What form of power generation has killed the most people per mega watt hour so far:
a) Nuclear power stations.
b) Coal fired power stations.
c) Oil fired power stations.
d) Wind generators.
e) Wave generators.
f) Hydro-electric generators.
I watched a movie recently that had environmentalist that used to be totally anti-nuke for power generation. In the movie they are now pro-nuke for power generation if done correctly. They claim it is a have to do now thing.
They have decided nuclear energy if done correctly is much better for the planet than using carbon based fuels. Sorry I don't remember the movie title.
Most definitely +1 to that. Advanced reactors, improved safety standards, and recycling spent fuels makes it the best of all the choices now available.
At one point I found myself doing autopsies in Chicago. It is safe to say that living in the City at that time was more than equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
What was in the lungs of every city dweller was not carbon dioxide… CO2… it was particulate carbon. Later in life I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Robert Clarkson (rest his soul), who studied the structure of char materials…the same materials that were finding their way into the city dweller's lungs. These materials tend to admit oxygen and keep the oxygen a free radical state… making the chars particularly dangerous. So, I am all for reducing carbon particulates from our environment.
However, a lot has been done in the last 40 years to eliminate the emission of particulates from coal fired plants and automobiles. In the right configuration, coal fired plants might be our most sustainable and cheapest form of energy. If you believe that CO2 is causing global warming, then I challenge you to explain the last 5000 years of global warming. I am afraid that the very real problem of reducing carbon particulates has been confused with believing that CO2 emissions are harmful. Driving CO2 emissions down, will also drive carbon particulates down… but confusing the argument is very dangerous.
The real problem isn't where we get our energy. The problem is that we have no universally available, cheap and reliable way to store energy. What good is a windmill farm or a giant array of photovoltaics if the array stops producing just when you need them most (And what is worse, these sources of energy are allowed to unfairly compete (economically) with suppliers of energy that do not suffer from such fluctuations.
The first argument is that we should reduce our consumption. Nonsense. The second argument is that we should reduce our population. Nonsense. The third argument is that both of these solutions should be imposed upon us. This is the argument for genocide and government mandated population control. In the 21st Century it will probably become the argument for systemic neglect. In the last century, such people were called "flat Earthers."
Please do not give support to such non-sense and social power to those that espouse it.
The World has more than enough resources. What it lacks is the imagination and leadership to use those resources most creatively and in a way that most optimally promotes life and growth.
There is more energy in a cup of water that you drink than you could possibly use in a hundred years. We just don't know how to use it... yet.
Nuclear may be a 'necessary evil'. But I always follow that with pondering if any evil is necessary.
I worked on the Hanford Nuclear Area a long time ago and there were huge assurances that nuclear waste management would evolve.. it hasn't. Spent fuel rods tend to default to remaining in cooling ponds on the reactor site, so every nuclear reactor is a candidate for become the defacto waste storage facility for millenium to come after the reactor is decomissioned.
That may change with enought decomissioned reactors, but that is what is for now. Only naval and military reactors in the U.S. have a long-term waste management facility.
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Looking over "Silent Spring" again, we have made a lot of progress and I strongly suggest any readers of it consider that the EPA and the chemical industries have done a lot of address all the specifics in it. It was written in 1962 and was a wakeup call that was even endorsed by President John F. Kenedy.
In the 1980s there still were a lot of loose ends, but the government began requiring training, licensing, and protective gear for anyone handing pesticides and herbicides... with examination of do's and don't. The house paint industry shifted from oil based to water based paint for nearly everything, lead white was replaced with safer titanium white paint. Even large bakeries were force to modify the emissions of alcohol from yeast to improve air polution. I certainly think it is important to read 'Silent Spring' with some view of the progress that has been made since then.... so as it has been.
Regarding Fukijima, the US is allowing Japan to seek its own solution as it is a foreign affairs issue. Sadly we suffer through a similar barrier with China's use of coal.
The US can suggest and share experience, but cannot directly mandate a solution to other nations. It may seem like a lot of radiation came out of Fukijima, but compare to the Bikini Atoll tests and the Russia's 50 megton H-bomb; it put a rather small porportion of radiation into the atmosphere. Nonetheless, it is tragic and has demonstrated the tendency to keep old reactors running just because all reactors have never proven as cost effective as the projections.
Looking into old National Geographic archives, there is one issue that addressed all the changes in marine life around the Bikini Atoll many decades after the above-ground testing ceased. As I recall, there are photos of giant mutant crab.. about 3 feet arcross... not sure what else.
Thanks for these reply's. I was starting to let go of my concerns, starting to cool down unlike the radiation. Then I read Loopy's posting which in turn lead me to Bikini island. I never knew America could be so stupid. In fact this underscores my frustration and lack of trust with Governments. "Its all going to be okay", I hear from some Right-wing on TV, but this counters my education, I was tough about radiation in school and through these lessons it was regarded as extremely nasty stuff that takes hundreds of life times to go away.
Those poor people of Bikini island can some day be you. You better wise up and just know that people in power don't give a dam about this land unless they can make a buck off it.
I want to FIGHT and DO something - my future is at stake.
Now that I am done screaming [sorry if I offended you], I am eager to build my device more than ever and bring public awareness to my findings. I have a huge social media presence - being a girl sailing on the sea can provide one with a massive audience rather effortlessly. I will employ the power of the internet and the press if I can. I know this is a huge undertaking but its all I have.
There's plenty of stupid to go around. Once upon a time, I was trying to calibrate a gamma ray detector in western Australia and could not believe how high the background radiation was. To my surprise I soon learned that the Brits did above ground testing there, a series of nuke tests that was conducted without the general populace knowing anything about it.
....
I want to FIGHT and DO something - my future is at stake. ... I am eager to build my device more than ever and bring public awareness to my findings. I have a huge social media presence .
While I applaude your drive to "FIGHT and DO something," just be aware that making other people aware of situations only goes so far. When I wasn't so old and decrepit, I used to believe that if people simply knew what was going on in the world, then things would get fixed, people would not stand for the status quo, etc. Unfortunately it does not work that way. Plenty of people, when confronted with the facts, when shown the evidence, simply turn the dial to whatever media outlet will provide them with "news" that confirms their biases. People, for the most part, simply keep on believing whatever it is they want to believe. Education of the common slobs only goes so far. Check out, for example, the Dunning–Kruger_effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect. It's why so many people stick their heads deeper into the sand when they learn about things that conflict with their worldview. They double-down on their dumb@ssedness.
If I were you, I'd put my energies into learning about and developing technologies that can solve problems. I sometimes think it's easier to change the laws of nature than it is to change the opinions of the cud-chewing masses.
Reach, my father was a nuclear physicist and I gerw up in his lab. Ironically, one of his career triumphs involved measuring chemical air pollution. They were using "neutron activation analysis" which bombards a sample with neutrons from a very powerful and dangerous source. Neutrons are absorbed by atomic nuclei turning them into often radioactive isotopes. These radioactive isotopes emit characteristic gamma radiation, which can be used to tell what elements are in the sample to a very sensitive degree. Using this technique they were able to detect lead in the air near highways back before unleaded gasoline was the norm.
