, by and large, an advertising business. In other words, the viewer isn't the customer, the advertiser is. And the predominate marketing strategy for the news business for the last several decades has been to scream at us "WATCH OUR PROGRAM OR YOU WILL DIE!!! AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE EATEN BY DINGOS AND SOMEONE WILL KICK YOUR DOG!!!!"
Because that's what the audience will tune in for. Retarded hysteria. Says more about the audience than the news programs, but it says a lot about the news programs. And all of it is bad.
Re:60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? (Score:5, Funny)
Liberal arts educated journalists vs. science is an old story. And on 60 Minutes in particular, the journalists themselves probably support evolution only because of their personal experience in having pet dinosaurs as kids.
YEs, its safe (Score:2, Interesting)
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As far as I know, there are several just outside the zone. Not sure if there are any inside.
No problems so far. And considering that locals do things like eat local mushrooms and such, you'd expect LNT to hit them hard over last years if it was true.
Re:YEs, its safe (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, what? (Score:3)
If we're to believe Betteridge's law this time around... we're to believe that both Chernobyl is safe AND 60 Minutes didn't push propaganda!? NNNNOOOOO, I'M SO CONFUSED! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!
Of headline's and double negatives (Score:5, Funny)
No... that would be giving you two negatives in response to the headline, and we all know a double negative is a positive, which is exactly the opposite of what Betteridge's law demands. And of course we also can't very well answer just one in the negative, as the other would then be answered in the positive and still be violating the law. So clearly the only logical resolution is to split the difference and answer both in the imaginary!
Is Chernobyl Still Dangerous? Fairy Dust!
Was 60 Minutes Pushing Propaganda? Unicorns!
There, see? That cleared everything up nicely, no need to panic. No seriously, just relax and step away from the refreshments. The unicorns were hanging out over there earlier, and I now can't find the fairy dust - I think they may have spiked the punch. And believe me you do NOT want to get hopped up on fairy dust when you're emotionally distraught, it could be weeks before your legs will stay attached again.
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Betteridge's law is correct, because it wasn't propaganda, it was simply the natural inclination to try to make things sound more dramatic and scary than they are in order to increase ratings.
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Whereas Bennethasleton's law says ... well, we don't really know.
It's so long nobody has ever read it apart from a prince (who died), a professor (who went mad) and Lord Palmerston.
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The real thought experiment is rather more philosophical than Betteridge's law allows. It goes like this:
If Bennett Haselton writes a time and motion study on ice sales at Burning Man and nobody gives a rats arse, did he actually get laid?
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It's as useful as 88.2% of laws, then.
What a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
60 minutes regularly misrepresents facts for the sake of drama or propping up political narratives. I guess even chernobyl wasn't 'scary' enough for them to resist embellishing it.
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Problem with it is that it's not actually scary. People have been living in Exclusion Zone itself and right outside it for a long time. Mainly cleanup crews and their families.
So long as you don't go rolling in the hay of Red Forest, it appears you're going to be pretty much fine living there. Locals are even living off the land and eating local produce like fruit and mushrooms. Which apparently scared the pants off the BBC cuisine reporter who went into the region until they thawed him off with some good o
Re:What a shock (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because people are doing it doesn't make it safe, it just makes them ignorant.
It's true that the risk from consuming small amounts of produce from the area is low. If you are a reporter visiting for a while the risk is low, but if you live there it's a different story. Children are at particular risk, but even adults who allow long lived radioactive particles to accumulate in their bodies are facing an increased risk of health problems.
Those people are poor and desperate, and the danger isn't visible to them. It's sad that they are even allowed to live and farm there, instead of being helped to build a life somewhere safer. Stunts like feeding journalists unsafe food just encourage more people to do it.
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Except that if you were right, we should be urgently researching all the carcinogens contained in goods our children use and eat. And yet we don't.
Reason is same as here. The actual risk is so low, its negligible.
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There is a lot of research done in carcinogens. That's one reason why the French are trying to move away from diesel engines. It was also one of the motivations behind RoHS.
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There is a lot of research done in carcinogens. That's one reason why the French are trying to move away from diesel engines. It was also one of the motivations behind RoHS.
