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Oh come on, we're talking about 4 grams of tritium. Hydrogen bomb tests are estimated to have created several hundred kilograms of tritium, the bulk of which w

by Lazare 11y ago

Oh come on, we're talking about 4 grams of tritium. Hydrogen bomb tests are estimated to have created several hundred kilograms of tritium, the bulk of which went straight into the oceans. No impact on sea life has been measured. You list a parade of horribles, but the cold fact is that there is no theory as to how any of those even might occur. Anchovies are not going to die because of a couple grams of tritium. Nor will your cat get cancer. Radiation is not magic, nor is a taboo. It's a physical phenomenon with well understood characteristics. (And, again, even if you're right—and the entire scientific community is wrong—if 4 grams of tritium would do all that, what do you think the hundreds of kilos from nuclear tests did?) Cite: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2330 http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2330

pvaldes 11y ago
> Hydrogen bomb tests are estimated to have created several hundred kilograms of tritium, the bulk of which went straight into the oceans. No impact on sea life has been measured. This is just wishfull thinking. A clear and well documented impact on sea life with a lot of local extinctions can be easily checked still 50 years later, in fact. Nothing growing in the island is safe to eat currently. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080415101021.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080415101021.ht...
- tptacek 11y ago
  None of this has anything to do with tritium, which is not a gamma emitter.
- Lazare 11y ago
  We're talking specifically about tritium. Under normal circumstances, there's maybe 4 kilograms on the Earth's surface. The nuclear tests increased that by multiple orders of magnitude, ejecting hundreds of kilograms into the stratosphere, whereupon it promptly precipitated back out into the earth's oceans. 1) Your link does not discuss tritium. Tritium is a specific substance with specific characteristics; you can't just lump it all under "Evil Radiation" and make meaningful conclusions. 2) Whatever effect tritium would have would be global. You talk about local extinctions, but we're actually looking for evidence of massive global extinctions. The early 1960s (which saw peak tritium levels) are not known for a huge spike in inexplicable extinction events. 3) Not only did the tests spread it everywhere, but ongoing runoff means that rivers have been pumping tritium into delta regions. Almost a kilogram of tritium was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico over the last 50 years. Again, no impacts from the tritium have been detected; whatever impact it might have had was drowned out by all the other much more serious crap we humans were doing. 4) Again, there's still no theory as to how tritium (specifically tritium, and not, eg, radioactive cesium or iodine) might do all this crazy stuff. I'm just pointing out that there's also no emperical evidence either, and thus, no real reason to think our entire understanding of how radiation impacts living organisms is wrong. All of which means that people worried about the impacts of 4 grams of tritium on the Pacific Ocean are—to be charitable—innumerate. They're certainly wrong, because we've already dumped something like a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES more tritium into the Pacific ocean than that, and we literally have been unable to detect any impact. It's absurd to think we could even measure the impact of 4 grams.

by Lazare 11y ago

pvaldes 11y ago

> Hydrogen bomb tests are estimated to have created several hundred kilograms of tritium, the bulk of which went straight into the oceans. No impact on sea life has been measured. This is just wishfull thinking. A clear and well documented impact on sea life with a lot of local extinctions can be easily checked still 50 years later, in fact. Nothing growing in the island is safe to eat currently. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080415101021.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080415101021.ht...

tptacek 11y ago
None of this has anything to do with tritium, which is not a gamma emitter.
Lazare 11y ago
We're talking specifically about tritium. Under normal circumstances, there's maybe 4 kilograms on the Earth's surface. The nuclear tests increased that by multiple orders of magnitude, ejecting hundreds of kilograms into the stratosphere, whereupon it promptly precipitated back out into the earth's oceans. 1) Your link does not discuss tritium. Tritium is a specific substance with specific characteristics; you can't just lump it all under "Evil Radiation" and make meaningful conclusions. 2) Whatever effect tritium would have would be global. You talk about local extinctions, but we're actually looking for evidence of massive global extinctions. The early 1960s (which saw peak tritium levels) are not known for a huge spike in inexplicable extinction events. 3) Not only did the tests spread it everywhere, but ongoing runoff means that rivers have been pumping tritium into delta regions. Almost a kilogram of tritium was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico over the last 50 years. Again, no impacts from the tritium have been detected; whatever impact it might have had was drowned out by all the other much more serious crap we humans were doing. 4) Again, there's still no theory as to how tritium (specifically tritium, and not, eg, radioactive cesium or iodine) might do all this crazy stuff. I'm just pointing out that there's also no emperical evidence either, and thus, no real reason to think our entire understanding of how radiation impacts living organisms is wrong. All of which means that people worried about the impacts of 4 grams of tritium on the Pacific Ocean are—to be charitable—innumerate. They're certainly wrong, because we've already dumped something like a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES more tritium into the Pacific ocean than that, and we literally have been unable to detect any impact. It's absurd to think we could even measure the impact of 4 grams.