Public Address | Cafe | Speaker: After the Apocalypse

James Littlewood*

Fri, 02 Sept 2016 10:43:08 +1200

Thanks guys, that's a really excellent piece.

Alfie

Fri, 02 Sept 2016 10:36:59 +1200

Probably also worth pointing out that the radiation cloud from Chernobyl travelled far enough, and was toxic enough, that livestock monitoring on farms in some areas of the UK (about 1,300 miles from Chernobyl) wasn’t fully lifted until 2012.

I was in rural Scotland when Chernobyl blew. My brother and…

clintonlogan

Thu, 01 Sept 2016 23:05:51 +1200

here was a photoblog a few years back by a Russian biker who claims to have ridden around the local area fairly extensively, although whether it’s fully authentic or not has been called into question.

Yes this is a fairly infamous extrapolation of reality written a few years back by…

Rich Lock

Thu, 01 Sept 2016 21:27:40 +1200

Rich Lock

Thu, 01 Sept 2016 20:57:53 +1200

motorcycles are forbidden

There was a photoblog a few years back by a Russian biker who claims to have ridden around the local area fairly extensively, although whether it's fully authentic or not has been called into question.

pop-culture resonance

Back before 'found footage' movies had been flogged to death,…

linger

Thu, 01 Sept 2016 10:39:11 +1200

It’s also an evidential limitation: we don’t have good evidence (in human models) to estimate the numbers of mutations that don’t give rise to cancer, or that cause cancers that are detected and destroyed by the body’s own defences, or cancers that grow too slowly to become a cause of…

Rich of Observationz

Thu, 01 Sept 2016 10:00:19 +1200

So this is biology, and I defer to Bart:

the simple linear model from high dose to low dose is wrong, if it was right we would lots and lots more dead radiation industry workers and we don't

But I'd like to see a worked explanation of that. Radiation industry…

linger

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 17:08:45 +1200

Aha! I had a niggling feeling we’d covered models of radiation dose effects before – and yes, it's back in this thread.

linger

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 14:30:25 +1200

He’d certainly have received several years’ normal radiation dose (of the order of 10 mSv) within a few days, but the effect on life expectancy probably isn’t as much as you’d think … not least because there are many possible causes of death that are not affected by radiation exposure.…

Bevan

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:33:49 +1200

Fascinating article, thanks.
Apologies for the bluntness, but how much would that visit have reduced the author's life expectancy?

David Hood

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:59:44 +1200

Why then do traces of radiation show up in animals and trees around the world? They could age those very old Greenland sharks by radiation traces in their eyes

The atmospheric bomb tests doubled the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere, and it gets absorbed by living things from the…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:09:03 +1200

There are a range of views, some of which are informed by the nuclear industry (obviously, if you can take a view that moderate amounts of radiation, such as a contained nuclear accident, are harmless, then there would be much less decontamination/evacuation needed after an accident such as Fukushima, the…

Russell Brown

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 10:44:35 +1200

The generally accepted theory in health physics

I’m not sure it’s generally accepted. From your Wiki link:

One of the organizations for establishing recommendations on radiation protection guidelines internationally, the UNSCEAR, has recommended in 2014 policies that do not agree with the Linear No-Threshold model at exposure levels below background…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:14:04 +1200

Of course, natural background radiation isn't any better for you than artificial, and a substantial number of cancers result from it. (Both where natural radiation is concentrated, in the form of radon, mostly, and just from general exposure).

The generally accepted theory in health physics is that biological damage is…

Russell Brown

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 08:00:39 +1200

I think the issue is more that our exposure to natural background radiation is vastly greater than the additional exposure related to distant nuclear incidents.

The Ministry of Health monitored the impact of the Fukushima incident and reported last year that:

Atmospheric dispersion has been largely restricted to the northern…

Kevin McCready

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 23:47:16 +1200

I'm guessing Hilary that the answer is in the word "trace". The amounts are small enough to measure by not appreciably larger than background radiation. That said, I was taught in med school that there is no known safe dose of radiation – a bit like alcohol and Chernobyl Reds.

Sacha

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 23:23:45 +1200

(unrelatedly, what has happened to your Twitr?) #hacked?

Hilary Stace

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:33:14 +1200

Why then do traces of radiation show up in animals and trees around the world? They could age those very old Greenland sharks by radiation traces in their eyes of nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s which weren’t anywhere near Greenland.

Euan Mason

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 18:55:29 +1200

Compelling reading, Clinton, and bone-chilling. Many thanks.

linger

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 17:26:20 +1200

have often wondered whether it had an influence Over 10,000km, the short answer has to be, no.
Not that that ever stops parents worrying :-/
(For comparison: I was 300km from Fukushima in 2011 … fielding calls from my parents in which I had to point out that hopping on…

Hilary Stace

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:35:28 +1200

Ten months after the Chernobyl explosion my five year old daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia. She was in New Zealand and Chernobyl was a long way away but I have often wondered whether it had an influence. They say that every growing thing at the time on the planet has…

Whoops

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:54:42 +1200

The Metro games (2033, last light) are worth a look too (now a little old, but worth a play)

Fraser Gardyne

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:51:39 +1200

Great haunting video Sacha. It's amazing to think that thirty years have passed. Very sad.

Sacha

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:03:24 +1200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNV5Sq28Mp4

nic.wise

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:48:40 +1200

Thanks Clinton – and Russell – reminds me (esp the photos) of my trip there in 2012 or so. One of the most interesting and fascinating places I've ever been. I'd love to go back and spend more time there.

Stephen R

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:03:23 +1200

Both Stalker the movie and the Stalker video games are loosely based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's "Roadside picnic". (The Strugatskys also wrote the screenplay for the movie).

I spent far too long playing that game, modding it heavily and playing it again...

the first stalker was "STALKER Shadow of…

Russell Brown

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:54:36 +1200

I hope you checked that medal for radiation!! :-)

Oops.

BenWilson

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:28:17 +1200

was it my son who introduced you to that game?

He showed it to me at length, yes. Also, my former business partner, who is an avid gamer. It was an interesting concept, although ironically the idea of a post-apocalyptic FPS set in a nuclear plant had been done many…

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:53:22 +1200

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
I assume this is a pop-culture resonance with Tarkovsky's haunting film 'Stalker' and its enigmatic 'Zone'....
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x141hfz_stalker-1979-pt-1_creation?GK_FACEBOOK_OG_HTML5=1

Russell Brown

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:50:48 +1200

Great story, Clinton. IIRC Chernobyl is the setting for a post apocalyptic PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It struck me as bad taste at the time, but I guess bad taste is a hallmark of horror oriented post-apocalyptic works.

Was it my son who introduced you to that game?

He developed a…

BenWilson

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:21:37 +1200

Very, very eerie place. Amazing to think that even now there is an…

Russell Brown

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:46:39 +1200

Thanks so much for permission to republish your work, Clinton.

I landed in London, at the other end of Europe, two or three weeks after the meltdown. It was on everyone's mind, even far to the west.

In the years that followed, we drank a lot of "Chernobyl wine" –…

Public Address

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:46:39 +1200

Discussion from blog post.