Remember Chernobyl 2006

Twenty years ago today a terrible accident befell the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The effects of that disaster are with us still and will be with us for generations to come.

The Chernobyl disaster arose from an accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. It is regarded as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power. Because there was no containment building, a plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus according to official post-Sovietic data ^[1]. According to the 2006 TORCH report, half of the radioactive fallout landed outside those three Soviet countries ^{[2] [3]}. The disaster released over four hundred times more radiation than the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.
[read the full Wikipedia article here]

The problem is that radiation doesn't just go out like a fire and that its effects are profound, very long-lasting, and can be fundamentally damaging to living creatures.

Photographer Paul Fusco has documented the Chernobyl Legacy and its impact on humans. This photo essay with audio commentary is incredibly powerful and disturbing.

You need to face this.

Anyone who thinks that the risks of the use of atomic energy - for power or weapons - are exaggerated needs to see this. Maybe it's manageable. Maybe. But I think about new babies being born almost two decades after this incident who are deformed to the point of being unable to sit or stand, who are unable to recognize their parents, whose bodies are altered by mutation such that their vital organs extend in growths outside the bounds of the normal human silhouette. Do we really think that our clever species can't come up with a better way to generate power? Or is it that those other methods aren't as profitable and therefore less appealing to the powerful who are not measuring quality of human life as the most important bottom line?

According to an Associated Press article by Natasha Lisova, Ukrainians Mark 20 Years Since Chernobyl,

About 350,000 people were evacuated from their homes following the explosion, never to return. A whole city, Pripyat, and dozens of villages were left to decay, and experts say some may not be habitable for centuries or longer.

The protective "sarcophagus" that was hastily erected over Reactor No. 4 is now crumbling, and a $1.2 billion project to replace it remains on the drawing board. Yushchenko has said he expects work to begin this year, and be completed around 2010.

The new shelter is designed to last for 100 years, although officials say the plant contains particles whose radioactivity could last tens of thousands of years.

Tens of thousands of years. Humankind isn't ready to plan for that scale of time. We must demand our leaders step back from these dangers. We must not goad additional countries into the use of atomic power and atomic weaponry.

We live in one shared atmosphere. One week after Chernobyl there were measurable radiation differences planetwide. Even if you don't care about the rest of the world, your nation depends on the safety and biological health of other nations.

The best path to a strong, prosperous America is a strong, prosperous world. Our leaders must acknowledge that or we must change our leaders before they damage us irrevocably.

Comments

Remember Chernobyl

Twenty years ago today a terrible accident befell the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The effects of that disaster are with us still and will be with us for generations to come.

The Chernobyl disaster arose from an accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. It is regarded as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power. Because there was no containment building, a plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus according to official post-Sovietic data ^[1]. According to the 2006 TORCH report, half of the radioactive fallout landed outside those three Soviet countries ^{[2] [3]}. The disaster released over four hundred times more radiation than the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.
[read the full Wikipedia article here]

The problem is that radiation doesn't just go out like a fire and that its effects are profound, very long-lasting, and can be fundamentally damaging to living creatures.

Photographer Paul Fusco has documented the Chernobyl Legacy and its impact on humans. This photo essay with audio commentary is incredibly powerful and disturbing.

You need to face this.

Anyone who thinks that the risks of the use of atomic energy - for power or weapons - are exaggerated needs to see this. Maybe it's manageable. Maybe. But I think about new babies being born almost two decades after this incident who are deformed to the point of being unable to sit or stand, who are unable to recognize their parents, whose bodies are altered by mutation such that their vital organs extend in growths outside the bounds of the normal human silhouette. Do we really think that our clever species can't come up with a better way to generate power? Or is it that those other methods aren't as profitable and therefore less appealing to the powerful who are not measuring quality of human life as the most important bottom line?

According to an Associated Press article by Natasha Lisova, Ukrainians Mark 20 Years Since Chernobyl,

About 350,000 people were evacuated from their homes following the explosion, never to return. A whole city, Pripyat, and dozens of villages were left to decay, and experts say some may not be habitable for centuries or longer.

The protective "sarcophagus" that was hastily erected over Reactor No. 4 is now crumbling, and a $1.2 billion project to replace it remains on the drawing board. Yushchenko has said he expects work to begin this year, and be completed around 2010.

The new shelter is designed to last for 100 years, although officials say the plant contains particles whose radioactivity could last tens of thousands of years.

Tens of thousands of years. Humankind isn't ready to plan for that scale of time. We must demand our leaders step back from these dangers. We must not goad additional countries into the use of atomic power and atomic weaponry.

We live in one shared atmosphere. One week after Chernobyl there were measurable radiation differences planetwide. Even if you don't care about the rest of the world, your nation depends on the safety and biological health of other nations.

The best path to a strong, prosperous America is a strong, prosperous world. Our leaders must acknowledge that or we must change our leaders before they damage us irrevocably.

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