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While a minor but noticeable uptick in radiation-induced cancer is unacceptable for humans, animals don't especially seem to mind. The areas around Chernobyl ha
by nkoren 10y ago
While a minor but noticeable uptick in radiation-induced cancer is unacceptable for humans, animals don't especially seem to mind. The areas around Chernobyl have become a superb wildlife reserve, and Fukushima is probably on its way to a similar state. Compared to the area submerged by a dam -- where the habitat is, without hyperbole, utterly and completely annihilated -- I have difficulty seeing how you can prefer that.
- geff82 10y agoSo then let's drop some atomic bombs and let some reactors explode for the sake of nature! Are you in?
- collyw 10y agoNorth Korea might give it a try soon.
- masklinn 10y ago> animals don't especially seem to mind. They do mind, they mind a lot, it's just that for the vast majority of wildlife humans (land alterations, activity and presence byproduct) have an even larger effect than a touch of long-term radiation-induced lethal disease.
- csydas 10y agoI think the point was more that nature seemed to adapt very quickly to the fallout from Chernobyl. Instead of a nuclear wasteland it's a pretty thriving ecosystem with a lot of new life, and even large mammals seem to be doing just fine. I caught a documentary while on a transatlantic flight about the Wolves of Chernobyl [1], and it discusses how the wildlife seems to be thriving with few to no ill effects. This isn't me suggesting that irradiating the land with nuclear waste is good - far from it. But it does seem that nature is pretty resilient to it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkyM2XSVhBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkyM2XSVhBI
- masklinn 10y agoWildlife does thrive in the exclusion zone, but again that's not because wildlife is somehow immune to radiations[0] it's because radiation-induced morbidity is lower than humanity-induced morbidity. [0] they're not, though r-strategist will tend to be pretty resilient
- csydas 10y agoWell, no, I agree, and I don't think I suggested that at all. In fact, though you said it much more intelligently with terminology I was unaware of, I was more suggesting that nature is more resilient in the face of nuclear waste/damage than one might expect, and I think that's what the parent is suggesting as well. No more, no less. We should still be very cautious because there is undoubtedly a limit (perhaps even known?) as to how much punishment an environment can take. But Chernobyl's ecosystem does seem to show that when you take humans out of the equation, Nature can be pretty darn tough.
- trhway 10y ago>I was more suggesting that nature is more resilient in the face of nuclear waste/damage than one might expect you're talking about the whole nature instead of the individuals. Place a bunch of humans near Chernobyl for several generations (30 years for wolves would be like 200 years for humans) and enforce the rule of quickly killing off any ill individual - natural thing in nature - and 200 years later you'll have a thriving human population there, and some alien would naturally conclude that humans "is more resilient in the face of nuclear waste/damage than one might expect".
- hfourm 10y agoYea, I am sure the area submerged by a dam could equally rebound in its own way 30 years after.
- edpichler 10y agoYea, and this happened in Chernobyl.