The french are trying to move away from diesel engines because they get less money when you buy diesel, the taxes are lower, period the end. Gasoline engines produce more carcinogens than diesels. They produce just as much soot as diesels, and nearly all of the soot is PM2.5. Diesels produce more PM2.5 after emissions technology than they did before, but they produce less soot overall.
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Just because people are doing it doesn't make it safe, it just makes them ignorant.
There is no evidence that what they are doing is dangerous. There have been thousands of cases [mskcc.org] of thyroid cancer caused by radiation from Chernobyl. But all of those surplus cancers occurred in people that were exposed to I-131 in the first few weeks after the accident. I-131 is not a significant ongoing risk. There are no other known surplus cancers. So if the people are "ignorant", please cite the information they should be aware of.
Re:What a shock (Score:5, Informative)
The I-131 is mostly gone by now, but high concentrations of Cs-137 are still there, which is s significant carcinogen.
Re:What a shock (Score:5, Informative)
There is plenty of evidence that what they are doing is dangerous. There have been extensive studies into the effect on humans, and on wildlife in the area. Bio-accumulation is a serious long-term problem that is known to cause cancer and birth defects.
That is why governments test for it, and why farmers and fishermen in the Fukushima region have been going to such lengths to test their produce. As well as meeting their own safety standards, they need to be able to show other countries that their goods are safe. The EU did reject some goods in the years after the disaster, but more recently they have managed to replace the affected soil and introduced improved cleaning methods. Obviously the people living near Chernobyl don't have access to any of that.
Re:What a shock (Score:5, Informative)
In Germany, even this year, 40% of the wild boars which were tested in Saxony (hunters are required to check animals they killed for radioactivity) showed radioactivity higher than the limit of 600 becquerel/kg, which made them officially unsuitable for human consumption. Some animals even showed radioactivity as high as 9800 becquerel/kg. Articles (in German) here: http://www.neues-deutschland.d... [neues-deutschland.de] and here: http://www.n-tv.de/wissen/Wild... [n-tv.de]
This radioactivity in the meat is caused by the boars eating mushrooms and other plants in the forest. If plants and animals in eastern Germany are still contaminated after all this time, I'd rather not eat anything from directly next to the chernobyl plant, or live there.
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Saxony used to have Uranium mines (see the Wismut page in Wikipedia). So are you sure it is Chernobyl radiation or just runoff from underground rivers that cross the uranium deposits that occur naturally over there?
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What journalists don't realize is that finding ultra-radioactive plants and animals is GOOD news, not bad. The problem in the vicinity of Chernobyl and Fukushima is not high levels of radiation, but widely scattered radioisotopes. We need to identify bioconcentrators that can be exploited to soak up unusual-in-the-environment metals, such as cesium, that have long-lived radioactive isotopes. The cleanup will consist of getting those bioconcentrating mushrooms to grow across the contaminated region, then har
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So, "no other known surplus cancers", wha
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So, do you think living in an area where trees don't rot because fungi doesn't grow, where mice are 10,000 more radiative than normal, where birds have shrunken brains is safe?
Compared to living in, say, Detroit or Mumbai, probably.
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Just because you're commenting doesn't make you right, in this case it just makes you both smug and ignorant. That's a bad combination.
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Just because people are doing it doesn't make it safe
It does if there aren't any negative consequences.
Drunk driving is dangerous because it actually causes fatalities. If one day we did research and found that drunk driving lead to no significant increase in car accidents and accident fatalities, then it would necessarily mean that drunk driving was not anymore dangerous than sober driving. Obviously this is not currently the case, but my point is that the results should guide beliefs and not the other way around. We shouldn't just assume drunk driving is
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"Just because people are doing it doesn't make it safe, it just makes them ignorant."
It is not "safe" to drive a car. It is not safe to eat produce. Both actions have killed people...
If people have been living there for almost 27 years then it is probably not nearly as terrifyingly dangerous as many think.
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There's a bunch of people at work who smoke cigarettes several times each day. They get to go outside and have more fresh air than the rest of us. Cigarettes must be fine, because these people are doing it every day. I even saw a journalist smoke once.
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The risk is low period. There have been studies of the indigenous fauna in the area, which have had many generations of breeding, and there has been found only slightly elevated genetic mutation rates, and orders of magnitude less mutations than predicted. As far as we can tell, as long as you aren't rolling around in areas directly contaminated by the core ( nearby the plant itself ) or in areas that are sheltered, lower leveled, and allowed to build up debris and a radio-isotope pool the risk is nearly i
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Problem with it is that it's not actually scary. People have been living in Exclusion Zone itself and right outside it for a long time. Mainly cleanup crews and their families.
