AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's Reduced Impact

[howard long]

Forced evacuation from Chernobyl areas with <10rem/year greatly worsened the economic impact. So LNT use by gov greatly worsens damage, as it would after a dirty bomb in Washington, DC.
Howard Long

John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com> wrote:
Rainer,
Do you know of anyone who has a fear of chronic low
level ionizing radiation exposure? Do the current
"survivors" of Chernobyl fear chronic radiation
exposure? Or are there other social factors involved,
like a depressed economy and an authorian government
that does not care for the welfare of its people. I
believe that a government is best judged by how it
treats the least powerful citizens. 

I certainly believe that the panic exceeded the actual
risks, but I believe that is due to poor government
planning, education, and the distrust of its citizens.


Was it this distrust that brought the Green parties
into power, or were there other factors, like
unemployment?


--- Rainer.Facius at dlr.de wrote:

> John:
> 
> Man-made and natural disasters are REAL phenomena. 
> 
> Fear of health risks from chronic low level ionizing
> radiation is unreasonable and in case of Chernobyl
> was excessive (to the utmost) and hence meets the
> criterion for phobia (see below). Its spell on the
> minds of the afflicted victims derives mostly (in my
> view entirely) from the ill-advised notion that "any
> small amount of radiation entails some health
> detriment" which is the layman's version of the LNT
> postulate. 
> 
> The extent of this lunacy reached - as so often -
> its ridiculous though relatively harmless pinnacle
> in Germany when some 8000 tons of "contaminated
> whey" (try "verstrahlte Molke" or "Strahlenmolke"
> in Google) were transported cross-country (Bremen <
> -- > Nordrhein-Westfalen < -- > Niedersachsen < --
> > Bayern) to and fro under police protection, kept
> in safe interim custody in army depots until after a
> decade it was - in part - 'decontaminated' in a
> "hazardous waste" combustion plant at costs of more
> than 1000 DM per ton. The cows yielding the original
> milk had been grazing on 'contaminated' Bavarian
> meadows in the weeks after the Chernobyl debacle. If
> you are capable of reading German you might wish to
> amuse yourself by checking the URLs below. Yet,
> since in Germany the putative aftermath of the
> Chernobyl disaster turned out to become the
> "founding myth" of the Green movement which finally
> succeeded to terminate the legal use of nuclear
> power generation, it might not be too amusing to
> read these manifestations of radiophobia.
> 
> 
> 
>
/**********************************************************/
> 
> 
> Diagnostic Criteria for "Phobia"
> (http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-an04.html
> ):
> 
> 
> 
> "Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or
> unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation
> of a specific object or situation"
> 
>
/**********************************************************/


+++++++++++++++++++
"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird at yahoo.com



__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 
http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list

Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood the RadSafe rules. These can be found at: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html

For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings visit: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/