5 ms·

Have you seen how big the Chernobyl exclusion zone is? are to move your family there? Have you paid any attention to the after effects at Fukushima? Do you car

by aniro 6y ago

Have you seen how big the Chernobyl exclusion zone is? are to move your family there? Have you paid any attention to the after effects at Fukushima? Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water (and one of the greatest repositories of life) on Earth? That the effects will likely reverberate for a 1000 years or more? What is your solution to the problem of accumulating Nuclear waste? Has it occurred to you that life has succeeded on the planet primarily by a fantastical luck of getting dosed with EXACTLY the right amount of radiation, carefully controlled by an atmosphere that literal took a millennia of millennia in order to develop? That fucking with that balance by inviting disastrous and unknown consequences into that careful envelope might turn some people off? No. You must be right.. just a bunch of loony activists that are clinging desperately to the activist identity. How shallow and unconsidered an opinion. Did it make you feel as smug as it sounded when you typed it out?

bhickey 6y ago
> Has it occurred to you that life has succeeded on the planet primarily by a fantastical luck of getting dosed with EXACTLY the right amount of radiation, carefully controlled by an atmosphere that literal took a millennia of millennia in order to develop? Well, no. We aren't in some mystical radiation balance with nature. Heritable point mutations are primarily driven by DNA polymerase errors and repair failures, not by radiation damage. Ultraviolet light is good at causing thymidine cross-linking, which can give rise to cancers, but this is irrelevant to heritable change. Likewise, higher energy particles can cut DNA, but compared to crossing over events during chromosomal assortment this has approximately no bearing on heritable change.
- aniro 6y ago
  I gather all of that evidence was collected from Martian samples? Maybe Venus? Was it derived from DNA developed on the Moon? What does make Earth just right for you to have developed in order to be aware, gain such knowledge, share such knowledge? Untold eons of carefully controlled radiant energy emitted by our blessed Sun. The Sun and its ilk are massive emitters of radiant energy. Light is a form of radiation. Heat is a form of radiation. The universe is full of lifeless rocks either burnt by the sun or left out in the cold. In fact, all the ones we know of exist in this state except this one. I am not advocating some “mystical radiation balance with nature” so much as pointing out that “life” (as we know it) is playing the long game on controlling radiant energy doses. When we muck about with that by playing our dumb little short game without consideration for the consequences we invite disaster upon ourselves. All of this discussion about global warming is pointless if we leave large swathes of the planet uninhabitable by humans.
  - Miraste 6y ago
    You know that we can measure and control for radiation in experiments, right? And that radiation levels are not constant across the planet?
    - aniro 6y ago
      I am not sure I understand your point. The atmosphere does a reasonably good job protecting us from the ravages of open space. One of the positive (for us) results of the particular make-up of that atmosphere is to foster life. Absent that protection (or if we were to act to circumvent it) life struggles to find a foothold. Can't think of anywhere life flourishes other than here. Places that lack this protection tend to get burnt to a crisp or freeze. Lack of energy is a problem. Too much energy is a problem. The wrong KIND of energy is a problem. What we call "radioactive material" that is the effluent by-product of nuclear fission is all the wrong kind of energy. I won't recount all the reasons why, but the fact that it is the least likely source of scrambling heritable traits in DNA is actually kind of low on the list (especially given the speed with which it scrambles DNA in living entities). I am suggesting we shouldn't act to circumvent the protection we have been graciously afforded by the atmosphere. Fucking about with fissile material inside the atmosphere and on the surface is stupid and short sighted. There is nothing mystical about any of this, it is pure science.
dnautics 6y ago
" Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water..." Real talk: Which do you think is worse, fukushima, or one atmospheric nuclear test?
- aniro 6y ago
  Real talk: Doses of radioactive elements from high atmosphere Nuclear weapons testing persist in trace amounts in all living things on Earth today. Dispersal of radioactive elements would be faster and point source radioactivity thereby reduced by that due to the nature of the medium into which it was released and the very short duration of the release. Fukushima because it lacks these characteristics. Blow up all the shit you want.. nuclear energy (when it fails, and every failure is too often) is way more disruptive then nuclear weapons. Evidence? See Nagasaki today vs Pripyat today.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    You're just not counting all of the worldwide idiopathic cancer events. It's an easy fallacy to undercount one thing because it's effects are not localized.
    - aniro 6y ago
