Yesterday, I had not watched the debate, so I read about it some, and was very glad I had not tried to watch it. I can give you a link to Wonkette’s sassy and NSFW liveblog, but seriously, reactions to it are all over the net, and easy to find. Also from Wonkette, its newsletter contained a link to a different site (called “Atlas Obscura”), specifically to an article about Eleanor Roosevelt including some facts which today are certainly little known. Anyone who like me admired the heck out of Mrs. Roosevelt from the first day I heard about her will be interested. I warn you that it’s a site which is easy to fall into and get lost for days. I mean that as a compliment. Also yesterday, Trump** fired Drew Findling, a name you may remember from Monday’s Open Thread. Gee, I wonder why /s.
New Mexico Political Report – New evidence bolsters downwinders’ claims as efforts to expand RECA advance in Congress
Quote – Radioactive fallout from the Trinity Test site covered virtually all of New Mexico and reached as far away as Canada, according to new evidence. But the people who lived closest to the site, and have suffered the health consequences such as cancer, have not received any compensation from the federal government. The new evidence, along with new efforts to help residents of Missouri impacted by radioactive waste, may help New Mexico downwinders finally receive the compensation.
Click through for article. Almost 80 years and an opera and a few movies later, we are still dealng with the Trinity Project. (Of course, all those Republicans in office didn’t help a bit.)
https://otter.ai/u/R6n5K0u9-LkZMVFX_bT4XCbhUwk
Steve Schmidt – Tucker and Donald – a Dangerous Duo
Quote – The other travesty that took place last night was the bizarre interview between Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson. Here, I talk about why their message is so dangerous.
Click through direct to transcript. Steve is mostly posting videos now, and my link is not to his Substack page, but the transcript site. If you want, you can listen while you read, and the site wll conveniently highlight each word as it’s said. But you don’t have to. You can just read it. It’s not long.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I can’t imagine there is anyone here who is not concerned about radiation, not only in Ukraine, but about what could happen to the rest of the world. This article is not going to answer every question or address every fear. But, as far as it goes, it is based on sound science, not on propoganda. It can be trusted. And it can be confidently shard.
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Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment
The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance.
Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.
Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.
In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles.
The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.
The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.
Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure.
Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.
Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear.
If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it’s not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through.
Perhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite.
Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.
There is no “safe” level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you, being goddesses, are, I trust, immune to the effects of radiation suffered by hmans, animals, and plants. Anything you can think of that will kelp preserve the rest of us will be appreciated. (I doubt that Democritus can help. He is probably still in shock, awe, and disbelief.)