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The Forum > Article Comments > Is nuclear the solution to climate change? > Comments

Is nuclear the solution to climate change? : Comments

By Scott Ludlam, published 29/3/2010

Nuclear power would at best be a distraction and a delay on the path to a sustainable future.

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Sir Vivor

As to your response;

Ce n'est pas grave ... c'est la vie et adieu.
Posted by qanda, Tuesday, 27 April 2010 10:41:48 PM
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qanda,

Thank you for your generous words and thoughts. I am not so quick to respond at such times. Though my English is competent, my chess is B grade and my French is 8th grade. Of course I can still enjoy both. Think of me kindly, over your vintage port and fromage.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 8:12:09 AM
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SV,

You were trying to attack the credibility of the IAEA by focusing on its founding roots rather than on anything it has published. You were most definitely playing the man not the ball.

The snippet you provided was off the advertising for the book. Have you actually read it or are you just trumpeting the headlines?

If you have read it perhaps you could post some of the evidence it has exposed as opposed to the conjecture I could glean from the google preview.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 8:12:36 AM
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Shadow Minister, I have been following the story of the IAEA's conflicted brief for over 30 years. The latest edition of The Annals of the NYAS supports the understanding I have developed over this time. The Preface to the volume spells out evidence supporting my concern.

I assume the The "snippet" you deride to be an accurate, succinct summary of the contents of a carefully edited volume on Chernobyl health effects.

See
http://tinyurl.com/NYAS-Chernobyl-study-Forward for a Google Books copy of the Forward and selected pages of
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment

The titles of the articles, available in the link I posted, give added, although limited breadth to the "snippet". They all address the impact of the Chernobyl catastrophe, as ground-truthed by local experts: their studies contradict the announcements of the IAEA, concerning Chernobyl's human morbidity and mortality consequences.

I expect more reviews of the Chernobyl volume will become available, by readers better qualified than I, some of them "recognised experts" (and I think we both agree that neither of us are recognised experts on topics of health physics and environmental impacts of ionising radiation).

Do you expect that you will be able to turn back the tide on what is bound to become a widening debate?

I will try to keep you posted. Meanwhile, see

http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman04232010.html

for some opinions of other activists who have been following the IAEA story for years.

My conclusion, that the IAEA is putting my health and yours at risk through their policies and actions, is well-founded. If you think they are doing the opposite, I invite you to argue your case.

And by all means, tell us how the IAEA is dealing impartially with Iran, and efficaciously approaching the issue of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Do you seriously believe that the IAEA is not unduly swayed by the influence of its most powerful members?
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 10:29:44 AM
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SV,

Here is the article from the Washington post that I referred to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501144.html.

Unless there is a huge conspiracy by the WHO, the UN, the Washington post and all their researchers there was no huge spike in cancer deaths and the difference between the highly affected areas and similar areas not affected was minimal.

Secondly, given that by extending the coverage world wide, the total number of cancer deaths since 1986 would be in the hundreds of millions to a billion, and very little tweaking of statistics is required to reach 1m additional deaths. There are plenty of other environmental factors including an aging population (as people get older their chance of fatal cancer increases dramatically).

While I have no doubt that the IAEA is not unaffected by the major countries, the conspiracy would have to include many reputable organisation and people from all over the world.

So with all due respect, a "revelation" by a couple of hitherto unheard of "scientists" that gives mortality figures a thousand fold higher than those of the UN, is viewed with more than a little skepticism.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 2:53:26 PM
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Thank you for your review of the UN report of the Chernobyl Accident, published in the Washington Post in 2005.

I would say that time has moved on.

As for your remark that
"So with all due respect, a "revelation" by a couple of hitherto unheard of "scientists" that gives mortality figures a thousand fold higher than those of the UN, is viewed with more than a little skepticism."

These scientists are unheard of in the west, but they are sufficiently respected in their own countries, where they have been closely connected to many of the studies which they cite in their won works. Their work is not a "revelation". There is nothing mystical about it. It is peer-reviewed, published, science-based opinion based on disciplined observation and analysis.

Perhaps, 120 years ago, you would have been proud to single out Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel in a similar fashion, had you been alive and newly heard of them, and their theories of organic evolutin and particulate inheritance. Many folks are still skeptical of Darwin, if not outright dubious, and prefer a more ancient source of authority. The genetic engineers seem happy enough with Mendel's ideas.

The authors of the studies in the NYAS Annals volume on the Chernobyl catastrophe will not suffer horribly for having their names distinguished by your "quotation marks", in this forum.

Since you seem to find their work so inconsequential, perhaps you could amuse yourself by reading what is available in the Google Books link I provided above. If indeed it is poor science, then it is unlikely to stand up against Peter Finn's 2005 review of a UN study, in the Washington Post.

By the way, can you provide a link to that UN Study? I didn't see one in the article.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 10:51:31 PM
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