Jochen -
Thanks for a very interesting (and I am sure, controversial) topic other
than "what should I read over the winter?" or "why do I need a bleeping
PhD?" (being one of the bigger contributors to both).
Today, the people near Semipalatinsk still suffer
from the effects of radiation, the incidence of cancer and cancer
mortality has increased.
Is this a problem in New Mexico as well?
There is epidemiological evidence that would support the argument that
higher incidents of cancer have occurred in the state, and localized
around Los Alamos and it's watershed (not the Trinity test so much as 60
years of R&D with highly toxic stuff including U and Pu and Be and
...) Anecdotal evidence also supports it (who living or working in Los
Alamos doesn't know several people who came up with one type of cancer
or another, often a rare form and often earlier than seems reasonable?).
The big fire of 2000 didn't help all this either, opening up issues of
increased erosion/runoff, etc.
How this compares to Rocky Flats, Hanford, Oak Ridge, etc. is a totally
different question. And how it compares to Love Canal, etc. is also a
totally different question. How it compares to living in any major
metropolitan area in the US (or world) is another matter. How it
compares to eating a typical modern diet (including
hormone/pesticide/herbicide)-laden food, living in a home built without
an understanding of Radon or Asbestos or ..., or how it compares to just
the modern stress of a blameful, hateful, isolating, competitive society
is another question.
I presume that Semipalatinsk (and the myriad test sites throughout the
former soviet Union, like our own Nevada Test site and dozens more,
especially from the Plowshare era) suffers from many of the same things
I suggest above, though differently, not discovering runaway consumerism
until much more recently...
For a "real good time" open
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/WRJ_nuclear_tests.kml in
Google Earth and take a virtual tour of *thousands* of tests around the
world, mostly in the 50's and 60's.
I'm far from being an apologist for nuclear waste generation or
irresponsible high-tech activities, but I'm also prone to want it *all*
out on the table. Homo Sapiens, despite our incredible range of
creativity (because of it?) seems to be a very self-destructive creature
who not only shits (toxic/radiologically) where it eats but does it
gleefuly with big fat stories about how good one behaviour or another is
for the planet/humanity/economy/etc. If anthropogenic global climate
change is as bad as it looks like it might be, the effects of nuclear
tests are a blip. Our agribusinessed global food supply, past, present
and future may be many times worse for us than the all too well known
(but not?) nuclear waste/test threats.
Is it a controversial topic in Santa Fe?
< ;^) >
No, nobody seems to discuss it at all. It is generally a non-issue
</ ;^) >
Actually it got kind of tired and I think Bush II, the Iraq War, Global
Climate Change, GMO, etc. eclipsed it as a topic.
- Steve
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