It can be hard to get your head around nuclear things. Nuclear tests can be almost unbelievably sensitive; when you hear a Geiger counter click that's the decay of one single atom to a different isotope or element. Lab grade equipment does more than go click; it can determine the gamma ray's energy, which can tell you what isotope just decayed. These tests can detect radiation so faint that it makes what you get from standing outside in Denver look like a blast furnace by comparison. Generally, so far, when they talk about detecting Fukushima radiation off of the US west coast, that's the sort of thing they're talking about. This very sensitive equipment can tell where it came from, but it's nowhere near levels that pose an actual danger.
But radiation is also invisible and silent and some isotopes bioaccumulate from very faint concentrations to dangerous ones in critical body organs, so it's a complicated deal. With my experience if I currently lived anywhere near Tokyo I would be looking for a way to move, but outside of Japan I'm not yet very worried. The problem isn't so much Fukushima as the countless opportunities for further similar accidents which exist, all of them very expensive to mitigate once their usefulness in generating power is over.
If you would like a very good layman's overview of how nuclear science got to be the way it is, I highly recommend Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which deservedly won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award and gives a very real sense of scale as to how and why all this stuff got developed. His followup Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is also very good but is more about US-Soviet Cold War politics; it does, however, describe explain how and why the Bikini test was performed.
Also, if you don't happen to know who Sadako Sasaki is I suggest you use the Google to find out. Have something to cry into ready though.
In war we create things which are meant to be dangerous. In peace we create things which become dangerous mainly because we create too much or too many and without thinking of the consequences. The makers of the peacetime nuclear industry at least weren't trying to kill people, but they have brought so many resources to bear compared to what we could do in the relatively limited window of war preparations that the problem is just as bad. It is going to cost trillions of dollars to wind down the nuclear industry into a safe state. It will never be safe enough to replace fossil fuels and we seriously need to stop using fossil fuels at the rate we are yesterday.
Unfortunately, "we" is a rather nebulous concept for humans. There's a darkly hilarious passage toward the climax of Fred Pohl's Heechee series when the alien Heechee finally make contact with humans, and upon trying to get in touch with our leader they realize in abject horror that nobody is running the planet. That is, alas, where we are.
Okay ill admit that its very difficult to detect radiation in food, water and soil. I understand the Bikini testing and I think it was a bum deal, it shows how little they (U.S. Scientist) knew. I take this moment to underscore "How little they knew" and here we are in a similar situation except remove the war aspect and the boom effect.
I seriously appreciate every ones examples it really settles me down - but echos in my sole says what if "How little the knew" comes back to bite us.
Example from Bikini Atoll :
Its "success" was beyond the wildest dreams of the American scientists who were involved in the detonation--they thought that the blast would only carry a payload of approximately 3 megatons.
I know that I may be more emotional than others on this subject but hey we all have our irritations and as you can see this one is mine. I cant fight all the worlds issues - coal plants, human trafficking, murder, rising fuel cost, conservatives, teasing there but, this is mine to square up with for some reason. Realistically I will read volumes on the subject and it will probably fizzle out in a few more years however for over 2 years now it has kept a rot in my gut.
I do appreciate all of you for tolerating my antics. I have ordered many books and cant wait to dive in when they arrive.
In the mean time I am sailing out tomorrows dawn to collect a sample or two of salmon - Hope I can catch one cause I am running low on smoked salmon.
Also, if you don't happen to know who Sadako Sasaki is I suggest you use the Google to find out. Have something to cry into ready though.
Its is a sad story thank you for sharing that. I cant believe she lives as long as she did.
I understand the Bikini testing and I think it was a bum deal, it shows how little they (U.S. Scientist) knew.
Actually they knew quite a bit. You might want to watch the documentary Radio Bikini. It's very eye opening, and quite upsetting, but it's an important piece of history. It shows newsreel footage of US servicemen going onto the ships exposed by radiation during the first tests in the atoll. They have no protective gear, and in fact, some are wearing shorts. They were not told to wash or scrub up after traipsing over the bombed out ships. In the background in some of the shots, you see the scientists are fully protected, and are using radiation detectors.
You can draw your own conclusions about what this part of the "test" was about.
Sorry if I was not clear but from my understanding they did not know much about the hydrogen bomb part of the experiment, and I stand firm on that. So lets see.
1.) They thought Bravo was only going to be three times a boom but it turned out to be much more significant. In my eyes that is a huge miss calculation. Unless there is another detail that counters this I remain positive that the did not know what they were doing. If I were a rocket scientist I would have landed in Texas instead of the moon that's how off they were. So then more follows · · · · · ·
2.) In February of 1946 Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshalls, traveled to Bikini. On a Sunday after church, he assembled the Bikinians to ask if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." What part is temporary a day, a month, years? Its a mess to this day - sounds like they knew a lot about this.
3.) They told the island people it was safe to return only to later recant stating the levels are too high. that's knowing a lot about your product. Not in my eyes.
4.) They positioned many people in a "Though it was safe distance". Guess what another miss calculation, so men were ordered down below ships with all hatches closed, island people had to relocate again, fisherman were radiated - one dies, on and on.
5.) No warnings were handed out to neighboring islands cause this is casual stuff - we know what we are doing.
6.) And my deal closer, a Federal court awards millions to the island people because they did not know what the hell they were doing. By the way most has not been payed to date.
If they knew then why the hell did they make so many mistakes? Even on there own people?
Ill agree the bombings was a success (ending wars so to speak) but they did not know what they were doing. The same rings true with fukushima.
I've heard from hydrologists working in Japan that much of the Cs-137 that settled out on plants and on the ground is now chelated (bonded) by clay in the soils. This of course is very bad locally, as a half life of 30 years dooms local rice paddy and lake fisheries for 100s of years. But that might have gone quickly to the ocean or it might have remained suspended in the atmosphere. There is an intensive effort in Japan to study the movements of the radiation. I've attached a preliminary colorful report about intensive hydrological work being done in one area. There are a few Parallax products out to help with that in a small way. The attached photos show a OWL2pe system (BASIC Stamp logger) being used to measure particle load in a rice paddy, and another array of rain gages set up to monitor off-flow from trees in a forested area.
Moreover - as an engineer or tech we have a moral responsibility and part of this is to carry through from start to finish. Sounds to me they forgot to cover the loose ends as they knew nothing about after the bang part of the job. Its like big business who make a product and don't care how the waste is managed - bad engineering..
It's easy to criticize those working in unknown territory, it's a lot harder to be the ones doing the work, and to say they didn't know what they were doing is to be unfair. They knew more than any other human about what they were doing, the fact that their knowledge was incomplete just reflects the state of the art at the time. That's how knowledge is gained. You do the best you can with the theory and then you test it and refine it based on results.
