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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
 Posted - 04/19/2006 : 01:29:21 AM
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BTW, on the topic of the Chernobyl number of casualties, today's newspapers mention that Greenpeace just produced their own report on the subject, after some UN reports were accused of downplaying the incident.
Greenpeace claims as much as 200,000 people can have died as a result of the accident, and their main argument is that said reports, which mentioned about 4,000 certified deaths, forgot to mention that they were using as a base number the 600,000 people directly affected by the accident in Ukrania, while there's evidence that may indicate that the Chernobyl accident could be blamed for at least other 200,000 deaths in Russia and some former USSR republics. Problem is, according to Greenpeace, that there is no standard methods to calculate the numbers of victims in situations like this one, and only cancer victims are counted.
Greenpeace's report, written by a comitee of 52 experts from different countries, insists that many people who have died of cardio-vascular accidents and leukemia since the accident should be counted as well.
The figures may seem high, but the same newspaper (I don't know if using their own sources or still quoting the Greenpeace report) claims that the accident let go as much radiation as 200 times the Hiroshima bomb. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/19/2006 01:45:50 AM |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 02:08:07 AM
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I'm not sure I would consider Greenpeace the most objective source of info on the matter. The founder of the group himself has denounced them as basically nothing but an anti-capitalism organization these days. Chernobyl was really bad news but the message wasn't really about the danger of nuclear power per se- it was about the danger of antique nuclear plants being run by socialist chukleheads.
Coming soon-
Eraserhead: The Musical!! |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 03:54:23 AM
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I was quoting, but I didn't mention my opinion, so here it goes: IMHO, both reports are blatant miscalculations, on different levels. The UN report is either downplaying the accident or has been wrongly quoted, and of course Greenpeace is quite probably using inflated figures to support their anti-nuclear agenda.
But if the ammount of radiation leaked (200 times the Hiroshima bomb) is correct, I can't see why there can't be at least as many victims as in Hiroshima (60,000 dead in the following months after the explosion, not counting the victims of the blast itself). I've read the Wikipedia entry on the accident, but haven't been able to double-check that figure myself, if you have any data on the matter feel free to share it.
It should also be noted that, according to Wikipedia there are other reports, such as "an April 2006 report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) (who were awarded the 1986 Nobel peace prize), which counted tens of thousands dead only among the liquidators." Emphasis is mine, but it we accept their figures, that only cover those people who were in charge of the inmediate works after the accident, the figure of 200,000 dead among Russia, Belarus and Ukraine seems far more believable. |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 08:49:34 AM
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With Greenpeace I think the key to their figures is the comment "only cancer victims are counted." I'm willing to bet they are reporting how many of the 600,000 calculated people have died for any reason in the last 20 years.
And the reason you can't compare to Hiroshima is quite simple -- speed. Few people were killed by radiation in Hiroshima. Most died from the intense heat and high-speed winds. And even of the people who died of radiation, most died from the "black rain" fallout, not the initial explosion. Obviously there was no fallout with Chernobyl.
It's a bit like saying that 10,000 gallons of gas exploded would have killed milions if it happened in NYC, so the gas leak that burned for three weeks in Texas should have killed that many too.
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 10:46:02 AM
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Even I understand your problems with accepting Greenpeace figures, I wouldn't say they counted just everybody they could. They seem to base their calculations on the unusual (above average) leukemia and cardiovascular cases on Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Any interested people can download their article from http://www.greenpeace.ca/e/feature/chernobyl/index.php
I do accept the point that Hiroshima and Chernobyl are very different cases, though. Problem is there's not many situations Chernobyl can be compared with. Which makes for another problem when dealing with these figures. There's nothing to compare them with.
Still, I continue to believe that initial report (the one that mentioned 4,000 casualties) can't be accurate. I think the real number of victims will lie somewhere between those 4,000, the 60,000 of the third report and the 200,000 mentioned by Greenpeace. I can't even think of how to narrow it down, I understand these three reports being so different. |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 1:21:48 PM
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Considering they had higher rates of Lukemia before the accident blaming it on Chernobyl is a bit disingenuous. I'm also not clear on the 600,000 number since my (admittedly old at this point) memories from the time include reporters stressing "almost a quarter of a million people" affected. Could be a whole chicken-and-the-egg thing too. "The affected people have a higher rate of cancer. We determine the number of affected people by looking at the populations with higher than average cancer rates."
It's kind of like the case that started the whole electromagnetic waves controversy. The chances of that many cases of Lukemia on one block were one in a million, but that overlooks the fact that there are far more than a million blocks it could have happened on.
Either way, the most common cancer one would expect from radiation is thyroid. It is much more likely that lukemia (which is subject to many other possible causes). That's the statistic to tell you whose affected.
