Chernobyl - Disaster or Myth?

williamgrogan

What's wrong with being a fanatical skeptic?

What's your opinion on the matter?

watty

I'm so unconvinced...

It seems to me that people have such particular agendas (Anti-Nuke, Pro-Nuke, Aid fund rasising and compensation claims) that an accurate unbiased view is hard.

So I won't vote for either option

http://www.geocities.com/dtmcbride/hist/disasters-war.html

He claims 126,000 deaths, which I don't believe

http://english.pravda.ru/accidents/2001/04/24/4071.html
Claims 10,000


http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/chernobyl.html

"The government of Ukraine gives much larger figures for the number of people who got sick or died because of Chernobyl. I don't believe these figures have been verified by outsiders. The large figures are presented in support of claims for compensation from Russia and donations from Western countries."

also

"Unsupported large estimates of the casualties from Chernobyl are a staple of the anti-nuclear movement. It is interesting that the UN scientific committee on the effects of radiation has found it necessary to criticise the UN office on humanitarian affairs. The latter takes the common journalistic view of Chernobyl.


UNSCEAR Letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan [rtf file 21kb] 6 June 2000 "Sir, I write to you as Chairman of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), which has just concluded its 49th session in Vienna. As you know, UNSCEAR is the body within the United Nations system with a mandate from the General Assembly to assess and report levels and health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation. The Committee has taken note of a publication by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) entitled "Chernobyl - a continuing catastrophe" (OCHA/99/20, New York and Geneva, 2000). This report is full of unsubstantiated statements that have no support in scientific assessments. I should therefore like to draw your attention to the Committee's finding with regard to the radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident..."

Also

In order to prevent the reactor from shutting itself off from xenon poisoning, the operators pulled the control rods almost all the way out. This caused an enormous increase in the nuclear reaction to many times the reactor's normal power level. This caused a steam explosion that blew the top off the reactor, probably stopping the nuclear reaction. Then the carbon caught fire and burned for about nine days. This scattered the reactor contents and large amounts of radioactivity. 32 people died in the accident and in efforts to put out the fire. 38 more people died of acute radiation sickness in the following months. There were measurable health effects in Ukraine and Belarus.
The radioactivity spread over northern Europe caused some plants and wild animals to be more radioactive than was legal for human consumption. However, there were no identifiable illnesses outside the Soviet Union. There may be some increase in cancer but this is unlikely to be detectable, because of the large numbers of cancers from other causes.

He claims < 100 deaths directly, but no exact claim of susbsequent deaths


I conclude that perhaps under a hundred died directly at the time and that very accurate statistics and knowledge + control groups is needed to have any idea at all as to how many subsequent deaths, illness and deformaty would have occurred anyway and how many are because of Chernobyl.

I have no idea if this is hundreds, 1000s, 10,000 or 100,000s all of which are quoted by different sources. My "instinct" is that the highest figure being part of Ukraines compensation claim is inflated and the lowest figures come from the Nucular industry so likely grossly understate.

William, I'll not agree to fission power till someone tells me what they are going to do with the waste. I have no doubt a Power Station can be made safe and in general the NP industry Generation can be low risk. But in terms of total picture the waste disposal and plant decomission costs seem to be under estimated to give a false picture of the Economics "long term". In the short term or if you want plutonium for bombs it is economic.

A plutonium bomb is easy to make and proliferation of NP plants *may* make it easier for a terrorist or maniac to get Plutonium.

I suspect WG of having the real agenda of his posts to promote NP and not to correct myths about Chernobyl.

It is undoubtably true that there *ARE* myths surrounding the accident but that it was a major disaster with a large and possibly unknown loss of life.

ecksor

Originally posted by watty
I suspect WG of having the real agenda of his posts to promote NP and not to correct myths about Chernobyl.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1395258#post1395258

williamgrogan

Well written piece Watty.

