ARGH!!!
Posted on 01/23/2006 10:14:26 AM PST by rellimpank
Nobody likes to be "had," but that is precisely what has happened to the American public with the documentary Chernobyl Heart. Since winning the Academy Award for "Best Short Documentary" in February 2003, it has received international accolades, has been uncritically quoted in major newspapers, and is being recommended for America's classrooms on the National Education Association's website. HBO has run it continuously since September 2004. Yet while presented as a documentary on the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it relies to a shocking extent on scientifically unsupportable claims and in some cases outright falsehoods.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
A little explanation of the motorcycle ride debunking here: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004_05_16_archive.asp
Besides the earlier link, try www.elenafilatova.com/
I suppose you don't believe that there are giant ants caused by the nuclear testing in Nevada.
Hey, I read that whole piece on the motorcycle ride but didn't save the link. I wondered what a nice girl like her was doing in a place like that? Didn't know it was bunk. Do you have the link to the de-bunking? Thanks.
There is a strong body of evidence that long term exposure to low levels of radiation has positive benefits on the cellular level in protecting against cancers. Long term studies of nuclear workers dating back as far as WWII shows that they have significantly less cancers than the general population.
This statement is way to simple to describe the biological effects of exposure to ionizing radiation.
I don't really want to go into it, but what most people should be interested in is low level radiation over a long period of time. The scientific studies of low level radiation (<~5 R/yr) are inconclusive. Due to this two theories on its effects have been created and are being tested as data accumulates (which is very slowly).
The first theory states that any amount of radiation will cause biological damage and that logically the longer and more intense the exposure, the greater the damage. This theory has made the nuclear industry formulate the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) standard. Radiation doses are minimized and workers cannot exceed a certain amount of exposure per year (5 rem). This theory was interpolated from high level short term exposures to ionizing radiation. There is little proof that it is justified, but it is agreed that it is at least conservative.
The second theory is that ionizing radiation is only harmful above a certain threshold and may be helpful below that threshold in a complicated manner. This is because cancerous or damaged cells that absorb radiation have a higher probability of dieing than normal cells. At a certain radiation level you will create as many cancerous cells as you kill. Below that level you will kill more cancerous cells than you create (though it depends on the amount of cancerous cells and other cancer producing rates). Because this is low level radiation, the non-mutation deaths of normal cells by radiation is not factored in because it is insignificant (you can think of cancerous cells as an amplifier to biological damage from radiation whose value is many orders of magnitude greater than radiation cell deaths). For this reason, there may be a non-zero low level radiation dose rate that depends upon how many cancerous or damaged cells that you have that will be more healthy for you than a zero radiation dose rate. This theory has some scientific backing, but is certainly not conclusive yet.
I tend to agree with the second theory more because I can relate it indirectly to things like radiation treatment. Radiation treatment uses ionizing radiation to kill tumors by focusing it at a specific area of the body. Both normal and cancerous cells in that area are hit. The cancerous cells die and the normal cells are injured, but recover. The overall result is that a patient has a higher probability of surviving.
I'm more skeptical of the debunking than the motorcycle ride. She has to walk a fine line legally. It sounds quite possible that after taking the car tour and getting the low down on area rad levels that she was able to slip through barracades tour a bit on a two-wheeler. Then she could shrug her shoulders about it when the authorities got nasty. "Oh I really just..."
Point taken - could be either way. I have no way to prove it. I just posted a link to what I found.
Post # 10 (Bones75): Regarding chernobyl. There's a really insteresting web log that I read on the web a whil ago, but can't find it again. It's the personal chrinicales of thie young russions woman who rides a sport bike
I win! :-)
It doesn't. In both Russian and Ukrainian wormwood is 'Gorkaya Polyn', and even the the verse from the Ukrainian Bible calls it 'Polyn'.
'Chernobyl' means 'Wormwood' in Ukrainain
No effort was made to balance the usefulness of nuclear power against the risks of poorly maintained, poorly staffed plants. The film turned into a universal condemnation of nuclear power, a horror story for the post-Cold War era.
1 post.
"The primary cause of Chernobyl was the instability of graphite moderated reactors at low power levels."
I recall seeing a year or so ago a documentary on Chernobyl. Aside from all the technological issues it seemed to me the main culpret was the political type guy that pushed the limits of the test the engineer's were running. As I recall the lead engineer walked off 'cuz of the politco's request knowing that it would cause a meltdown. The other engineers didn't and followed the politico's orders. (Or something to that effect!?)
ARGH!!!
Two minutes four seconds, apparently.
Twelve minutes 4 seconds, actually.
Hard to keep up with all the freepmails.
Ìîé ðóññêèé ÿçûê íåìíîãî ðæàâ, çàáîòà, ÷òîáû ïåðåâåñòè?
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