WRT whether any of that work was justified, recall the US was just coming out of a war in which fission bombs figured prominently, and in the late 40's and especially the 50's it was commonly assumed that at some point we would be fighting a nuclear war with the Soviets. It might be hard for a young person today to get your head around what that means, but it isn't for those of us old enough to remember air raid drills and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US was literally desperate to develop superior weapons and to stay ahead of the USSR, believing that our survival depended on it. That may seem quaint today, but it was deadly serious at the time. There were people in the US military who argued strenuously for a preemptive strike against the USSR, the thinking being that they would eventually catch up to us and they only way to survive the inevitable nuclear war was to strike before they reached parity. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed but still, much of US (and Soviet) policy at the time was based on the expectation that a nuclear war was not only possible, but likely.
Many people today feel that the US was unjustified in using nuclear weapons to end WWII. I used to live in Japan and it was hard to reconcile the priorities of war with the fact I had developed great respect for the Japanese people and culture. OTOH, my father, after spending several years in North Africa and Europe during that war was on a troop ship bound for Japan when the bombs were dropped. Considering what an invasion of Japan would have likely entailed (for both sides), I think it probable I would never have existed without them.
Finally, if you believe that your fears regarding all the various ways we are fouling our nest to be justified (and I agree with most of your concerns), you might consider that a similar mindset was once common regarding the threat of destruction in a nuclear conflict. It was once thought irresponsible to ignore or downplay the threat, just as you and I think it irresponsible to ignore what we're doing to our planet.
Thanks for the smack in the face (honestly I am understanding). Sorry Gordon for my immature bleeding heart arguments.
However I think you both underscore what I am stating just in a different light. Bottom line is that I don't trust the Government anymore, I don't trust BIG business, I don't trust anything other than science and you both lay out clear example of why not to in your arguments.
Who protect the people these days? Today its all about covering your *** vs admitting a mistake was made - its sad but true. No one admits fault, so progress is slowed - tax dollars wasted, the politicians just point fingers and amazingly people follow, like sheep over a cliff.
I am not going to be the sheep anymore - what about you guys?
In all truth I feel embarrassed. Because of this topic I have exposed much of my self that ordinarily I would never do so please forgive me if I became an irritation.
Reach - Not a single salmon bite this morning wonder if crab season is still open.
When the French aristocracy were getting to be too greedy there was the French revolution and the royal family got the guillotine.
When the Russian Tsars got too full of themselves they got a bullet in the head.
Now a days we have a problem, it's not so clear who to kill when things get bad. Take out the president of the USA? No problem "they" just get another one.
Who is "they". No idea. I think there is no "they" it's just how us humans work.
Jones, Thanks for the smack in the face (honestly I am understanding).
It was intended more as a gentle tap on the shoulder, and a reminder that "common wisdom" is not fixed. What seems obvious today wasn't always, and what seemed obvious before might today be obviously wrong. Occasionally (though admittedly rarely), the perspective that comes from being around awhile can be useful. I applaud your energy and desire to improve humanity's lot. Just remember that the first step in solving any problem is to understand it. The world's governments (particularly ours) have a bad habit of forgotting that simple fact.
When the Marshal Islanders were told they'd return soon (and for that matter the New Mexican sheep ranchers whose ranches were stolen to create the White Sands test range) it was thought that the designs were nearing maturity and that testing would not be needed once that maturity was complete. Then the Teller-Ulam H-bomb came along, and missiles became intercontinental, and then boosted miniature fission devices, and all manner of ongoing testing was required and abandoning the developed test ranges, despite promises to the original inhabitants, wasn't really practical.
The first H-bomb, Mike, did exactly as was expected. Nobody knew just what such a large explosion would look like but they calculated it correctly. However, Mike wasn't an easily weaponized bomb, since the hydrogen it burned was cryogenic liquid in a vacuum dewar.
Castle Bravo was an attempt to make an easily stored, droppable bomb. Instead of burning liquid deuterium, the reaction would fission Lithium-6 into tritiums which would then fuse. Bravo's fusion core was only 40% Lithium-6, the rest being Lithium-7, and it was thought that this isotope would be mostly inert, much of its fission product being helium nuclei instead of tritium. However, they did not realize that at high neutron flux (only achievable by building a fusion bomb) there was a side reaction which made most of the Lithium-7 active too, and the bomb ran away to nearly double its design yield. It's the sort of thing you only find out by trying though.
There was some truly evil Smile going on; the soldiers swabbing the deck in shorts were a science fair project, and for years they lied about the H-bomb being a "clean fusion" device even though 80% of the yield came from the dirty fissioning of depleted (normally non-fissile) Uranium by the massive neutron flux from the fusion reaction. Curtis LeMay believed we were in mortal peril if we could not believably make an effort to kill at least 100,000,000 Soviet citizens, and the only missile gap that ever existed was due to us having more and better of everything at every steps than the Russians did. But none of these were stupid people; they would not have accomplished so much harm if they were. They all had what looked like good reasons, often to nearly everyone, for doing what they did. And in fairness nobody had ever seen energy releases or waste hazards on the scale they were producing; they still believed that a "big Earth" would absorb anything humans could do and it wasn't until Apollo 8 came back from the Moon with the Earthrise photo that people began to think otherwise.
But none of these were stupid people; they would not have accomplished so much harm if they were.
Exactically. There were few miscalculations and mistakes regarding the exposure. Weather during some of the tests did change, like Castle Bravo, and fallout fell in directions different than they had originally thought. But as the Radio Bikini documentary (and other sources since) have shown, the type and extent of exposure to servicemen was intentional and deliberate. The thinking then was that the government needed hard facts and lookup tables, both to project domestic losses in the event of an attack, but also to plan enemy target zones.
Reach, DO see Radio Bikini. Watch to the end (don't fast-foward). Be prepared to be upset.
For my family and me, growing up just a few hundred miles from the Nevada Test Site (fortunately upwind), nuclear testing has been a lifelong obsession.
My first reply mentioned that it does take courage to live in the world and that optimism takes some cautious effort. Running with paranoia or giving into depression are not healthy to one's self.
Still, it is impossible to sugar-coat the realities of both the chemical industry and the power generation industry, or nuclear technology in our modern lives.
There are lots of examples of progress...
1. We do have an above ground nuclear test ban that is working... even North Korea has only been willing to test nuclear weapons underground.
2. We no longer have lead added to gasoline
3. Next year, mercury will be bannished from world-wide industrial use.
Admittedly more needs to be done. Many of the measures are ignored by less developed countries, and less educated people.
WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War have all driven a huge series of environmental disasters. It seems obvious that aggression causes us to ignore the environment in a big way.
Regarding radiation, I am sure there is a lot more information that the general public isn't aware of, just because it is complex. It has been studied with deep concern since the first nuclear explosions. The by-products of various forms of fission are well defined, the precise half-lives are known, and what kind of medical impact each isotope will have on the human body is pretty well-defined. We often use this information to use isotopes to treat cancer and to do radio-isotope diagnostics.
What isn't know is how to contain a mess. Winds, rain, and ground water pretty much define the mobility of pollution. There are all rather overwhelming any human's ablility to capture and contain. But just as distance from the site reduces the problem, so does time.
Mostly we need to take the lessons learned and demand nothing less that significant vigilance and improvement for everyone's sake.
For electrical energy, the USA is now on a huge push to changing over to natural gas for what looks like the next 20 years and away from dependence on nuclear, coal, or oil. There is a national agenda to improve the environment within the USA and globally, but it is in a constant struggle with industries that want to continue without changing their ways.
