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

howard long hflong at pacbell.net
Tue Sep 13 12:05:37 CDT 2005


John and all,
Will LNT fears (cancer risk with <10rem) increase panic? 
With a dirty bomb in DC, could it cause stampede, as fear did in Baghdad?
Can education and Nukalerts prevent disaster 
by reassurance of no harm unless exposed to that level for >X hours or days?
 
"Fear itself, is our greatest fear" (or something like that from FD Roosevelt)

Howard Long

John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com> wrote:
Howard,
At the time of the evacuation, I doubt the exposure
levels were known or any projections were made. 

--- howard long wrote:

> 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 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
> 
> 
> 
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+++++++++++++++++++
"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

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