      I don't generally think we should be splitting atoms on the surface of the planet. It has lots of dirty side effects that far outlast our capacity to grapple with the consequences. Humans on the whole are not prepared at this point to think in terms of decades, let alone plan for events that have consequences counted in Milennia.
forest_dweller 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Greenpeace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Greenpeace There are plenty of criticisms of greenpeace in the same vain. Being skeptical of any of their claims is healthy.
- aniro 6y ago
  I am highly skeptical of them. It was not my intent to defend them. I do not consider nuclear energy a viable alternative to the hydrocarbon economy. I have considered it and I have dismissed it. You will not change my mind unless you can produce it off planet. I have dismissed it as a non-viable option (apparently the "non-viable" part is inconceivable to you.) This dismissal is not tied to my need to coddle and protect my identity as an activist. "It highlights the very important point that activist groups will quite often ignore viable solutions. This is usually because they wish to keep on being activists and keep on continuing the fight." This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock.
  - forest_dweller 6y ago
    Apparently you are the arbiter of Energy production. I am sorry for questioning your wisdom /sarcasm.
    - aniro 6y ago
      Well done.. missing the point entirely. Quite an art.
      - forest_dweller 6y ago
        Not really. Maybe you shouldn't lead with an absolute that you can't possibly claim to know. > This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock. I never claimed that applied for anyone that is advocating for change. In this case the nuclear power solution could be a viable solution (I don't care for your expertise on the subject). They have rejected a viable solution that could get us X% of the way there. Therefore that tells me they aren't interested in an actual solution. That in tells me they wish to be advocates rather than solving an issue. Therefore anything they tell me is suspect.
Xixi 6y ago
The current trajectory of temperature increase is at least 4~5°C (rather optimistic) in 2100, which would mean that a pretty wide area surrounding the equator will, year-round or for significant parts of the year, have a wet-bulb temperature at or above 35°C. It is the limit at which human life (and mammal life in general) is entirely impossible, due to over-heating. That unlivable area will include most of India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. Hong-Kong and Taiwan, whether you consider them as part of China or not, will anyway not be livable anymore by then. What do you think will happen when India, a country of 1.3B armed with nuclear weapons, realize it literally has to move somewhere else for survival? Do you think all these people will agree to die in silence, peacefully so as to not inconvenience you? On top of that grim outlook, agriculture has only been possible relatively recently in human history. Until about 10,000 years ago the climate was not stable enough to reliably grow crops, year after year. That stability is probably already gone. Note that the issue for agriculture (and forests, etc.) is less the actual temperature and more the rain/weather patterns (and evaporation, that links back to temperature). There is absolutely no guarantee that we will be able to adapt our crops fast enough for agriculture to keep up, especially if there is too much instability around the globe. Without stable crops the number of people that can survive on Earth is not very large. China has recently launched a 'Clean Plate' campaign against food waste. As you can imagine it's not because food is plentiful... but because of excess rain, causing crop failures. Radioactivity is scary and dangerous in high enough dose. Chernobyl and Fukushima are horrible disasters that should have been avoided, but sadly weren't. But compared to the threat of global warming, risks from nuclear power plants are small, known and manageable. To say it differently, rice from Fukushima may be dangerous, but it's still safer than certain death from lack of rice. I'm not saying we should be building nuclear power plants everywhere, at all. In any case there's not enough U235 at hand to fill the energy needs of mankind. But I would much prefer we spend fewer resources on closing existing nuclear power plants, and more resources on tackling global warming (looking at my home country, France, and our lignite addicted neighbor, Germany). Source (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy0rW0oaFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy0rW0oaFI
- aniro 6y ago
  I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that "lack of rice" (and lack of clean water) is going to be a major issue whether we build out nuclear or not. I think humanity is in for a dark couple hundred years. The window hasn't closed, but we are hard pressed dealing with all the wrong fights and time is losing. The less "1000 year tail of disaster" opportunities we can have available when things start to unravel the better. I am less afraid of us killing each other over rice and water than I am of us forcing those that come in the aftermath to deal with our effluence for 50+ generations.

