4 ms·
Reminded of something that Geraldine Thomas, founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, wrote when the Fukushima drama was going on, "Look at the science – smoking
by throw0101a 3mo ago
Reminded of something that Geraldine Thomas, founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, wrote when the Fukushima drama was going on, "Look at the science – smoking and obesity are more harmful than radiation":
* https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-smoking-more-dangerous-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-...
> I can assure you that none of us are in the pay of the nuclear industry. I was anti-nuclear until I worked on the after effects of the Chernobyl accident – now I am very pro-nuclear as I realise that we have an unwarranted fear of radiation – probably due to all the rubbish about a nuclear winter we were fed during the Cold War.[10]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas
- KennyBlanken 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- wat10000 3mo agoThat doesn't even make any sense. How can you compare the harm of completely different things with completely different mechanisms and exposures? And why would nuclear winter have anything to do with it?
- andrewflnr 3mo ago> why would nuclear winter have anything to do with it? Because humans are creatures of association, not logic.
- NamlchakKhandro 3mo agoSurely you jest Sir. It's obvious, plain as day to any one who has eyes and can read.
- the_af 3mo agoSurely that the West's perception (especially the popular narrative) of Chernobyl is tinted with Cold War logic is self-evident?
- kmoser 3mo agoIndividuals have a fair degree of control over whether they smoke or overeat. They have little to no control over a nuclear accident that may subject them to an indeterminate amount of radiation.
- MomsAVoxell 3mo ago>rubbish about a nuclear winter we were fed during the Cold War If it weren't for the deterrent factor in the radiation narrative, the Cold War would've become hotter - and there is some truth in the observation that younger generations, not having had this fear of radiation inculcated in them, are too flippant about the idea of a nuclear hot war as a consequence. So I hope folks will stop thinking that the radiation factor is 'rubbish', swinging the needle the other direction, somehow. Its disheartening to talk to youth these days who had no clue of how terrified we all were in the 80's with the idea of nuclear annihilation, and so feel that a 'hot nuke against Russia would be "okay"' ..
- Symmetry 3mo agoIt's unfortunate that we only have one vocabulary for radiation to cover both a 100 uS dose of fallout and a 10 S one. If a quantity of rock drops on someone we have different words like "pebble" and "boulder" that tell us how concerned we should be. I was shocked to learn that "fallout" in the context of a nuclear war could mean something that could cause you to die in hours, not raise your lifetime risk of cancer somewhat.
- MomsAVoxell 3mo agoI guess we don't have the language because we don't have the experience. Perhaps we should tune into what the Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors use to describe things. I seem to recall they had various phrases for different kinds of fallout ..
- Symmetry 3mo agoThere actually wasn't any appreciable fallout after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Fallout is mostly generated when a bomb explodes close to the ground so that its neutrons are able to reach and transmute that ground into radioactive isotopes. The bombs dropped on Japan exploded high up to affect as large an area as possible. Many people suffered terribly from the ionizing radiation produced by those bombs, but all that damage was inflicted in the first microseconds immediately after the bombs detonated.