So long as you don't go rolling in the hay of Red Forest, it appears you're going to be pretty much fine living there. Locals are even living off the land and eating local produce like fruit and mushrooms. Which apparently scared the pants off the BBC cuisine reporter who went into the region until they thawed him off with some good old moonshine. Which they told him afterwards, was made from the local produce.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat... [bbc.com]
I'll believe that when I have seen you move there and source all of the food and drink for your wife and kids from the immediate area around the Chernobyl plant for a few years. Wanna put your money where your mouth is?
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Watch the linked video to see people who have been living off the land for well over 20 years now.
It's really hilarious when people demand something that has been given to them in the very post they reply to.
Re:What a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of smokers who don't die of cancer, so that must also be safe, right?
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Wake up, there is no "safe" or "unsafe" in the absolute sense. Many millions of smokers never suffer from appreciable ill effects. Many others suffer an agonizing death likely attributable to it.
Smoking entails a risk. So does exposure to elevated radioactivity. And guess what, so does walking. If all the elderly crawled on the floor everywhere they went, or wore big honking foam rubber bumpers, there would be a lot fewer broken hips, and broken hips are a very significant morality risk for the elderly.
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Walking doesnt incur a 20% chance of fatal cancer, 75% chance of ephysema, and >95% chance of diminished lung capacity and difficulty breathing.
The number of smokers who suffer no ill effects is a very tiny portion and certainly not in the millions.
The same goes for radiation. It doesnt just cause cancer.
Seriously, the "walking has risks too" argument is so flawed, so ignorant, that i believe you to be a danger to yourself and others, and seriously hope you have no persons under your care for whom you ar
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There are plenty of smokers who don't die of cancer, so that must also be safe, right?
See, this is why we try not to use anecdotes to test hypotheses. There are smokers who die of cirrhosis without ever getting cancer. There are even people who jump of buildings and survive (please do not try that at home). You can't determine whether smoking causes cancer, or whether drunk driving causes accidents by watching one individual.
If you survey the people who lived near Chernobyl, and who actually worked on the clean-up project, you find that they get 'radiation' cancers at the same rate as eve [nih.gov]
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And yet it is totally legal and for sale just about everywhere.
Get back to me when you start massive protests to stop the sell of all tobacco products.
Re:What a shock (Score:4, Interesting)
I know, but it was quite the hellzone radiation wise in 1986. People in pripyat and surrounding areas were exposed quite severely.
Today, the exposure at the plant itself where people are working, is still quite toxic. It's not just about the strength of the exposure, it's the length of time and how it propagated through your body (alpha/beta/gamma). Eating food grown there every day puts you at greater risk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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60 minutes regularly misrepresents facts for the sake of drama or propping up political narratives...
I'm sorry, who are you talking about again?
For a minute there, I thought you were referring to every fucking news station in existence.
Talk about news at 11. Sheesh.
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My statement implies a general behavior, not just for this piece.
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Same here. Advertisers dictate the narrative, as it has always been. The 'drama' attracts attention to the sponsors' products. This is entertainment, after all. For serious news, you go to Comedy Central.
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That's all true. It's too bad we don't have more media that actually tries for objectivity and correctness.
Ra-di-a-tion (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense!
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
A popular website now gone showed the readings to the exclusion zone 10 years ago.
While I got modded down for saying it is dangerous here as this is a pro nuclear site there are areas near the plant where the radiation is 100x as high as other parts of the zone. Trees to this day show genetic aberrations in areas near the plant regardless of the thriving ecosystem developing in the nearbye Ukrainian city.
Safe to visit the abandoned city of Prypiat but I would not want to live there and drink the water, get near the plant, or risk having dust on a windy day get near my face or food.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
The effects of radiation is interesting. The SciShow episode Inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone [youtube.com] is quite interesting on the subject. Sure it's short 4min format, but it introduces the interesting fact that, although some species have suffered gravely, some plants and animals flourish. If you read further into the subject, it gets even more weirder. As for example species that tend to suffer under human civilization, such as the deers and the lynx, suddenly are quite successful; it appears that humans are worse drain than the radiation.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
"it appears that humans are worse drain than the radiation"
Only if you look at photogenic large mammals like we always do. But nature is much more than that. Fungi, microbes, spiders and insects are doing very bad, so bad in fact that dead trees are hardly decaying. Birds have very small brains compared to birds from more healthy regions. And trees are not growing as fast as they should.