by aniro 6y ago

bhickey 6y ago

> Has it occurred to you that life has succeeded on the planet primarily by a fantastical luck of getting dosed with EXACTLY the right amount of radiation, carefully controlled by an atmosphere that literal took a millennia of millennia in order to develop? Well, no. We aren't in some mystical radiation balance with nature. Heritable point mutations are primarily driven by DNA polymerase errors and repair failures, not by radiation damage. Ultraviolet light is good at causing thymidine cross-linking, which can give rise to cancers, but this is irrelevant to heritable change. Likewise, higher energy particles can cut DNA, but compared to crossing over events during chromosomal assortment this has approximately no bearing on heritable change.

aniro 6y ago
I gather all of that evidence was collected from Martian samples? Maybe Venus? Was it derived from DNA developed on the Moon? What does make Earth just right for you to have developed in order to be aware, gain such knowledge, share such knowledge? Untold eons of carefully controlled radiant energy emitted by our blessed Sun. The Sun and its ilk are massive emitters of radiant energy. Light is a form of radiation. Heat is a form of radiation. The universe is full of lifeless rocks either burnt by the sun or left out in the cold. In fact, all the ones we know of exist in this state except this one. I am not advocating some “mystical radiation balance with nature” so much as pointing out that “life” (as we know it) is playing the long game on controlling radiant energy doses. When we muck about with that by playing our dumb little short game without consideration for the consequences we invite disaster upon ourselves. All of this discussion about global warming is pointless if we leave large swathes of the planet uninhabitable by humans.
- Miraste 6y ago
  You know that we can measure and control for radiation in experiments, right? And that radiation levels are not constant across the planet?
  - aniro 6y ago
    I am not sure I understand your point. The atmosphere does a reasonably good job protecting us from the ravages of open space. One of the positive (for us) results of the particular make-up of that atmosphere is to foster life. Absent that protection (or if we were to act to circumvent it) life struggles to find a foothold. Can't think of anywhere life flourishes other than here. Places that lack this protection tend to get burnt to a crisp or freeze. Lack of energy is a problem. Too much energy is a problem. The wrong KIND of energy is a problem. What we call "radioactive material" that is the effluent by-product of nuclear fission is all the wrong kind of energy. I won't recount all the reasons why, but the fact that it is the least likely source of scrambling heritable traits in DNA is actually kind of low on the list (especially given the speed with which it scrambles DNA in living entities). I am suggesting we shouldn't act to circumvent the protection we have been graciously afforded by the atmosphere. Fucking about with fissile material inside the atmosphere and on the surface is stupid and short sighted. There is nothing mystical about any of this, it is pure science.

dnautics 6y ago

" Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water..." Real talk: Which do you think is worse, fukushima, or one atmospheric nuclear test?

aniro 6y ago
Real talk: Doses of radioactive elements from high atmosphere Nuclear weapons testing persist in trace amounts in all living things on Earth today. Dispersal of radioactive elements would be faster and point source radioactivity thereby reduced by that due to the nature of the medium into which it was released and the very short duration of the release. Fukushima because it lacks these characteristics. Blow up all the shit you want.. nuclear energy (when it fails, and every failure is too often) is way more disruptive then nuclear weapons. Evidence? See Nagasaki today vs Pripyat today.
- dnautics 6y ago
  You're just not counting all of the worldwide idiopathic cancer events. It's an easy fallacy to undercount one thing because it's effects are not localized.
  - aniro 6y ago
    I don't generally think we should be splitting atoms on the surface of the planet. It has lots of dirty side effects that far outlast our capacity to grapple with the consequences. Humans on the whole are not prepared at this point to think in terms of decades, let alone plan for events that have consequences counted in Milennia.