Loopy: don't forget the Chlorine in all the water which is causing panemics...(it obliterates pro-biotic bacteria which is the first layer of our immune systems)
And the flouride causing thyroid, throat, and somach disease.
And the BPA in almost all foods and drinks that is an acutal female hormone mimiker: estrogen. (this is to neuter men in our society, so we can be controlled eaiser, also proven to cause breast cancer in women, and prostate cancer in men, cancer incorporated)
Don't even get me started on Arsenic in chicken feed.
Mercury in dental amalgams(still used even today) mercury in EPA reccommended lightbulbs..mercury in vaccines...
WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO AS FAR AS GETTING RID OF DAILY TOXINS.
ON THE MATTER OF RADIATION:
I own a Geiger counter, and depending on the weather, it will show different readings. During high sun spot activity, the detector read 90 cpm for a few days, from its normal 30cpm.
If you are concerned about radiation spread from disasters like japan, make a rad box, where you put your food into this box and leave it there over a certain time frame to determine if there is an increase in readings.
To be proper, would be to house the detector inside a gutted microwave that has all the metal frame to isolate any radiation from external sources. This will allow you to get a really solid reading on your food, and you can even put the whole bowl or plate of food into the enclosure. You can even keep the motor that rotates the specimin so no part of the detector gets at the wrong angle.
If I had more time, I would actually build one using my geiger counter from SPARK FUN. I would just make a propeller version, probably with a few detectors built into a broken microwave with all microwave parts and fan removed, except the spinning platter.. I would hack the various buttons, and digit display to allow setting detection time, and show readout of cpm.
Getting a broken microwave isn't hard at all, and it looks like it fits right in the kitchen anyway.
We can have progress, not perfection. If you make the world safe for humans, a lot of other flora and fauna suffer... and vise vera. In many ways, I suspect that to protect the world, humans will have to restrict themselves more to theiir own artificial habitat, cities.
Since I am going on 66 years old next month, a lot of this toxicollogy information is not very useful to me. I drank the water with the chlorine, brushed my teeth with the flourine, breathed leaded gas fumes, painted houses with mineral spirits, and even ate dinners prepared out of aluminum pots and pans.
We live in a world full of hazards, and morbid psychology from thinking that either the media is always acurate (or always lying) or that you personally know all the answers without having done deeper study into biology and biochemistry are two big pitfalls.
I just assert that we all should stay mentally healthy, politically aware, and accepting of our own mortality.
If you can get past all that, you just might have the clarity to help us improve the world and its environment. We have made progress since Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962 and it is well worth reading for the sake of its place in history and her diligence in confronting the chemical industry and its failings. If we were to revert to entirely 'organic' food production and untreated water, people would be dropping like flies.
I am not about to watch a geiger counter for solar flares or safe foodstuffs. When I worked on the Hanford Nuclear Area, you could get 'film badges' that were worn for a set period and then developed to determine your actual radiation dosage.. maybe you should consider that alternative.
You may have relegated to dying already, but I plan to live to be 200 years old.
Many alternatives to chlorine in our water exist, which work WITH the natural immune system. (hydrogen peroxide)
You don't have to give in to paranoia or "psychology" like you keep hinting at. Being aware of your environment doesn't mean you are automatically a paranoid psycho case, which is the typical attitude most people over the age of 50 try to label upon the younger generation, due to their own lives being shortened by all this Smile being put in the food and water.
Saying that you survived through all the "Smile" doesn't justify it being forced upon the masses, i mean look at it, all the cancer, and various diseases...
Here we are in 2013 and cancer still hasn't made any real noteworthy progress, or for that matter many other diseases.. alzheimerls, arthritis, flesh eating bacteria, etc..
And I am serious when I say that everyone I talk to that is over 50 doesn't give a Smile about all these chemicals that have been PROVEN to be devastating to humans.. they have already given in to death...(thus why you are so willing to accept your mortality)
I mean fine if you wanna give up and say oh well, go ahead, but I intend to fight hard so one day, eventually humans can say that living to be 100 in good health is the norm.
You gotta curb that defeatist attitude.
Like I said safer alternatives DO exist, but almost everyone I talk to that is over 50 doesn't care at all. (and I have had a pretty good sample of over 50's) They figure if its good enough for them, then everyone should have to put up with it. Even though cancer is the #1 pandemic today.
Also something I have noticed about the over 50 crowd, very little care for local government, state, and fed representatives, they only care about presidential elections... I mean really, all those chemicals aren't doing anything to you all? I think they have worked wonderfully, most over 50's only care about cigarettes, alcohol, money, vacations, and promiscuous behavior. What a degenerate generation. Why do you think a very small group of powerful people are able to run rough shot over constitutional rights, blatant violations in the financial sectors, privacy doesn't exist, scientists find many things in our food/water are extremely toxic, but yet no changes are even attempted... etc.. what a degenerate generation, go die already, because you obviously have already in your mind... Let the young people re-instate the constitution and rights there of, right to life, privacy(this means removing toxins IMMEDIATELY(not in 10 years),(and you immediately assume science cannot do better?) do we really need to have the largest prison population on the planet, and have CORPORATIST PRISONS? Mind you all this happened on your generations watch... nice epic fails... well at least the whole planet didn't get destroyed by atomic bombs, but it almost did...etc...
The Japan disaster was completely and totally avoidable simply by beaching/docking a ship/submarine near the plant, and have the sailors run power/water lines TO the plant to provide water and electricity to the plant IMMEDIATELY.... I served aboard both surface and sub vessels, and that kind of stuff was simple every day routine for the sailors. Full pumping systems able to pull in seawater and purify it IN MASS, 3 phase megawatt power plants built right into the ship...
And what did the governments of the WORLD (with all the idiotic 50+ "leaders" do? NOTHING... they did NOTHING.)
Apparently the defeatist attitude is a pandemic among old people.
You all need to seriously curb that attitude, but I understand its hard to do that when you have been exposed to so many toxins. I feel sorry for old people.
You should be ashamed of yourself. That is the most horrible, abusive, insulting, generalizing, ageist, misinformed, twaddle I have heard for a long time.
Perhaps all the over 50's around you are degenerate brain dead zombies but I can point to many who have spent their lived trying to make the world better or who do at least think about these things as much as any youngster.
I would point out that human life expectancy is now higher than ever, 67 on average over the world. as opposed to the 20 to 30 something it was for millennia. Who made that happen? Oh yeah, that would be the people who are over 50 now.
I refuse.
When this entire generation has had an answer to two MAJOR pandemics of our time for more than 20 years, and they do NOTHING...
Actually, no wait, im sorry, THAT GENERATION LET THE CURES REMAIN ILLEGAL EVEN FOR SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS TO TEST WITH.
No, THAT GENERATION are the ones who need to GO STAND IN THE BLEEPIN CORNER.
Completely unacceptable behavior from an entire generation of people.
And don't even try.. I cited PUBMED articles... sorry the typical 50's blame it on paranoia or conspiracy theory method doesn't work here.
