Re: Scientist Warns of After Effects of Nuclear Testing

["Brian Rees" <brees@lanl.gov>]

"In the estimate of Academician Sakharov, a one- kiloton nuclear charge
exploded in the atmosphere causes the death of  50,000 people in a chain
of generations..."

 Well, since there was a number given, I couldn't resist.  (although I'm
sure there'd be an emphasis on the "estimate" if the facts are presented)
gopher://wealaka.okgeosurvey1.gov:70/00/nuke.cat/nuke.cat.under.construction
gives a list of all known weapons tests.  Since it's lunchtime, I did some
ROUGH work and  pulled out atmospheric, barge, air, and tower shots, removed
< and > symbols, used the lower values in most ranges, assumed that <1000 kt
was 100 kt , and came up with well over 300,000 kt of testing in the
atmosphere (the real number's >10% larger, but what the hell, some barge
shots may have been totally subsurface).

(50,000 people per kt) x (300,000 kt) = 1.5 E10 people that will die from
weapons testing.   So, how many years of world population since 1945 do we
have to reach 1.5E10?  : - )))  Assuming all the deaths are from cancers,
what percentage world-wide die from cancer-related causes?

I LOVE it when they give real numbers!

Brian Rees
brees@lanl.gov


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