11 ms·

Sorry, no. There is a distinctive health risk to radioactive radiation, and thus the regions around Fukushima and Chernobyl are evacuated from permanent residen

by _ph_ 10y ago

Sorry, no. There is a distinctive health risk to radioactive radiation, and thus the regions around Fukushima and Chernobyl are evacuated from permanent residency. It is perfectly safe to do short trips into those regions. But long term, this is a considerable health risk. The boars can live there, because they are short-lived animals compared to humans, and the article doesn't say whether they do reach their natural life span even. They only seem to live long enough to procreate, which is 1-3 years for wild boars. Humans could live there as well, but they would experience an unacceptably short live. A human group can survive on a life expectancy of little more than 20 years, thats what human kind did in the past. But by modern standards this is not acceptable, and consequently those regions are not considered safe for settlement.

ckastner 10y ago
> Humans could live there as well, but they would experience an unacceptably short live Is this an assumption on your part, or can you back this up with data?
- _ph_ 10y ago
  I am not a MD, but I think it is accepted knowledge that elevated radiation levels shorten the life expectancy. How much, depends on many factors, like the exact nature of the radiation, like you are exposed to it, or have a likelyhood of eating contaminated foo, and of course your very age. The older you are, the less likely you are to suffer from this. I haven't done research on this myself, but I would assume that the exclusion zones have been set up according to the accepted standards for radiation safety levels.
  - coddingtonbear 10y ago
    I'd recommend doing a little research about the controversy around the "Linear no-threshold model" of radiation exposure. The answer isn't quite as clear as you might guess.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    Here is an article explaining.[1] It's a "random site on the Internet", so feel free to not believe anything they say, but I think they provide fairly good references to source material. There was also a documentary film a while ago, I'll see if I can find it. It mentions this apartment complex in Taiwan that was contaminated, and the health of the residents turned out to be better than average, not worse. Ahh, found it[2]. Seem like fairly reputable sources. [1] http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/nuclear.html http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/nuclear.html [2] http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-Cobalt-taiw-06.pdf http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-Cob...
  - krrrh 10y ago
    You're speaking with unwarranted certainty on this subject. there is much that is unknown on this subject due to very sparse data, and the fact that cancer rates are already relatively high in the general population and affected by a myriad of environmental and lifestyle factors. We live in a world where the available data allows credible scientists to observe a hormetic effect in animal models exposed to low-dose radiation, and where longitudinal studies of people who live in areas with naturally higher background radiation (higher than large areas of the exclusion zone), such as Colorado experience lower than average cancer rates.[1] Furthermore, the death toll from nuclear power generation, should be considered in comparison to the death toll of other power technologies. While it is arguable that many renewable tech are comparable and possibly have become better than nuclear in terms of safety, the deaths caused even just by radioactive particles spewed into the environment from coal plants is much higher than nuclear. It is a classic case of seen vs. unseen effects.[2] The unstated argument in this thread is whether the precautionary principle should be applied to public health policy with regards to human-caused radiation. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that it should based on unknowns, but it doesn't help to make overly certain assumptions that have weak scientific support. [1] a decent jumping off point on this stuff is the Wikipedia article on radiation hormesis - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis [2] Another quick jumping off point, with a myriad of links and charts from credible government and international organizations. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html?m=1 http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energ...
mpweiher 10y ago
There is a difference between "there is no risk", which I did not write but you imply I did, and "this risk is greater than this other risk", which is what I did write. See the WHO evaluation of the the Chernobyl disaster, which states that the largest public health problem of the disaster has been the mental health impact (link in other response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192). Again, that doesn't mean that there weren't other impacts, but the mental health impact was larger. I also remember seeing video footage of all the animals that died after Fukushima. They didn't die of radiation, they died of neglect. Also, the health impact of fairly low radiation dosages is effectively unknown to date, but data from the Chernobyl incident keeps correcting the effect downward every 10 years. The idea that "there is no safe dosage" was created artificially, because after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the exposure effects were simply linearly extrapolated to zero. There was no actual data there.
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Well, obviously, if the regions are evacuated generously, then indeed the health impact by radiation should be close to zero. Do you have any data on how large the health impact would have been without an evacuation? Of course, it is a very difficult to have precise impact numbers of radiation when we are speaking about effects talking place on the scale of decades, but we unfortunately have enough experience that the accepted safety levels are based on reasonable research.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    It now looks like a smaller evacuation zone would have been beneficial in the case of Chernobyl, and the same probably goes for Fukushima. We are overcautious as to the effects of the radiation, and undercautious as to the effects of the evacuation etc., as the data gathered over the decades around Chernobyl shows. Look at the WHO reports over the decades, each one downgrades the previous estimate of the radiation effects. > the accepted safety levels are based on reasonable research. That's apparently not the case. As others have suggested look up the LNT model and its criticism in light of (a) how it was derived and (b) data that strongly contradicts it.
sevensor 10y ago
> But long term, this is a considerable health risk. And yet, a bunch of old people live in the Chernobyl Exclusion zone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#Popul...
- icebraining 10y ago
  It's always refreshing to see a case of literal survivorship bias.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    Thanks for calling me on this -- it's a good point.
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Yes, old people. There is a strong variation on what the consequences radiation has on people depending on age. They won't have any more children and cancer is slower to develop in old people. And also, it is like with smoking. Some people smoke all their life and live past 90 years of age. Others don't. Overall the consensus is, that smoking kills the average person sooner or later. And we cannot know, how much their life is going to be shortened by their stay in the zones with higher radiation. Radiation is also not a black and white thing. There is plenty of natural radiation all over the earth, and of course a lot of cosmic radiation. And there is nuclear radiation spread around the globe as the consequence of the nuclear tests in the 60ies. So the exclusion zone only marks the region, where the radiation level is such, that it is considered unsafe for permanent residency.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    Fair point, and as the sibling comment to yours points out, my comment is an example of survivorship bias. So should we, as with smoking, allow people to determine their own tolerance for risk? Let them eat the wild boar of Fukushima and the cabbages of Pripyat?
jlebrech 10y ago
1-3 years is pretty good going considering what happens to them if they are not wild.
vidarh 10y ago
There are risks, certainly, but even the exclusion zone around Chernobyl is under ongoing re-evaluation with growing pressure to open up more of it for various use, as the main risk in large parts of it currently is not the overall levels of radiation, but 1) poor mapping of areas with higher concentrations, and 2) the risk of disturbing particulate or releasing material e.g. through forest-fires or stirring up dirt that may turn out to be more radioactive than expected. Consider that even the Chernobyl plant itself continued generating electricity until 2000 - the remaining generators were shut down one after the other, but people were working at Chernobyl all the way through. Several thousand people work in the exclusion zone at any time, and several thousand more worked at the plant in the 14 years from the accident until its closure. That's not to say none of them will suffer health risks, but the exclusion zone was set as large as it was largely because we didn't know how to manage it, and didn't know how to clean it up, and didn't know what the long term effects would be. We know a lot more now, and the indications are a lot less scary than the initial reactions. It's now to the point where there are even proposals for agricultural use in the zone.