Clock Loop I'm offended not all of us over 50 are like you describe! But I do wish that a lot of the over fifty crowd wouldn't be the way they are about all sorts of things.
@Clockworks..
The USA has shifted water treatment away from chlorine and over to hydrogen peroxide before I left in 1994. It is an old issue.
You presume that the Japanese have an all nuclear navy, which they do not, Or they they would simply love to have the US Navy take over rescue of their reactors.. which they certainly did not. Beaching a ship or sub next to the reactors might have helped, or might have just sacrificed the whole crew to radiation. It wasn't for the USA to decide.
I grew up in a generation that advocated to never trust anyone over 30. I can see your point of view. I didn't plan to live to 66, and tried pretty hard to not survive past 30, but it just didn't happen that way.
You can't blame the prior generations and expect to have any progress. If you want a better world, be part of the solution, not the problem.
But if you really want to believe the Huffington Post about a cure for cancer or herpes... you may be in for some big disappointments. I can assure you that long-term consumption of cannabis will make one quite befuddled, less productive. It may relieve pain and discomfort, but it is not a cure.
i ran a landscape gardening business in Eugene, Oregon with crews that regularly smoked pot regardless of what I had to say about it. It is a great drug for people that want to dig ditches all day or do heavy stoop work, but I'd never hire anyone to do accurate detail work that smoked pot... way too many errors get by. It is equally sad to see Asia caught up in a meth epidemic while thinking it doesn't affect society.
If you don't have herpes and don't have cancer, forget the cannabis. My friends that smoked it long term wasted their lives, and I seemed to have out-lived them. Older pandemics of drug dependency and alcohol abuse have been huge wastes to humanity.
If I was able to have had everything my way, the world would be in perfect order for younger people today. i am as dismayed as you are about the same issues. But getting stoned or mentally debiletated over the lack of progress doesn't change the world.
Comments
What form of power generation has killed the most people per mega watt hour so far:
a) Nuclear power stations.
b) Coal fired power stations.
c) Oil fired power stations.
d) Wind generators.
e) Wave generators.
f) Hydro-electric generators.
But the rest probably killed more species on the planet other than human.
Most definitely +1 to that. Advanced reactors, improved safety standards, and recycling spent fuels makes it the best of all the choices now available.
At one point I found myself doing autopsies in Chicago. It is safe to say that living in the City at that time was more than equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
What was in the lungs of every city dweller was not carbon dioxide… CO2… it was particulate carbon. Later in life I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Robert Clarkson (rest his soul), who studied the structure of char materials…the same materials that were finding their way into the city dweller's lungs. These materials tend to admit oxygen and keep the oxygen a free radical state… making the chars particularly dangerous. So, I am all for reducing carbon particulates from our environment.
However, a lot has been done in the last 40 years to eliminate the emission of particulates from coal fired plants and automobiles. In the right configuration, coal fired plants might be our most sustainable and cheapest form of energy. If you believe that CO2 is causing global warming, then I challenge you to explain the last 5000 years of global warming. I am afraid that the very real problem of reducing carbon particulates has been confused with believing that CO2 emissions are harmful. Driving CO2 emissions down, will also drive carbon particulates down… but confusing the argument is very dangerous.
The real problem isn't where we get our energy. The problem is that we have no universally available, cheap and reliable way to store energy. What good is a windmill farm or a giant array of photovoltaics if the array stops producing just when you need them most (And what is worse, these sources of energy are allowed to unfairly compete (economically) with suppliers of energy that do not suffer from such fluctuations.
The first argument is that we should reduce our consumption. Nonsense. The second argument is that we should reduce our population. Nonsense. The third argument is that both of these solutions should be imposed upon us. This is the argument for genocide and government mandated population control. In the 21st Century it will probably become the argument for systemic neglect. In the last century, such people were called "flat Earthers."
Please do not give support to such non-sense and social power to those that espouse it.
The World has more than enough resources. What it lacks is the imagination and leadership to use those resources most creatively and in a way that most optimally promotes life and growth.
There is more energy in a cup of water that you drink than you could possibly use in a hundred years. We just don't know how to use it... yet.
Maybe you will show us.
I worked on the Hanford Nuclear Area a long time ago and there were huge assurances that nuclear waste management would evolve.. it hasn't. Spent fuel rods tend to default to remaining in cooling ponds on the reactor site, so every nuclear reactor is a candidate for become the defacto waste storage facility for millenium to come after the reactor is decomissioned.
That may change with enought decomissioned reactors, but that is what is for now. Only naval and military reactors in the U.S. have a long-term waste management facility.
~~~~
Looking over "Silent Spring" again, we have made a lot of progress and I strongly suggest any readers of it consider that the EPA and the chemical industries have done a lot of address all the specifics in it. It was written in 1962 and was a wakeup call that was even endorsed by President John F. Kenedy.
In the 1980s there still were a lot of loose ends, but the government began requiring training, licensing, and protective gear for anyone handing pesticides and herbicides... with examination of do's and don't. The house paint industry shifted from oil based to water based paint for nearly everything, lead white was replaced with safer titanium white paint. Even large bakeries were force to modify the emissions of alcohol from yeast to improve air polution. I certainly think it is important to read 'Silent Spring' with some view of the progress that has been made since then.... so as it has been.
Regarding Fukijima, the US is allowing Japan to seek its own solution as it is a foreign affairs issue. Sadly we suffer through a similar barrier with China's use of coal.
The US can suggest and share experience, but cannot directly mandate a solution to other nations. It may seem like a lot of radiation came out of Fukijima, but compare to the Bikini Atoll tests and the Russia's 50 megton H-bomb; it put a rather small porportion of radiation into the atmosphere. Nonetheless, it is tragic and has demonstrated the tendency to keep old reactors running just because all reactors have never proven as cost effective as the projections.
Looking into old National Geographic archives, there is one issue that addressed all the changes in marine life around the Bikini Atoll many decades after the above-ground testing ceased. As I recall, there are photos of giant mutant crab.. about 3 feet arcross... not sure what else.
Thanks for these reply's. I was starting to let go of my concerns, starting to cool down unlike the radiation. Then I read Loopy's posting which in turn lead me to Bikini island. I never knew America could be so stupid. In fact this underscores my frustration and lack of trust with Governments. "Its all going to be okay", I hear from some Right-wing on TV, but this counters my education, I was tough about radiation in school and through these lessons it was regarded as extremely nasty stuff that takes hundreds of life times to go away.
Those poor people of Bikini island can some day be you. You better wise up and just know that people in power don't give a dam about this land unless they can make a buck off it.
I want to FIGHT and DO something - my future is at stake.
Now that I am done screaming [sorry if I offended you], I am eager to build my device more than ever and bring public awareness to my findings. I have a huge social media presence - being a girl sailing on the sea can provide one with a massive audience rather effortlessly. I will employ the power of the internet and the press if I can. I know this is a huge undertaking but its all I have.
Reach.
