Radiation News: Bacteria and Lobsters

[seventhson]

Poll question: Radiation News: Bacteria and Lobsters

As many of you know I am a strong opponent of Nuclear Power as I believe the research that says it is highly dangerous and is killing millions of people globally (DUmail me if you want those studies or go to www.radiation.org.

News (AP and Aolnews)this morning on lobsters possibly diseased from pollution (and much nuke pollution originates near the Pilgrim Nuke plan in SE Massachusetts where the worst cases have been seen and LI Sound where there are nukes nearby emitting radionucleides into the Sound and groundwater) is a big story and another story on bacteria at Hanford Nuke facility really disturb me.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20040526053409990002&_mpc=news%2e10%2e10

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20040525175009990001&_mpc=news%2e10%2e10

Andrei Sakharov (father of the soviet H-Bomb) began to oppose nuke testing when he concluded in the 1950's that radiation from testing would cause bacteria and viral mutations which could lead to a global pandemic of disease throughout nature which would kill many - including humans. Things like Lyme disease, west nile, Sars, Norwalk (cruiseship) virus, and even AIDS may ne a manifestation of the damage already caused, at least in part, by mutated viruses, bacteria, and damagaed immune systems, according to some scientists (see www.radiation.org ). We are ALL exposed to man made radiation from nukes (commercial and military, according to recent teeth studies of children).

Many here at DU seem to support nuke power and I wanted to get a sense of the views here,

So

give me some perspective and PLEASE share your thoughts - especially if you are on the fence.

[T Roosevelt]

1. There are better alternatives

no need to piss away billions of dollars on a technology that is proven unsafe when the same money in renewables and other clean energy sources would be more effective. Imagine if this country had done that 20 years ago....

[snowFLAKE]

2. Now that's funny stuff (for a SCIENCE forum, at least)

Or a downright scary demonstration of ignorance, depending on how you look at it - were you taught Biology by Creationists by any chance?

P.S. I apologize in advance if this post is excessively rude, especially since you - unlike me - appear to be a long-time contributing member to this site. However, you (and unfortunately millions of other Americans) really do need to go learn some Basic Biology.

[seventhson]

3. The Doctors, scientists and epidemiolohists at this site (radiation.org)

have exceptional credentials.

The principal proponent of this site (a prime target of Halliburton/nuke corporation disinformation) is Dr. Ernest Sternglass - a Holocaust survivor, former head of the NASA Lunar scientific station project for Westinghouse and whistleblower and founder of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Radiological Physics. Scoff at your peril.



You can laugh at these credentials and their studies, but one does so only as a demonstration of ignorance or deliberation.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

4. In re: Credentials

Okay, I know that responding to this is mindbendingly stupid, but this should not go uncommented on:

Dr. Ernest Sternglass - a Holocaust survivor, former head of the NASA Lunar scientific station project for Westinghouse and whistleblower and founder of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Radiological Physics.

(emphasis added)

Okay 7, take a deep breath and answer me this:

What exactly does having lived through the Holocaust have to confer in terms of credentials as a biologist, physiologist or physicist?

No, seriously. UPitt medical school department head, former Westinghouse employee, these make some level of sense in establishing credentials. But Holocaust survivor? I mean, come on man, are you that desperate to invoke an argument by pity?

[Codeblue]

5. Well

As far as I know, thousands more people die each year from coal power plants than die from nuke plants. However, if a coal plant reaches the end of it's productive life, or there is some malfunction, things like Chernobyl don't happen.

The biggest reason I oppose nuclear power is the 10,000 year half-life of the depleted rods.

[NNadir]

6. Man is this dumb.

You are claiming that the mere presence of the Pilgrim nuclear powerplant is mutating lobsters, or that the evolution of Lyme disease and AIDS is derived from nuclear weapons testing.

Do you know any science whatsoever?

Did AIDS originate at Hanford? Did Lyme disease? How can you say that the same effects did not derive from the huge expansion of coal power, oil, tie dyed tee shirts and the invention of the television?

More probably the invention of the airplane had more to do with AIDS than any other technological factor, as any one even remotely - and I mean even very remotely - with the epidemiology of AIDS understands. Of course one hears all kinds of paranoid things mentioned about AIDS, like the CIA did it to kill African Americans or Gays, but AIDS spread for exactly the same reason that bubonic plague spread in the 14th and 15th century: Increased population density and increased travel between distant civilizations. In fact we are seeing many plagues being spread, and not only among human species. The American Chestnut was rendered nearly extinct from a pathogen imported to the United States before the equivalence of mass and energy was understood, never mind before the building a nuclear powerplant. We ignore the effects of smallpox on native Americans in the 16th century, but even so, that plague had ZERO to do with nuclear energy.

This kind of scientifically illiterate thinking is exactly why we do not have the nuclear power that we will need to survive. Moreover the confusion between weapons nuclear energy and commercial nuclear energy (which curiously does not extend to the difference between Nalpalm and Gasoline, or Boeing 777's and B-52's or microbiology and germ warfare) is so ridiculous as to almost be beneath contempt. The firebombings (gasoline fueled) of Dresden, Hamburg, Toyko, Osaka, etc - exceeding Hiroshima and Nakasaki in the numbers of deaths by an order of magnitude - did not lead to a call, unfortunately, to ban oil refining.

It is depressing as hell to see nonsense like this posted in a public forum; more depressing that people vote in support of the premises it presupposes. This is a very sad measure of little we understand even basic science, particularly risk analysis. It even more depressing when one cites Andrei Sakharov on the matter. Dr. Sakharov was merely raising a possibility. There was no experimental data to support his hypothesis, and I'm sure that he would be the first to agree that any speculation in that regard has no evidence whatsoever to support it.

[treepig]

7. ha ha, as said by nelson . .

perhaps you should stick with posting your nonsense in the LBN forum where a less scientifically literate (and hence more gullible) readership is more sympathetic to your ramblings?