Bottomline: large parts of the natural cycle are not working and we don't know very well what the long term effects will be. What we DO know, is that abnormal amounts of flammable biomass is accumulating in the area. A forest-fire could cause huge redistribution of radioactive materials.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's just you that doesn't have Google.
Here's a properly readable source with proper links to somewhat less readable scientifically sound sources:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/... [smithsonianmag.com]
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Not really, no. Obviously species will thrive if their dominant natural enemy is removed. What you might find fascinating (but I don't) is that there aren't just very low forms of life in a zone with elevated radiation. But that too is obvious, if you remember how nature works. It uses abundance and doesn't give a damn about the individuals that don't make it. Radiation in the exclusion zone isn't strong enough to kill in a short time or to prevent reproduction completely, so life keeps going and the damaged individuals don't matter. Humans don't quite see it that way though, so Chernobyl isn't an opportunity to us. Good news if you're a deer or a lynx though. Statistically your chance of making it has increased, not because radiation is healthy, which it is not, but because it removed the natural enemy.
Well if you are convinced that there is nothing worth studying in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone because everything that is happening there is obvious to you as you sit in your armchair thousands of miles away posting comments on slashdot then that is your opinion and you are welcome to it but it does not mean that other people can't find something worth studying there. What's going on in the exclusion zone is fascinating from all sorts of perspectives and not just because of the opportunity it presents to st
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Some people on the other hand did just that and came out with flying colours:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat... [bbc.com]
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Water is brought in, as is the food. There are people who have moved back who eat and drink locally sourced items.
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Hell, until fairly recently, people worked within 500 meters of the reactor because other reactors on the site were still active and connected to the grid as electricity producers.
Knowledge replaces fear (Score:2, Insightful)
Fear of the unknown is a huge fear few can overcome.
The difference between fear of the unknown and fear of the known is huge.
I recently watched a much more informative video on youtube of a local hunting radioactive particles. He found some very hot grain of rice size pieces of graphite in an area with only slightly elevated background radiation.
Living there would not be an issue if you were not blind to the danger. A dosimeter won't tell you you picked up a hot particle in your shoe that is killing your
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A dosimeter won't tell you you picked up a hot particle in your shoe that is killing your foot.
Personally I find it amazing that such things even exist, and can be simply laying on the ground.
Something the size of a grain of rice can find itself into your shoe and kill you.
Interesting how quickly people forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
I did an extensive report on Nuclear energy and it's environmental impacts when it goes sideways, as a final project in a class called "Environmental Issues" during my undergraduate degree. Despite the fact I got an A on it, and in the class, I was particularly moved by this website and included content from it where I could because my view was that a balanced perspective between Academic resources and scholarly references needed to be balanced with firsthand accounts where possible. This site was cited in numerous places in my report and my professor approached me after the class was over and told me how moved by it he was as well.
That being said, I would say without hesitating for a second that the Chernobyl area is most definitely NOT SAFE in any reasonable measure.
Check out this site and pay particular attention to the radiation readings when given.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com
and do yourselves a favor and don't believe it when anyone tries to make the logical fallacy of making an appeal to ignorance .. (IE.."What do all those scientists know? they are wrong most of the time so they are probably wrong here too.." Ad-Nauseum, when anyone can do a quick bit of critical thinking and a few google searches and find out.)
Enjoy!
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Scientists, outside those few who suggest that LNT is real (and most are not at this point, they're just sticking to it because "err on safe side") do not in fact suggest things you suggest.
As for the rest, have you seen this?
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat... [bbc.com]
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The actually 'qualified to talk about this shit' scientists I've talked with seemed to be fairly certain they had no clue as to whether low dose radiation was good or bad for humans. Hormesis might make low doses healthier than lower doses. Or maybe it doesn't.
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Aye. This is mostly because LNT is basically mandated for safety reasons and studies that would prove otherwise are shut down by decisions from above.
It's pretty ironic considering the sheer amount of chemical toxins and carcinogens we expose ourselves to every day.
