Everything is Fine

The NYT has a story on the fires in Russia. Sounds a little distressing, but Dr. Onischenko says everything is fine.

That’s the official story.

Ok, but with a lot of folks pushing nuclear as clean, green energy source, maybe we should challenge the industry technicians to show that they can clean up an accident site before we commit to more potential accident sites. I realize that this is a non-starter because for the most part, the industry cannot clean up a site like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, but what does that tell you?

Of course, the deniers will say no connection between the heat waves stoking fires like these or the ones in Australia because they can find a datapoint somewhere that shows an unusually early or late frost event. There is a connection between these extreme weather events and global warming. It is predicted and documented.

Let’s deal with some big data sets, please.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Russian Fires Raise Fears of Radioactivity MOSCOW — As if things in Russia were not looking sufficiently apocalyptic already, with 100-degree temperatures and noxious fumes rolling in from burning peat bogs and forests, there is growing alarm here that fires in regions coated with fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 24 years ago could now be emitting plumes of radioactive smoke. “Fires on these territories will without a doubt lead to an increase in radiation,” said Vladimir Chuprov, head of the energy program at Greenpeace Russia. “The smoke will spread and the radioactive traces will spread. The amount depends upon the force of the wind.”Russia’s emergency minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, warned last week that the fires could release radioactive particles. Responding to the Greenpeace statement on Tuesday, Dr. Gennadi G. Onishchenko, Russia’s chief sanitary doctor, played down the danger. “There is no need to sow panic,” he told the Interfax news agency. “Everything is fine.”

This entry was posted on August 11, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under News, Eco Criminals, Politics, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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