There's plenty of stupid to go around. Once upon a time, I was trying to calibrate a gamma ray detector in western Australia and could not believe how high the background radiation was. To my surprise I soon learned that the Brits did above ground testing there, a series of nuke tests that was conducted without the general populace knowing anything about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_tests_in_Australia
While I applaude your drive to "FIGHT and DO something," just be aware that making other people aware of situations only goes so far. When I wasn't so old and decrepit, I used to believe that if people simply knew what was going on in the world, then things would get fixed, people would not stand for the status quo, etc. Unfortunately it does not work that way. Plenty of people, when confronted with the facts, when shown the evidence, simply turn the dial to whatever media outlet will provide them with "news" that confirms their biases. People, for the most part, simply keep on believing whatever it is they want to believe. Education of the common slobs only goes so far. Check out, for example, the Dunning–Kruger_effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect. It's why so many people stick their heads deeper into the sand when they learn about things that conflict with their worldview. They double-down on their dumb@ssedness.
If I were you, I'd put my energies into learning about and developing technologies that can solve problems. I sometimes think it's easier to change the laws of nature than it is to change the opinions of the cud-chewing masses.
Good luck.
It can be hard to get your head around nuclear things. Nuclear tests can be almost unbelievably sensitive; when you hear a Geiger counter click that's the decay of one single atom to a different isotope or element. Lab grade equipment does more than go click; it can determine the gamma ray's energy, which can tell you what isotope just decayed. These tests can detect radiation so faint that it makes what you get from standing outside in Denver look like a blast furnace by comparison. Generally, so far, when they talk about detecting Fukushima radiation off of the US west coast, that's the sort of thing they're talking about. This very sensitive equipment can tell where it came from, but it's nowhere near levels that pose an actual danger.
But radiation is also invisible and silent and some isotopes bioaccumulate from very faint concentrations to dangerous ones in critical body organs, so it's a complicated deal. With my experience if I currently lived anywhere near Tokyo I would be looking for a way to move, but outside of Japan I'm not yet very worried. The problem isn't so much Fukushima as the countless opportunities for further similar accidents which exist, all of them very expensive to mitigate once their usefulness in generating power is over.
If you would like a very good layman's overview of how nuclear science got to be the way it is, I highly recommend Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which deservedly won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award and gives a very real sense of scale as to how and why all this stuff got developed. His followup Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is also very good but is more about US-Soviet Cold War politics; it does, however, describe explain how and why the Bikini test was performed.
Also, if you don't happen to know who Sadako Sasaki is I suggest you use the Google to find out. Have something to cry into ready though.
In war we create things which are meant to be dangerous. In peace we create things which become dangerous mainly because we create too much or too many and without thinking of the consequences. The makers of the peacetime nuclear industry at least weren't trying to kill people, but they have brought so many resources to bear compared to what we could do in the relatively limited window of war preparations that the problem is just as bad. It is going to cost trillions of dollars to wind down the nuclear industry into a safe state. It will never be safe enough to replace fossil fuels and we seriously need to stop using fossil fuels at the rate we are yesterday.
Unfortunately, "we" is a rather nebulous concept for humans. There's a darkly hilarious passage toward the climax of Fred Pohl's Heechee series when the alien Heechee finally make contact with humans, and upon trying to get in touch with our leader they realize in abject horror that nobody is running the planet. That is, alas, where we are.
I seriously appreciate every ones examples it really settles me down - but echos in my sole says what if "How little the knew" comes back to bite us.
Example from Bikini Atoll :
I know that I may be more emotional than others on this subject but hey we all have our irritations and as you can see this one is mine. I cant fight all the worlds issues - coal plants, human trafficking, murder, rising fuel cost, conservatives,
I do appreciate all of you for tolerating my antics. I have ordered many books and cant wait to dive in when they arrive.
In the mean time I am sailing out tomorrows dawn to collect a sample or two of salmon - Hope I can catch one cause I am running low on smoked salmon.
Its is a sad story thank you for sharing that. I cant believe she lives as long as she did.
Actually they knew quite a bit. You might want to watch the documentary Radio Bikini. It's very eye opening, and quite upsetting, but it's an important piece of history. It shows newsreel footage of US servicemen going onto the ships exposed by radiation during the first tests in the atoll. They have no protective gear, and in fact, some are wearing shorts. They were not told to wash or scrub up after traipsing over the bombed out ships. In the background in some of the shots, you see the scientists are fully protected, and are using radiation detectors.
You can draw your own conclusions about what this part of the "test" was about.
Sorry if I was not clear but from my understanding they did not know much about the hydrogen bomb part of the experiment, and I stand firm on that. So lets see.
1.) They thought Bravo was only going to be three times a boom but it turned out to be much more significant. In my eyes that is a huge miss calculation. Unless there is another detail that counters this I remain positive that the did not know what they were doing. If I were a rocket scientist I would have landed in Texas instead of the moon that's how off they were. So then more follows · · · · · ·
2.) In February of 1946 Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshalls, traveled to Bikini. On a Sunday after church, he assembled the Bikinians to ask if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." What part is temporary a day, a month, years? Its a mess to this day - sounds like they knew a lot about this.
3.) They told the island people it was safe to return only to later recant stating the levels are too high. that's knowing a lot about your product. Not in my eyes.
4.) They positioned many people in a "Though it was safe distance". Guess what another miss calculation, so men were ordered down below ships with all hatches closed, island people had to relocate again, fisherman were radiated - one dies, on and on.
5.) No warnings were handed out to neighboring islands cause this is casual stuff - we know what we are doing.
6.) And my deal closer, a Federal court awards millions to the island people because they did not know what the hell they were doing. By the way most has not been payed to date.
If they knew then why the hell did they make so many mistakes? Even on there own people?
Ill agree the bombings was a success (ending wars so to speak) but they did not know what they were doing. The same rings true with fukushima.
Reach, you might look at http://www.safecast.org
Thanks Tracy these look interesting.
WRT whether any of that work was justified, recall the US was just coming out of a war in which fission bombs figured prominently, and in the late 40's and especially the 50's it was commonly assumed that at some point we would be fighting a nuclear war with the Soviets. It might be hard for a young person today to get your head around what that means, but it isn't for those of us old enough to remember air raid drills and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US was literally desperate to develop superior weapons and to stay ahead of the USSR, believing that our survival depended on it. That may seem quaint today, but it was deadly serious at the time. There were people in the US military who argued strenuously for a preemptive strike against the USSR, the thinking being that they would eventually catch up to us and they only way to survive the inevitable nuclear war was to strike before they reached parity. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed but still, much of US (and Soviet) policy at the time was based on the expectation that a nuclear war was not only possible, but likely.
Many people today feel that the US was unjustified in using nuclear weapons to end WWII. I used to live in Japan and it was hard to reconcile the priorities of war with the fact I had developed great respect for the Japanese people and culture. OTOH, my father, after spending several years in North Africa and Europe during that war was on a troop ship bound for Japan when the bombs were dropped. Considering what an invasion of Japan would have likely entailed (for both sides), I think it probable I would never have existed without them.
Finally, if you believe that your fears regarding all the various ways we are fouling our nest to be justified (and I agree with most of your concerns), you might consider that a similar mindset was once common regarding the threat of destruction in a nuclear conflict. It was once thought irresponsible to ignore or downplay the threat, just as you and I think it irresponsible to ignore what we're doing to our planet.