Okay, instead of agitprop (from either side) here's a medical journal: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14569934&dopt=Abstract
Looks like lukemia is at 1.04 and Thyroid is at 5.37. Fortunately Thyroid cancer is very treatable. Lukemia is harder to treat, and is sucks to be one of the 4% who got it and wouldn't have, but a+4% increase is pretty dang small when the incidence is already 40 per million (about) so a 4% increase is 1.6 per million. Out of 600,000 we'd expect exactly one extra case of Lukemia per year.
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 1:35:44 PM
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Whoops. Shoudl have read the detailed report you pointed to before going off half-cocked like that. Now that I've finished it I can only hope that, like me, you just read the summary and not the actual report.
The "600,000 people affected" are the 600,000 people who live within a few hundred miles of Chernobyl but way outside the area affected by the accident. The death count is based on the assumption that the "sarcophagus" that entombs the still burning reactor materials will be allowed to completely degrade, and the full release of all nuclear material into the environment will ensue. Its just a standard government report from some scientists telling them a worst-case scenario if the funding is cut, not a look at the past.
In other words, all it takes to reduce their alarmist numbers to nothing is to continue with the plan to build thicker and thicker walls around the pile until it burns itself out.
These are fake numbers based on a nuclear accident that hasn't happened.
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Edited by - KurtVon on 04/19/2006 1:57:27 PM |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 2:56:37 PM
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Amazing. Then half the newspapers I read today managed to misquote it. Well, stubborn as I am, I still think the 4,000 casualties from the first report we commented is a ridiculously low figure. I just can't believe it.
Thanks for pointing that one out, KurtVon, I'll be more careful in the future about what documents I quote.
EDITED: Are we talking about the same section of the Greenpeace report here? I'll be the first to admit I didn't read the whole thing, but only the summary featured in the link above, and that summary it's quite clear whe it states they are talking about REAL deaths, not elucubrations. And BTW, the figure I mentioned is 60,000 victims, not 600,000. Anyway, here goes the paragraph of the summary I was quoting from:
The new data, based on Belarus national cancer statistics, predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.
Emphasis mine. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/19/2006 3:03:49 PM |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 3:44:11 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Neville
Amazing. Then half the newspapers I read today managed to misquote it.
Par for the course with newspapers, I'm afraid.
quote:
EDITED: Are we talking about the same section of the Greenpeace report here?
I'm talking about the report (pdf) they link to as "proof" of their claims. As for what they say in the article, the report says nothing of the sort. Feel free to read it.
I suspect this is one of those "These facts here are incotrovertable [link] and given that we say blah blah blah even though they have nothing to do whatsoever with the facts we just connected to, we're just trying to confuse everyone into thinking our claims and the facts linked to (which are really just estimates for one of many possible futures) are somehow connected in the incotravertable department.
Heck, I read the report and was shocked instead at how small a problem the worst possible case was (a total collapse of the protection and dumping of enough water to vaporize all that remains of the core using the highest possible estimate for what remains.)
But you know, I suggest you don't trust me either. Just read the PDF, it's only 27 pages and designed to be accessable to politicians. I'd not be put off if you found numbers supporting Greenpeace in it (in fact, I'd be a lot less angry about it).
---
"The easy way to tell is monkeys have a tail and apes don't."
"What's the hard way?"
-- Actual conversation with my daughter
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 06:18:30 AM
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Agh, no thanks, I'll take your word regarding the Greenpeace report. I've already wasted enough time with this. Anyway, my original intention in this thread was to say that 4,000 casualties seems a very low figure, and that other reports exist that mention a much higher numbers of victims. Even if we ignore Greenpeace's claims, we still have the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear Warfare (IPPNW) report that mentions "tens of thousands"* of victims.
Although from the name of the organism you can tell they are contrary to nuclear energy, they seem to be far more serious than Greenpeace.
* I'm quoting again from Wikipedia, an article quoting the full report is available -French only, I'm afraid- at (0,1-0@2-3228,36-759215,0.html" target="_blank">http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3228,36-759215,0.html) |
Edited by - Neville on 04/20/2006 06:27:16 AM |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 08:16:42 AM
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Okay, my French is a bit rusty, but it sure looks like those numbers are for any form of cancer, not deaths. As I said, Thyroid cancer is easily treatable. With treatment over 99% of the cases can be cured. The infant deaths sound odd too, since usually radiation causes miscarriages, not infant deaths.
Of course, the part which makes me most suspicious is the way the URL is designed to look like it goes to Le Monde (and the website is a perfect copy of the Le Monde site too). Why doesn't it link to the real article if there is one? (I you are wondering why I say that, look at the link. An @ sign tells the web browser to ignore all website information that comes before it.) The real website is http://yourart.com, which looks like a political website.
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 11:43:18 AM
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| Arrrrrgh. Look, I'm sone with this thread. I'm still positive there must be more victims than those 4,000, and that serious studies support this, but I've already wasted enough time on this. Shouldn't have relied on those Greenpeace and Wikipedia stuff, this I'll be the first to admit. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/20/2006 11:57:57 AM |
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