From: meekerdb <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, May 1, 2015 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: SciAm predicts strong future for renewable energy
On 5/1/2015 2:18 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: John Clark <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, May 1, 2015 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: SciAm predicts strong future for renewable energy
On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Quoting directly from the 2005 WHO report on Chernobyl accident “5
SEPTEMBER 2005 | GENEVA - A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of
radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
And yet that very same 2005 WHO report on the Chernobyl accident says:
>> "As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly
attributed to radiation from the disaster"
And yet the same report states that it *expects that 4000 people will die* as
a result of cancers that were triggered by radionuclides that they came into
contact with, ingested and/or absorbed through bio-uptake channels into their
body tissue.
>>But it's now 2015 not 2005 and 10 years later there is STILL not the
slightest sign that the prediction of massive deaths from radiation is even
close to being correct. Zero, zilch nada, goose egg. In fact I can't think of
a single prediction about the harm caused by a large scale radiation release
that was made in the last 70 years that didn't turn out to be ridiculously
pessimistic.
Hundreds of thousands of people die of cancer every year in the areas that
experienced fallout from Chernobyl; of these millions and millions of cancer
deaths that have occurred in these regions over the many decades since the
accident you "know" that NONE of them were in any way related to or triggered
by radionuclides released into the environment as a result of that accident?
You "know" this how?
The question is how do we know any of them are? The problem with the
projected number of deaths from radiation is that they assume a zero threshold
linear model, i.e. that every level of radiation, no matter how small, produces
some proportional cancer rate. However, this is a testable theory. Cities at
high altitude experience a higher level of background radiation from cosmic
rays and solar radiation. So if the zero threshold theory were true we would
expect higher cancer rates in cities at high altitude. But it ain't so:
Low levels of background radiation exist around us continuously. These levels
increase with increasing land elevation, allowing a comparison of low
elevations to high elevations in regard to an outcome such as cancer death
rates. The present study compares archived cancer mortality rates in six low
versus six high elevation jurisdictions. The study also compares mortality
rates for all causes, heart disease, and diabetes in low versus high elevation
jurisdictions in an effort to see if other mortality outcomes are different in
low versus high elevations. Statistically significant decreases in mortality,
with very large effect sizes, were observed in high land elevation for three of
the four outcomes, including cancer. One possible explanation for the decreased
mortality in high elevation jurisdictions is radiation hormesis. Another
possible explanation, at least in the case of heart disease mortality, is the
physiologic responses that accompany higher elevations regarding decreased
oxygen levels. Since this is an ecological study, no causal inferences can be
made, particularly when viewpoints on possible effects of low level radiation
are diametrically opposed. Further research is indicated.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057635/
>>This and knowledge of cell biology suggests that there is a threshold below
>>which external radiation has no effect.
Perhaps, however the model of exposure is very different. Being exposed to a
given dosage of radiation from an external source is a far different thing than
the case of having an aerosolized micro or nano scale radionuclide particle
become lodged say into lung or kidney tissue, or become incorporated through
bio-uptake into body tissue.Evidence that low doses of externally received
radiation do not appear to have a measurable effect -- below some low threshold
-- does not address the very different contamination model that would fit the
case of internally ingested or absorbed radionuclides.It is an apples to
oranges comparison. When a radioactive particle becomes lodged inside the body
(in lung tissue for example) it continues to irradiate any adjacent cells (and
succeeding generations of cells that are located in close proximity to the
particle) and continues to irradiate the physically proximate DNA for as long
as the particle remains lodged into (or incorporated into) the body
tissue.Chris
Brent
>>And besides, Chernobyl happened 29 years ago so we don't need
half assed predictions about what the long term results will be, we know.
Your cavalier denial that any of the cancers that have occurred in the
affected regions can possibly have anything to do with Chernobyl is baseless
rhetoric. The experts in the affected regions, who have access to the
statistics, both before and after the accident, speak of tens of thousands of
cases of cancers resulting in the death of the victims. Where is the
statistical foundation to support your denial? Are you an expert on cancer
perchance? On how the disease is triggered; how it progresses; what factors
make it more or less severe? Or are you just producing rhetorical streams of
verbiage?
Chris
John K Clark
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