The Chernobyl disaster on 26 April 1986 set off a chain-reaction of events across Western and Eastern Europe and the USSR. What is remarkable is how important mis-perceptions became. The USSR was quicker to learn the necessary lessons than the West. We explore some of the issues as coolly as possible.
Posted by RDN under Chernobyl legacy / Chernobyl mini-essays on 1 January 2011. No comments.
Some people promote and millions believe the idea of a very high number for Chernobyl’s cancer death toll. (See the 100,000 figure promoted by some Greens, and that’s almost moderate.) Some others also adduce huge and horrible birth defects and other health effects. Assessing the cancer toll, and the wider health effects, is complicated……. More »
Posted by RDN under Chernobyl legacy / Chernobyl mini-essays on 2 December 2010. No comments.
This was a note written by Paul Seaman (www.paulseaman.com) as a July 2006 account by the BBC’s leading science programme of the different ways of thinking about and accounting for the death-doll from cancer caused by radiation. It helps show why different experts come to very different predictions of the scale of, for instance, the Chernobyl disaster. Trouble is (for those who’d like a simple life) it debunks “LNT” which is the underpinning theory of the low estimates of people like the Chernobyl Forum, and does so by arguing that these are way too high. More »