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Those very readings you point out suggest that some of the areas are safe and others are mostly safe for people beyond childbearing age.
a number of people have been living there for years now.
Re:Interesting how quickly people forget... (Score:4, Informative)
more on that [wikipedia.org]
alright, if you're not trolling you deserve a letter grade off that project [salon.com]
Re:Interesting how quickly people forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at me! I ride a motorcyle, rented a geiger counter and went around Priyat with a geiger counter, wrote down some readings and took photos of abandoned buildings just like the hundreds of other tourists per year.
The area is well studied by actual scientists who conducted actual research. I'll trust their assessments. I don't need any ignorant opinions by tourists pretending to be scientists. By your standards taking a few photos of the Tower of London and Big Ben while on vacation in England would make you a knowledgeable scholar of English history.
Yes, still dangerous (Score:5, Informative)
Let me quote Wikipedia:
Iodine-131 has a very short half-live, so it almost all decayed by now
So, even after 25 years there is more than half of caesium-137 that was present the moment the reactor exploded. It will take 300 years for that caesium-137 to fall under 0.1% of the original level.
There are other elements present that have half-lives long enough to last until now, and short enough that they release dangerous level of alpha / beta / gamma rays. Alpha rays are not dangerous, as such, because your skin can shield you, yet alpha emitters are very dangerous because if you ingest or breath-in a small particle, there is very high probability that you get cancer later - sometimes many years later - on.
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Thus, the old engineering adage becomes relevant: the solution to pollution is dilution
Yeah, we said that in the seventies. By the eighties we had discovered that isn't true at all. Currents, winds, bioconcentration, heavy elements tending to pool all make dilution not the pollution solution.
You're only about thirty years out of date here though, coward. Not too bad for one of you. You're usually just completely bananas.
I asked my friend in Chernobyl about this... (Score:5, Funny)
I asked my friend in Chernobyl about this... he said he and his family watched this via the internet, and they thought it was so ridiculous that he and his kids practically laughed their feelers off.
Not a bad place.... (Score:3)
Whether 60 Minutes is wrong or Ron Adams is wrong, it won't matter - the retirees will all be dead before any potential effects of mild radiation manifest themselves.
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Peace, quiet, natural... why not turn Prypiat into a retirement town with a minimum age of admission of 75?
Whether 60 Minutes is wrong or Ron Adams is wrong, it won't matter - the retirees will all be dead before any potential effects of mild radiation manifest themselves.
Yeah, but Chernobyl is also overrun by radioactive wolves, they might be a problem ;)
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Whether 60 Minutes is wrong or Ron Adams is wrong, it won't matter - the retirees will all be dead before any potential effects of mild radiation manifest themselves.
The area is not evenly irradiated, and it is not possible to predict which areas will be found to be strongly irradiated without a high-resolution survey conducted from the ground. Some parts of the area are still fairly hot. That, in fact, is what this discussion is about.
yes... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The show is full of fascinating contrasts between what the cameras show to the audience and what the narrator tells the audience that they should believe.
Because you can't see radiation? Or even most of its effects?
That the trees aren't rotting [iflscience.com], even after 30 years, is as visual as it gets, but even that needs narration or you won't realize that this tree hasn't fallen yesterday, but in 1986 or whenever.
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That the trees aren't rotting [iflscience.com], even after 30 years, is as visual as it gets, but even that needs narration or you won't realize that this tree hasn't fallen yesterday, but in 1986 or whenever.
There you go: an engineered solution for carbon sequestration. Grow the plant biomass, irradiate it to prevent decomp, and *bam*: sequestered carbon.
For bonus points, bury it in massive swamps for coal payoff in the geologic long-term. The future land-based octopodes that inherit the earth will thank you while being curious about the isotopic imbalances. Neutron activation ftw.
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Except what do you read into the time span? Those yes would have been exposed to high levels of radiation at first. Is there any scientific research to show that the decay problem is a result of current environment vs the past influences on the trees?
What we read into the time span is that the problem was severe. But we already know that chernobyl still has significant hot spots, or else people would be allowed to wander around freely.
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Is there any scientific research to show that the decay problem is a result of current environment vs the past influences on the trees?