by _ph_ 10y ago

ckastner 10y ago

> Humans could live there as well, but they would experience an unacceptably short live Is this an assumption on your part, or can you back this up with data?

_ph_ 10y ago
I am not a MD, but I think it is accepted knowledge that elevated radiation levels shorten the life expectancy. How much, depends on many factors, like the exact nature of the radiation, like you are exposed to it, or have a likelyhood of eating contaminated foo, and of course your very age. The older you are, the less likely you are to suffer from this. I haven't done research on this myself, but I would assume that the exclusion zones have been set up according to the accepted standards for radiation safety levels.
- coddingtonbear 10y ago
  I'd recommend doing a little research about the controversy around the "Linear no-threshold model" of radiation exposure. The answer isn't quite as clear as you might guess.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  Here is an article explaining.[1] It's a "random site on the Internet", so feel free to not believe anything they say, but I think they provide fairly good references to source material. There was also a documentary film a while ago, I'll see if I can find it. It mentions this apartment complex in Taiwan that was contaminated, and the health of the residents turned out to be better than average, not worse. Ahh, found it[2]. Seem like fairly reputable sources. [1] http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/nuclear.html http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/nuclear.html [2] http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-Cobalt-taiw-06.pdf http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-Cob...
- krrrh 10y ago
  You're speaking with unwarranted certainty on this subject. there is much that is unknown on this subject due to very sparse data, and the fact that cancer rates are already relatively high in the general population and affected by a myriad of environmental and lifestyle factors. We live in a world where the available data allows credible scientists to observe a hormetic effect in animal models exposed to low-dose radiation, and where longitudinal studies of people who live in areas with naturally higher background radiation (higher than large areas of the exclusion zone), such as Colorado experience lower than average cancer rates.[1] Furthermore, the death toll from nuclear power generation, should be considered in comparison to the death toll of other power technologies. While it is arguable that many renewable tech are comparable and possibly have become better than nuclear in terms of safety, the deaths caused even just by radioactive particles spewed into the environment from coal plants is much higher than nuclear. It is a classic case of seen vs. unseen effects.[2] The unstated argument in this thread is whether the precautionary principle should be applied to public health policy with regards to human-caused radiation. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that it should based on unknowns, but it doesn't help to make overly certain assumptions that have weak scientific support. [1] a decent jumping off point on this stuff is the Wikipedia article on radiation hormesis - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis [2] Another quick jumping off point, with a myriad of links and charts from credible government and international organizations. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html?m=1 http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energ...