{Aside: My wife had an Aunt Watty who was a nun with a good sense of humour and knew well that I was very anti-religious but when she died she asked that I carry her coffin which I was happy to do. }

About 10,000 people died as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear powers station, Minister of the Interior Boris Gryzlov said Tuesday.
Speaking at a meeting of liquidators of the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, the head of the Russian Interior Ministry said that a "high price has been paid" for the accident. More than 35,000 people have become disabled as a result. The minister pointed out that among the victims, there were also quite a few Interior Ministry employees.

The 10,000 quote also came with a quote that 35,000 people became disabled. This is total rubbish and it’s the first time I heard of this claim. I think if he says 10,000 and a stupid claim for 35,000 disabled in the same speech we can dismiss the lot. I think the researchers would have spotted the 35,000 extra disabled people.

There is a very important point here that arises all the time in similar circumstances. If there is no evidence of an increase in deaths or proof then you cannot believe there were any.

You can believe there may have been but that’s all. It is not logical to take a selection of guesses and simply pick one in the middle. The very fact that all these figures exist is evidence that none of them is correct, a bit like the thousands of contradictory religions proving that at least most of them must be wrong.

I thought that the UNSCEAR letter was amazing. Where’s the rest of it?

Not alone have I made it clear that I support NP in several threads and that the Chernobyl-killed-thousands “movement” is a myth but that one of the downsides is it is keeping NP effectively shut down in many countries, including Ireland, and that was one of the main reasons I oppose the myth. Obviously I also oppose it because I oppose all lies & myths, that’s what someone who is a Skeptic does.

I’m beginning to realise, partly thanks to my nemesis Ecksor, that even people who realise that something is a myth will carry on and sort of defend it. It bit like shooting the messenger.

watty

No I wouldn't pick a lower and upper beleivable figure and "average" them. The point I'm making is that because of the agendas behind most figures (high or low) the ordinary "Joe Soap" can have no idea at all as to real figure. Both "sides" are building myths. Maybe in 20 or 30 years some truely independant research will tell us how many consequent deaths there were.

I think though that deaths actually at time of accident can be more easily tied down and seem from reports to have been < 100 rather than >1000. But the number and cause of any later deaths and amount of later deformities etc, etc, I woudn't comment on except to agree that most of the sources must be wrong as no two different "groupings" of interested parties or vested interests seem to agree.

If I found an Aid Agency, a East European/Russian paper and a nuclear industry source even within a magnitude of each other then we could conclude an approximate size of subsequent casualty. It is the only event I have ever read of with such obviosly irreconcilable HUGE differences in the figures. From Everyone.

It was definately a horrendus disaster. But the size of it is definately obscured in Propaganda.

williamgrogan

The point in Watty's post of the 21-04-04 is invalid because of one major flaw, those that say that there is no evidence of any deaths (notice they did not say a low number) other than 37 in the 2 weeks around the accident and 1 Thyroid case after use science (studies, research etc), including the WHO, and those that say thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, do not. You cannot compare the two points of view.

This article (no subscription regd.) is in today’s UK Independent, here

'Only nuclear power can now halt global warming'
Leading environmentalist, James Lovelock (of Gaia fame) urges radical rethink on climate change.

So one of the founders of Greenpeace and now Lovelock have advocated NP. The power that dare not mention its name may be coming back into fashion.

I suspect that we may start hearing more about Chernobyl as the anti-nuke brigade try to use it as "evidence" of the catastrophic dangers inherent in NP.

williamgrogan

A follow up article in today's UK Indo.

Scientist's plea to use nuclear energy starts new climate change debate by green groups
By Charles Arthur Technology Editor
25 May 2004

A former Labour energy minister and the nuclear industry both welcomed the call by the scientist James Lovelock yesterday for a massive expansion of the nuclear industry to combat global warming.

here

williamgrogan

On the thread where I am arguing that the anti-eVoting lobby are in the same category as the anti-MMR brigade, I discovered that one of the leading lights of the anti-eVoting lobby thinks 30,000 people died at Chernobyl.

see here

Wolff

interesting old thread especially after last night episode of Horizon where they summarised a lot of research into Chernobyl

Based on a un report last year which included contributions from the who etc

basically

only i think 47 deaths directly attributable to chernobyl - no major increases in any cancers at all

wildlife living in vicinity of chernobyl unharmed to this day

no mention of any of this on the chernobyl childrens webstie - they quote much older reports going back to 1995

seems the origional poster may have been correct after all

what do other people think ?

davros

I watched that last night, and also had this thread in the back of my mind.