forest_dweller 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Greenpeace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Greenpeace There are plenty of criticisms of greenpeace in the same vain. Being skeptical of any of their claims is healthy.

aniro 6y ago
I am highly skeptical of them. It was not my intent to defend them. I do not consider nuclear energy a viable alternative to the hydrocarbon economy. I have considered it and I have dismissed it. You will not change my mind unless you can produce it off planet. I have dismissed it as a non-viable option (apparently the "non-viable" part is inconceivable to you.) This dismissal is not tied to my need to coddle and protect my identity as an activist. "It highlights the very important point that activist groups will quite often ignore viable solutions. This is usually because they wish to keep on being activists and keep on continuing the fight." This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock.
- forest_dweller 6y ago
  Apparently you are the arbiter of Energy production. I am sorry for questioning your wisdom /sarcasm.
  - aniro 6y ago
    Well done.. missing the point entirely. Quite an art.
    - forest_dweller 6y ago
      Not really. Maybe you shouldn't lead with an absolute that you can't possibly claim to know. > This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock. I never claimed that applied for anyone that is advocating for change. In this case the nuclear power solution could be a viable solution (I don't care for your expertise on the subject). They have rejected a viable solution that could get us X% of the way there. Therefore that tells me they aren't interested in an actual solution. That in tells me they wish to be advocates rather than solving an issue. Therefore anything they tell me is suspect.

Xixi 6y ago

The current trajectory of temperature increase is at least 4~5°C (rather optimistic) in 2100, which would mean that a pretty wide area surrounding the equator will, year-round or for significant parts of the year, have a wet-bulb temperature at or above 35°C. It is the limit at which human life (and mammal life in general) is entirely impossible, due to over-heating. That unlivable area will include most of India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. Hong-Kong and Taiwan, whether you consider them as part of China or not, will anyway not be livable anymore by then. What do you think will happen when India, a country of 1.3B armed with nuclear weapons, realize it literally has to move somewhere else for survival? Do you think all these people will agree to die in silence, peacefully so as to not inconvenience you? On top of that grim outlook, agriculture has only been possible relatively recently in human history. Until about 10,000 years ago the climate was not stable enough to reliably grow crops, year after year. That stability is probably already gone. Note that the issue for agriculture (and forests, etc.) is less the actual temperature and more the rain/weather patterns (and evaporation, that links back to temperature). There is absolutely no guarantee that we will be able to adapt our crops fast enough for agriculture to keep up, especially if there is too much instability around the globe. Without stable crops the number of people that can survive on Earth is not very large. China has recently launched a 'Clean Plate' campaign against food waste. As you can imagine it's not because food is plentiful... but because of excess rain, causing crop failures. Radioactivity is scary and dangerous in high enough dose. Chernobyl and Fukushima are horrible disasters that should have been avoided, but sadly weren't. But compared to the threat of global warming, risks from nuclear power plants are small, known and manageable. To say it differently, rice from Fukushima may be dangerous, but it's still safer than certain death from lack of rice. I'm not saying we should be building nuclear power plants everywhere, at all. In any case there's not enough U235 at hand to fill the energy needs of mankind. But I would much prefer we spend fewer resources on closing existing nuclear power plants, and more resources on tackling global warming (looking at my home country, France, and our lignite addicted neighbor, Germany). Source (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy0rW0oaFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy0rW0oaFI

aniro 6y ago
I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that "lack of rice" (and lack of clean water) is going to be a major issue whether we build out nuclear or not. I think humanity is in for a dark couple hundred years. The window hasn't closed, but we are hard pressed dealing with all the wrong fights and time is losing. The less "1000 year tail of disaster" opportunities we can have available when things start to unravel the better. I am less afraid of us killing each other over rice and water than I am of us forcing those that come in the aftermath to deal with our effluence for 50+ generations.