Probably there is. The fact alone that it happens here, but not everywhere else with nuclear reactors, or even everywhere else with old-style soviet nuclear reactors is a pretty good evidence. Strong enough that "it's not the result of his really big unique event" is the extraordinary claim that needs to be proven, not the other way around.
Is like a discussion I had with someone who pointed out a genetic mutation in an animal, he didn't seen to comprehend that just because the radiation disappears that the animal won't magical become normal again.
Trees don't not decay because something irradiated them once. The actor in tree decay is not the tree, it's the microbes and fungi etc.
most of the studies we do on these zones are the result of visual inspection of what is there [...] what the risk really is right now.
Bullshit. If you enter the zone, yo
Both wrong (Score:2)
Wow. Both sides seem clueless.
So this guy things: I saw some people walking around and they weren't dead. Chernobyl must be completely safe. How could 60 minutes think this place is dangerous? That is like a high schooler saying: All my friends smoke, and look at them. Fine. Or a reporter looking at coal miners in Virgina saying: people go in the mines. They come back out. I didn't see any negative effects.
How about: "We took a sample of 100 people who had lived in the Chernobyl area for 10-12 years
Re: (Score:2)
How about: "We took a sample of 100 people who had lived in the Chernobyl area for 10-12 years and studied cancer rates and health problems against the general population."
OK, how about this [nih.gov]?
This study examined cancer incidence (1986-2008) and mortality (1986-2011) among the Estonian Chernobyl cleanup workers in comparison with the Estonian male population.
These people generally worked at the site 1986-1991.
No clear evidence of an increased risk of thyroid cancer, leukaemia, or radiation-related cancer sites combined was apparent.
Twenty-six years of follow-up of this cohort indicates no definite health effects attributable to radiation, but the elevated suicide risk has persisted.
The WHO summary [slashdot.org] more or less states that cancer and reproductive effects have been seen in people who were resident at the time of the meltdown and in first-responding clean up teams ("liquidators"), but not in any other groups.
Some of this is surely regionalized: there are areas within the fall out zone where radiation remains quite high (hence the non-decaying trees), but this seems not to be a general feature of the whole downwind ar
TFA is missing a few things... (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS: "There has been quite a bit of discussion about the misinformation propagated by this particular 60 Minutes segment."
But somehow... he never actually gets around to telling us what any of those things are. Instead, the bulk of the article is dedicated to snide ad hominem attacks on the reporter. The article headline asks "Is Chernobyl still dangerous or was 60 Minutes pushing propaganda?", but places essentially all of it's effort on the latter portion of the question.
In short, it's a deeply biased article from a deeply biased source.
Re: (Score:2)
"In short, it's a deeply biased article from a deeply biased source."
Agreed. But it should also be said that just because it's a deeply biased article from a deeply biased source doesn't logically mean it's wrong, either.
For some reason, humans seem to naturally adhere to this simplistic "if a is wrong, then b is right" position. It's entirely possible that both 1) 60 Minutes mendaciously presented the situation to conform to certain preconceived biases or for commercial/political motivations outside the
I for one.... (Score:2)
By doing so, they are helping to collect all that radioactive material so that it can be disposed of safely and efficiently.
They are the true heros of the Soviet Union.
The area IS dangerous. (Score:3)
The area is dangerous. The radiation is about the least of the concerns.
First is the abundant wildlife, with rabies affecting a large part of the population. Wolves, foxes, wild boars, cats, stray dogs, lots of rodents. It's a very serious problem and it will be difficult to contain.
Next, the old infrastructure, in major part stripped of metal parts. Open manholes hidden by vegetation, barbed wire fences hidden under layer of weeds, buildings that stood with missing windows without renovation for nearly three decades, about to crumble.
Chemical contamination - abandoned communal farms where pesticides were left in rusting containers. Laboratories in hospitals and institutions, assorted abandoned factories.
Huge forested areas with big risk of fire.
Unmaintained drainage/sewer systems causing risk of flood.
Radiation is not entirely non-issue either. Yes, the land is mostly fine. There are few open areas where restrictions are still important(like that [google.com] concrete-covered peninsula, where the levels under the crumbling layer of concrete are still dangerous), but you could safely farm most of the land that was farmland before the disaster. There are also "pockets" of radiation in places where trash from the power plant area was dumped. Old rotten clothes in the basement of the hospital clock good 2mSv/s. Soil of the Kopachi area will produce plants actively harmful to health. Supposedly the bottom of the Pripyat lake is badly contaminated; if water levels fell, wind would carry contaminated dust.