Thanks for the smack in the face (honestly I am understanding). Sorry Gordon for my immature bleeding heart arguments.
However I think you both underscore what I am stating just in a different light. Bottom line is that I don't trust the Government anymore, I don't trust BIG business, I don't trust anything other than science and you both lay out clear example of why not to in your arguments.
Who protect the people these days? Today its all about covering your *** vs admitting a mistake was made - its sad but true. No one admits fault, so progress is slowed - tax dollars wasted, the politicians just point fingers and amazingly people follow, like sheep over a cliff.
I am not going to be the sheep anymore - what about you guys?
In all truth I feel embarrassed. Because of this topic I have exposed much of my self that ordinarily I would never do so please forgive me if I became an irritation.
Reach - Not a single salmon bite this morning
When the French aristocracy were getting to be too greedy there was the French revolution and the royal family got the guillotine.
When the Russian Tsars got too full of themselves they got a bullet in the head.
Now a days we have a problem, it's not so clear who to kill when things get bad. Take out the president of the USA? No problem "they" just get another one.
Who is "they". No idea. I think there is no "they" it's just how us humans work.
It was intended more as a gentle tap on the shoulder, and a reminder that "common wisdom" is not fixed. What seems obvious today wasn't always, and what seemed obvious before might today be obviously wrong. Occasionally (though admittedly rarely), the perspective that comes from being around awhile can be useful. I applaud your energy and desire to improve humanity's lot. Just remember that the first step in solving any problem is to understand it. The world's governments (particularly ours) have a bad habit of forgotting that simple fact.
The first H-bomb, Mike, did exactly as was expected. Nobody knew just what such a large explosion would look like but they calculated it correctly. However, Mike wasn't an easily weaponized bomb, since the hydrogen it burned was cryogenic liquid in a vacuum dewar.
Castle Bravo was an attempt to make an easily stored, droppable bomb. Instead of burning liquid deuterium, the reaction would fission Lithium-6 into tritiums which would then fuse. Bravo's fusion core was only 40% Lithium-6, the rest being Lithium-7, and it was thought that this isotope would be mostly inert, much of its fission product being helium nuclei instead of tritium. However, they did not realize that at high neutron flux (only achievable by building a fusion bomb) there was a side reaction which made most of the Lithium-7 active too, and the bomb ran away to nearly double its design yield. It's the sort of thing you only find out by trying though.
There was some truly evil Smile going on; the soldiers swabbing the deck in shorts were a science fair project, and for years they lied about the H-bomb being a "clean fusion" device even though 80% of the yield came from the dirty fissioning of depleted (normally non-fissile) Uranium by the massive neutron flux from the fusion reaction. Curtis LeMay believed we were in mortal peril if we could not believably make an effort to kill at least 100,000,000 Soviet citizens, and the only missile gap that ever existed was due to us having more and better of everything at every steps than the Russians did. But none of these were stupid people; they would not have accomplished so much harm if they were. They all had what looked like good reasons, often to nearly everyone, for doing what they did. And in fairness nobody had ever seen energy releases or waste hazards on the scale they were producing; they still believed that a "big Earth" would absorb anything humans could do and it wasn't until Apollo 8 came back from the Moon with the Earthrise photo that people began to think otherwise.
Exactically. There were few miscalculations and mistakes regarding the exposure. Weather during some of the tests did change, like Castle Bravo, and fallout fell in directions different than they had originally thought. But as the Radio Bikini documentary (and other sources since) have shown, the type and extent of exposure to servicemen was intentional and deliberate. The thinking then was that the government needed hard facts and lookup tables, both to project domestic losses in the event of an attack, but also to plan enemy target zones.
Reach, DO see Radio Bikini. Watch to the end (don't fast-foward). Be prepared to be upset.
For my family and me, growing up just a few hundred miles from the Nevada Test Site (fortunately upwind), nuclear testing has been a lifelong obsession.
Still, it is impossible to sugar-coat the realities of both the chemical industry and the power generation industry, or nuclear technology in our modern lives.
There are lots of examples of progress...
1. We do have an above ground nuclear test ban that is working... even North Korea has only been willing to test nuclear weapons underground.
2. We no longer have lead added to gasoline
3. Next year, mercury will be bannished from world-wide industrial use.
Admittedly more needs to be done. Many of the measures are ignored by less developed countries, and less educated people.
Since you are in Washington State, you might find out about Battelle Northwest. http://www.battelle.org/our-work/laboratory-management/pacific-northwest-national-laboratory It is a big non-profit that does environmental research on the Hanford Nuclear Area and has done so for many decades.
WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War have all driven a huge series of environmental disasters. It seems obvious that aggression causes us to ignore the environment in a big way.
Regarding radiation, I am sure there is a lot more information that the general public isn't aware of, just because it is complex. It has been studied with deep concern since the first nuclear explosions. The by-products of various forms of fission are well defined, the precise half-lives are known, and what kind of medical impact each isotope will have on the human body is pretty well-defined. We often use this information to use isotopes to treat cancer and to do radio-isotope diagnostics.
What isn't know is how to contain a mess. Winds, rain, and ground water pretty much define the mobility of pollution. There are all rather overwhelming any human's ablility to capture and contain. But just as distance from the site reduces the problem, so does time.
Mostly we need to take the lessons learned and demand nothing less that significant vigilance and improvement for everyone's sake.
For electrical energy, the USA is now on a huge push to changing over to natural gas for what looks like the next 20 years and away from dependence on nuclear, coal, or oil. There is a national agenda to improve the environment within the USA and globally, but it is in a constant struggle with industries that want to continue without changing their ways.
And the flouride causing thyroid, throat, and somach disease.
And the BPA in almost all foods and drinks that is an acutal female hormone mimiker: estrogen. (this is to neuter men in our society, so we can be controlled eaiser, also proven to cause breast cancer in women, and prostate cancer in men, cancer incorporated)
Don't even get me started on Arsenic in chicken feed.
Mercury in dental amalgams(still used even today) mercury in EPA reccommended lightbulbs..mercury in vaccines...
WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO AS FAR AS GETTING RID OF DAILY TOXINS.
ON THE MATTER OF RADIATION:
I own a Geiger counter, and depending on the weather, it will show different readings. During high sun spot activity, the detector read 90 cpm for a few days, from its normal 30cpm.
If you are concerned about radiation spread from disasters like japan, make a rad box, where you put your food into this box and leave it there over a certain time frame to determine if there is an increase in readings.
To be proper, would be to house the detector inside a gutted microwave that has all the metal frame to isolate any radiation from external sources. This will allow you to get a really solid reading on your food, and you can even put the whole bowl or plate of food into the enclosure. You can even keep the motor that rotates the specimin so no part of the detector gets at the wrong angle.
If I had more time, I would actually build one using my geiger counter from SPARK FUN. I would just make a propeller version, probably with a few detectors built into a broken microwave with all microwave parts and fan removed, except the spinning platter.. I would hack the various buttons, and digit display to allow setting detection time, and show readout of cpm.