mpweiher 10y ago

There is a difference between "there is no risk", which I did not write but you imply I did, and "this risk is greater than this other risk", which is what I did write. See the WHO evaluation of the the Chernobyl disaster, which states that the largest public health problem of the disaster has been the mental health impact (link in other response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192). Again, that doesn't mean that there weren't other impacts, but the mental health impact was larger. I also remember seeing video footage of all the animals that died after Fukushima. They didn't die of radiation, they died of neglect. Also, the health impact of fairly low radiation dosages is effectively unknown to date, but data from the Chernobyl incident keeps correcting the effect downward every 10 years. The idea that "there is no safe dosage" was created artificially, because after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the exposure effects were simply linearly extrapolated to zero. There was no actual data there.

_ph_ 10y ago
Well, obviously, if the regions are evacuated generously, then indeed the health impact by radiation should be close to zero. Do you have any data on how large the health impact would have been without an evacuation? Of course, it is a very difficult to have precise impact numbers of radiation when we are speaking about effects talking place on the scale of decades, but we unfortunately have enough experience that the accepted safety levels are based on reasonable research.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  It now looks like a smaller evacuation zone would have been beneficial in the case of Chernobyl, and the same probably goes for Fukushima. We are overcautious as to the effects of the radiation, and undercautious as to the effects of the evacuation etc., as the data gathered over the decades around Chernobyl shows. Look at the WHO reports over the decades, each one downgrades the previous estimate of the radiation effects. > the accepted safety levels are based on reasonable research. That's apparently not the case. As others have suggested look up the LNT model and its criticism in light of (a) how it was derived and (b) data that strongly contradicts it.

sevensor 10y ago

> But long term, this is a considerable health risk. And yet, a bunch of old people live in the Chernobyl Exclusion zone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#Popul...

icebraining 10y ago
It's always refreshing to see a case of literal survivorship bias.
- sevensor 10y ago
  Thanks for calling me on this -- it's a good point.
_ph_ 10y ago
Yes, old people. There is a strong variation on what the consequences radiation has on people depending on age. They won't have any more children and cancer is slower to develop in old people. And also, it is like with smoking. Some people smoke all their life and live past 90 years of age. Others don't. Overall the consensus is, that smoking kills the average person sooner or later. And we cannot know, how much their life is going to be shortened by their stay in the zones with higher radiation. Radiation is also not a black and white thing. There is plenty of natural radiation all over the earth, and of course a lot of cosmic radiation. And there is nuclear radiation spread around the globe as the consequence of the nuclear tests in the 60ies. So the exclusion zone only marks the region, where the radiation level is such, that it is considered unsafe for permanent residency.
- sevensor 10y ago
  Fair point, and as the sibling comment to yours points out, my comment is an example of survivorship bias. So should we, as with smoking, allow people to determine their own tolerance for risk? Let them eat the wild boar of Fukushima and the cabbages of Pripyat?

jlebrech 10y ago

1-3 years is pretty good going considering what happens to them if they are not wild.

vidarh 10y ago

There are risks, certainly, but even the exclusion zone around Chernobyl is under ongoing re-evaluation with growing pressure to open up more of it for various use, as the main risk in large parts of it currently is not the overall levels of radiation, but 1) poor mapping of areas with higher concentrations, and 2) the risk of disturbing particulate or releasing material e.g. through forest-fires or stirring up dirt that may turn out to be more radioactive than expected. Consider that even the Chernobyl plant itself continued generating electricity until 2000 - the remaining generators were shut down one after the other, but people were working at Chernobyl all the way through. Several thousand people work in the exclusion zone at any time, and several thousand more worked at the plant in the 14 years from the accident until its closure. That's not to say none of them will suffer health risks, but the exclusion zone was set as large as it was largely because we didn't know how to manage it, and didn't know how to clean it up, and didn't know what the long term effects would be. We know a lot more now, and the indications are a lot less scary than the initial reactions. It's now to the point where there are even proposals for agricultural use in the zone.