Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Fukushima - The Elephant in the Room

I suspect that Greger, Ken, and Mechanic would agree with this assessment and logic: [b]Nuclear Power Is Extremely Safe -- That's the Truth About What We Learned From Japan[/b]. It will be interesting to see what effect the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on Honshu in the next 10 years.

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Fukushima updates

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Nothing on earth is “extremely safe” Joe. Nothing. You might slip and fall and crack you head getting out of bed some day. Seriously.

But I will say this. Nuclear power is far down the list for dangers to living beings. Humans are much more dangerous and harmful to humans than virtually anything else on this blue ball. Then--in the end--life itself will get you.

In the meantime get out and enjoy your summer. Seriously. But be sure to wear sunscreen to protect yourself from solar radiation. Skin cancer is nasty business.

Joe, you seem to assume that I am pro-nuclear power; nothing could be farther from the truth! I believe firmly that solar, wind, and water power should be able to supply nearly all our needs. Methane created from farm and human waste should more than be able to make up what the others cannot meet.
What I really am is a realist. As long as there are enormous profits to be made in the oil, coal, and nuclear industries these will be the sources we draw our power from.
Until the alternate energy sources are sufficiently refined and perfected to the point they can rival the others we will continue along this seemingly self destructive path we are on.
As Ken has pointed out, on the list of things that are liable to kill you, eating seafood tainted by petrochemicals or illness caused by nuclear radiation are pretty far down the list. I have the deepest sympathy for the people of Japan but if they had limited population growth they would never have needed these dangerous contraptions in the first place.
Someday, in a future that does not include you and I, these problems will all be addressed. By the human race, if they survive their obsession with making things, or by what's left of the other species we share this planet with who are satisfied to find a little something to eat, some clean water to drink, and snoozing in the sun.

Catch 'em microwaved to perfection and ready to eat!

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Then I suppose you agree with former Secretary of War Caspar Weinberger, when he dismissed the future by saying :

"What has the future ever done for me?"

As long as we're all right, Jack, what does it matter if people tens of thousands of years from now will still be dying of the radiation?

How lucky we are that people in the past did not have the power to do to us what we shall be doing to our umpteen-umpteen-grand-grand-children, eh?

I feel that if we don't address these problems now that there won't be any humans to address these problems in the future. I don't believe that nuclear is the way to go, and there are other energy/power sources, which we'll see emerge over the next few years. I don't feel that "we" can really control nuclear energy, and any accidents last a long time. We don't develop a tolerance for radiation. Even small amounts can kill living tissue as it slowly accumulates over time.

Have you had your house tested for Radon, Joe? I know you don't put a lot of faith in what government has to say but this from the US Environmental Protection Agency Is interesting. Only smoking causes more cases of lung cancer. It's just natural radiation leaking out of the earth, it exists everywhere. It could be boiling up through your floors even as we speak!

All seriousness aside though, "we" are doing something about it. Underfunded scientists and engineers are working on it, just as underfunded scientists and engineers deverloped whale oil lamps and candles of beeswax, just as underfunded scientists and engineers developed the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the electric motor,
the coal industry, the petroleum industry, the nucular industry, just as we've gotten where we are today we will get where we are going tomorrow. Some felt that men would never fly, some feel that alternative energy sources will never be utilized.

All in good time my friend. It's overpopulation that will probably kill us as a species, not the fuel we feed our fires with.

Anyone here ever look at the respiratory morbidity stats for urban areas circa the mid-19th century to date ? Air pollution casued by tens of thousands of coal fires dumped tons of ash/soot into the lungs of everyone. Victorian England was noted for its "pea soup" fogs - which continued into the war years. Coal fires also release alpha and beta radition and radon in addition to mercury, sulphur dioxide, CO and CO2.
TB was rife due to poor/smokey heating and close confinement during winter months until well into the 20th century. It threatens today in certain conditions. Can anyone cite where/when a U.S nuke power killed anyone ?

IOW "them good ole' days weren't so much" !

But the truely "environmentally committed" would subsist upon a diet of legumes and wear a personal methance capture/storage device at all times ! >Mech