Getting a broken microwave isn't hard at all, and it looks like it fits right in the kitchen anyway.
Since I am going on 66 years old next month, a lot of this toxicollogy information is not very useful to me. I drank the water with the chlorine, brushed my teeth with the flourine, breathed leaded gas fumes, painted houses with mineral spirits, and even ate dinners prepared out of aluminum pots and pans.
We live in a world full of hazards, and morbid psychology from thinking that either the media is always acurate (or always lying) or that you personally know all the answers without having done deeper study into biology and biochemistry are two big pitfalls.
I just assert that we all should stay mentally healthy, politically aware, and accepting of our own mortality.
If you can get past all that, you just might have the clarity to help us improve the world and its environment. We have made progress since Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962 and it is well worth reading for the sake of its place in history and her diligence in confronting the chemical industry and its failings. If we were to revert to entirely 'organic' food production and untreated water, people would be dropping like flies.
I am not about to watch a geiger counter for solar flares or safe foodstuffs. When I worked on the Hanford Nuclear Area, you could get 'film badges' that were worn for a set period and then developed to determine your actual radiation dosage.. maybe you should consider that alternative.
Many alternatives to chlorine in our water exist, which work WITH the natural immune system. (hydrogen peroxide)
You don't have to give in to paranoia or "psychology" like you keep hinting at. Being aware of your environment doesn't mean you are automatically a paranoid psycho case, which is the typical attitude most people over the age of 50 try to label upon the younger generation, due to their own lives being shortened by all this Smile being put in the food and water.
Saying that you survived through all the "Smile" doesn't justify it being forced upon the masses, i mean look at it, all the cancer, and various diseases...
Here we are in 2013 and cancer still hasn't made any real noteworthy progress, or for that matter many other diseases.. alzheimerls, arthritis, flesh eating bacteria, etc..
And I am serious when I say that everyone I talk to that is over 50 doesn't give a Smile about all these chemicals that have been PROVEN to be devastating to humans.. they have already given in to death...(thus why you are so willing to accept your mortality)
I mean fine if you wanna give up and say oh well, go ahead, but I intend to fight hard so one day, eventually humans can say that living to be 100 in good health is the norm.
You gotta curb that defeatist attitude.
Like I said safer alternatives DO exist, but almost everyone I talk to that is over 50 doesn't care at all. (and I have had a pretty good sample of over 50's) They figure if its good enough for them, then everyone should have to put up with it. Even though cancer is the #1 pandemic today.
Also something I have noticed about the over 50 crowd, very little care for local government, state, and fed representatives, they only care about presidential elections... I mean really, all those chemicals aren't doing anything to you all? I think they have worked wonderfully, most over 50's only care about cigarettes, alcohol, money, vacations, and promiscuous behavior. What a degenerate generation. Why do you think a very small group of powerful people are able to run rough shot over constitutional rights, blatant violations in the financial sectors, privacy doesn't exist, scientists find many things in our food/water are extremely toxic, but yet no changes are even attempted... etc.. what a degenerate generation, go die already, because you obviously have already in your mind... Let the young people re-instate the constitution and rights there of, right to life, privacy(this means removing toxins IMMEDIATELY(not in 10 years),(and you immediately assume science cannot do better?) do we really need to have the largest prison population on the planet, and have CORPORATIST PRISONS? Mind you all this happened on your generations watch... nice epic fails... well at least the whole planet didn't get destroyed by atomic bombs, but it almost did...etc...
The Japan disaster was completely and totally avoidable simply by beaching/docking a ship/submarine near the plant, and have the sailors run power/water lines TO the plant to provide water and electricity to the plant IMMEDIATELY.... I served aboard both surface and sub vessels, and that kind of stuff was simple every day routine for the sailors. Full pumping systems able to pull in seawater and purify it IN MASS, 3 phase megawatt power plants built right into the ship...
And what did the governments of the WORLD (with all the idiotic 50+ "leaders" do? NOTHING... they did NOTHING.)
Apparently the defeatist attitude is a pandemic among old people.
You all need to seriously curb that attitude, but I understand its hard to do that when you have been exposed to so many toxins. I feel sorry for old people.
Perhaps all the over 50's around you are degenerate brain dead zombies but I can point to many who have spent their lived trying to make the world better or who do at least think about these things as much as any youngster.
I would point out that human life expectancy is now higher than ever, 67 on average over the world. as opposed to the 20 to 30 something it was for millennia. Who made that happen? Oh yeah, that would be the people who are over 50 now.
Go and stand in the corner.
When this entire generation has had an answer to two MAJOR pandemics of our time for more than 20 years, and they do NOTHING...
Actually, no wait, im sorry, THAT GENERATION LET THE CURES REMAIN ILLEGAL EVEN FOR SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS TO TEST WITH.
CURE FOR CANCER, first discovered 1974. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-armentano/what-your-government-know_b_108712.html )
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17952650
CURE FOR VIRAL HERPES, discovered 1980.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6255077
No, THAT GENERATION are the ones who need to GO STAND IN THE BLEEPIN CORNER.
Completely unacceptable behavior from an entire generation of people.
And don't even try.. I cited PUBMED articles... sorry the typical 50's blame it on paranoia or conspiracy theory method doesn't work here.
The USA has shifted water treatment away from chlorine and over to hydrogen peroxide before I left in 1994. It is an old issue.
You presume that the Japanese have an all nuclear navy, which they do not, Or they they would simply love to have the US Navy take over rescue of their reactors.. which they certainly did not. Beaching a ship or sub next to the reactors might have helped, or might have just sacrificed the whole crew to radiation. It wasn't for the USA to decide.
I grew up in a generation that advocated to never trust anyone over 30. I can see your point of view. I didn't plan to live to 66, and tried pretty hard to not survive past 30, but it just didn't happen that way.
You can't blame the prior generations and expect to have any progress. If you want a better world, be part of the solution, not the problem.
But if you really want to believe the Huffington Post about a cure for cancer or herpes... you may be in for some big disappointments. I can assure you that long-term consumption of cannabis will make one quite befuddled, less productive. It may relieve pain and discomfort, but it is not a cure.
i ran a landscape gardening business in Eugene, Oregon with crews that regularly smoked pot regardless of what I had to say about it. It is a great drug for people that want to dig ditches all day or do heavy stoop work, but I'd never hire anyone to do accurate detail work that smoked pot... way too many errors get by. It is equally sad to see Asia caught up in a meth epidemic while thinking it doesn't affect society.
If you don't have herpes and don't have cancer, forget the cannabis. My friends that smoked it long term wasted their lives, and I seemed to have out-lived them. Older pandemics of drug dependency and alcohol abuse have been huge wastes to humanity.
If I was able to have had everything my way, the world would be in perfect order for younger people today. i am as dismayed as you are about the same issues. But getting stoned or mentally debiletated over the lack of progress doesn't change the world.
They are going to need some good answers too. I believe the human race is heading towards calamities on a scale it could never even imagine before.
Which makes the prospect of living to 200 years old rather unappealing.
What a perfect summary!!!
If we're not all as paranoid and idealistic as Reach, it's because we've already been there and done that. Sometimes over and over.