In recent months, more people have been saying that nuclear energy is not such a bad way to go and actually is very helpful in averting possible climate change. But will we ever have a rational debate on the topic in this country? Are we scientifically literate enough to let the facts convince us one way or the other?

I wonder if the Chernobyl Children's Fund could be persuaded to stop ascribing every birth defect in Belarus to the release of radiation. It seems to me that the desire to help unfortunate children in a very poor country could easily be separated from speculation about how they got that way. Not only that, keeping the spectre of radiation poisoning alive in these countries is, according to the programme, causing stress that is more harmful than any effects directly attributable to radiation exposure.

Horizon has been a consistently great programme for many years. I'd love to see RTE have a stab at something similar. Maybe the ISS could do a lecture on nuclear energy?

pH

Estimates and figures vary widely. A 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that as many as 9000 people, among the approximately 6.6 million most highly exposed, may die from some form of cancer (one of the induced diseases).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

This is back to a bugbear of mine, like flying vs automobiles, why are we so bad at evaluating risk?

If those figures are correct (9,000 in 6.6 Million) then being exposed to the Chernobyl fallout kills about 0.14% of those affected, whereas (as pointed out is the excellent Horizon a couple of weeks ago) smoking kills 50% of smokers.

davros wrote:

Horizon has been a consistently great programme for many years.

If only they'd stop sliding into the 'reconstruction-documentary' that ruins a great many factual programs for me - You don't need to dress people up in skins and makeup and have them run around filmed by shaky cameras to make a documentary about neanderthals!

Wolff

RTE make something like this !

Jasus dont get me started on RTE - classic example - the bog bodies found - Marie Cassidy brought in to help with the forensics, great story - who does the brilliant documentary....

Timewatch.

The RTE factual department is run by podge and rodge - the nearest they got to this was the sh!te they showed a while back about a dramtised accident in Sellafield which according to the documentary last night could actually imporve our health .


so much for research !

The chernobyl childrens website strangely mentions nothing of the latest research - all they do is quote 1995 figures.

bit odd I think

Jackie laughlin

Wolff,
Have you submitted a detailed complaint to RTE and, if not satisfied, have you complained about lack of balance in covering this public controversy to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission? Believe me, I'm not trying to antagonise you but there are structures in place to force discussion on and improve public service broadcasting.

davros

pH wrote:

This is back to a bugbear of mine, like flying vs automobiles, why are we so bad at evaluating risk?

Speaking of flying risks, The Economist pointed out something interesting recently. That statistic about travelling by air being the safest way to travel is based on accidents per passenger mile. Since most air accidents occur at take off or landing, all those thousands of miles in between really pull the accident rate down. If you look at accidents per passenger journey, only motorcycles are more hazardous. So it's no wonder we can't evaluate risk properly when you can prove a fact and its exact opposite using statistics.

pH wrote:

If only they'd stop sliding into the 'reconstruction-documentary' that ruins a great many factual programs for me - You don't need to dress people up in skins and makeup and have them run around filmed by shaky cameras to make a documentary about neanderthals!

Perhaps it's just the requirements of the medium of television. While the narrator is imparting facts, there has to be something on the screen. If not a reconstruction, then what?

Calibos

davros wrote:

I watched that last night, and also had this thread in the back of my mind.

LOL, didn't see the programme myself but when I heard about it on another forum, the first thing I thought of was this old thread too. Good old William Grogan!

BTW davros, thanks for busting that Flying/Safest myth.....NOT! Was never scared of flying before, but I am now!!. Thats a bubble I didn't want burst!