3 ms·

Radioactive material enters and leaves your body every day. You have roughly 40 grams of potassium in your body at any given moment. Roughly 40 milligrams of t

Radioactive material enters and leaves your body every day. You have roughly 40 grams of potassium in your body at any given moment. Roughly 40 milligrams of that are a radioactive isotope (and a gamma emitter at that). Note that this isn't due to human industry: the radioactive potassium in your body was formed in stars billions of years ago. It's everywhere, and in nearly every natural aggregate material on earth, be it organic or not. You are roughly 1 part per million radioactive potassium. Will this give you cancer? Possibly. Some couple 100 people per year globally will die of cancers induced by this potassium. This is just part of the radioactive background risk that we accept as natural. You can't have an accurate conversation about material risks without quantifying concentration vs the background.

teeja 14y ago
It's good that people know these facts. But it's also obvious that additions to the burden of "background radiation" cause increased likelihood of resultant cancers (and other, more ignorable mutations in fauna and flora). (This is much the same discussion we had about petrochemical toxins after "Silent Spring".)
- jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
  Yes, but how alarmed we are about some things, and how tolerant we are of others is largely irrational. For example, living near Denver for a year will expose you to more radiation than living next to Fukushima during the accident would. This is because there's high radon in the Denver area geography. But I'd bet if you asked all of the couple million people if they're safer from cancer in Denver or Fukushima all but a handful of nutbars and nuclear industry folks would answer Denver. I don't mean to just be an apologist here: we should care a lot about toxic releases of all forms. But right now the discussion is entirely dominated by alarmism and there's little accurate information. This is disastrous because it means we direct too many resources toward lessor risks, and the media and population as a whole ignores larger risks.

teeja 14y ago

It's good that people know these facts. But it's also obvious that additions to the burden of "background radiation" cause increased likelihood of resultant cancers (and other, more ignorable mutations in fauna and flora). (This is much the same discussion we had about petrochemical toxins after "Silent Spring".)

jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
Yes, but how alarmed we are about some things, and how tolerant we are of others is largely irrational. For example, living near Denver for a year will expose you to more radiation than living next to Fukushima during the accident would. This is because there's high radon in the Denver area geography. But I'd bet if you asked all of the couple million people if they're safer from cancer in Denver or Fukushima all but a handful of nutbars and nuclear industry folks would answer Denver. I don't mean to just be an apologist here: we should care a lot about toxic releases of all forms. But right now the discussion is entirely dominated by alarmism and there's little accurate information. This is disastrous because it means we direct too many resources toward lessor risks, and the media and population as a whole ignores larger risks.