It's a place where responsible adults could live. It's not a place where you could let kids loose though.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you misunderstood me. What you name as the Pripyat reservoir is about 10km upstream from a larger lake (I can't see a name for it - but it extends almost to the outskirts of Kyiv) ; that larger lake is downstream with respect to the Pripyat lake. Looking at the satellite views, the 10-odd km between the two lakes running past the Chernobyl plant itself, are filled with meanders a
Re: (Score:3)
Vaccination will not prevent death if you're exposed to rabies. The treatment is what prevents death. Being vaccinated before exposure to the virus considerable improves the effectiveness of the treatment both by helping the immune system fight back more rapidly against the virus, and also by extending by to a day or two the time that you can go between exposure (bite) and starting the injections that comprise the treatment. It's still not a perfect solut
Are we really arguing about safety... (Score:2)
...when a country like Russia has deemed the area unsafe, regardless of the hype here?
Seriously? We're going to now claim that Russia is being too overprotective about safety precautions? Oh, that's rich.
It's not like they've starting rebuilding malls and daycare centers there. Might be kind of intimidating for business with all those funny "clocks" everywhere too.
Attack the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
Rod Adams has a hard time attacking what the 60mins guy says so he goes on a long attack against the man himself.
He then implies that being 10,000 times more radioative than normal is no big deal.
He then comes up with an absurd fallacious argument stating that the area is safe because buildings and metals are solid so this somehow makes the area safe, serious WTF here, the guy is an complete idiot if he thinks this is sound reasoning. This didn't stop the mice becoming 10,000x more radioactive did it?
If Chernobyl is so safe then why are they building a new billion dollar sarcophagus around it. If "lumps of metal cannot move or become airborne" then why are they building a new billion dollar sarcophagus around it?
In all, Rod Adams page is full of drivel, no fact is sensibly debated or shown to be wrong, he 'reads into this' new facts that never existed, he attacks 60mins and it's presenter because there is nothing in the video worth attacking.
He concludes with a quote from someone saying they would trusts 60mins facts less in the future. I conclude that Rod Adams is a nuclear zealot who is no good at science and so attacks the people who state anything he doesn't agree with, rather than having the intelligence to deconstruct the message and debate it in any meaningful way.
Journalism Mantra: "If it bleeds, it leads" (Score:4, Interesting)
Eyeballs are attracted to bad news. Good news does not sell papers or attract viewers. This has been documented for a century, and modern psychology actually studies the "fear", "bad news", and "schadenfreude" centers in the brain. Perceived risks that you avoid releases dopamine. Talk radio manufactures doomsday stories every hour, on the hour.
The saddest thing is when CBS 60 Minutes gets it completely wrong - and wins a journalism Award. Ask CBS 60 Minutes anchor, Scott Pelley, about the state of journalism. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvn... [mediabistro.com]
"Our house is on fire. Never before in human history has more information been available to more people. But at the same time never before in human history has more bad information been available to more people.” - Scott Pelley
He should know. Pelley's won an journalism award for misreporting the "trail" of "e-waste" in 2008. But reporting that a past story was exaggerated doesn't sell many ads.
The Poster is an Idiot (Score:5, Informative)
Being like 96% of humanity... (Score:3)
I am not from the USA and have never considered most of your countryfolk to be aware of where the world is far less what is happening in it. I have seem the occasional clip of one of your talking heads and the BBC sometimes has them on for insights into what is happening in your country. Perhaps we just get the amateurs talking to the foreign press.
The area around Chernobyl and Pripyat is fast becoming the best collection of natural history in Europe if not the world. The videos and pictures from there vary from the sombre to the absolutely fantastic. No multinational (read US corporation) is going to try and build factories, take wood or anything else from there. Animals killed there and sold elsewhere are easy to identify. Radioactivity is higher than normal all over it but very little of it now is unsafe for the next 100,000 years.
There is plenty on the web about it - my early favourite was http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ [kiddofspeed.com] although there are occasional questions as to whether they are real.
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Re: (Score:2)
You can't exaggerate the risks of nuclear to much.
What? You mean like the China Syndrome? That wasn't an exaggeration? Hah.
Re: (Score:2)
It is well worth seeing, really neat.