[HN Gopher] France grossly underestimated radioactive fallout fr...
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France grossly underestimated radioactive fallout from atom bomb
tests, study
Author : pseudolus
Score : 37 points
Date : 2021-03-12 20:59 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencemag.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencemag.org)
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The fallout of the French bombs was on non-whites. This would
| have been a huge story in Western media of genocide if it was
| done by say the Chinese (or insert any other non-white nation).
| markdown wrote:
| Do you know what makes the ocean glow Do you know what
| makes the ocean glow When unwelcome guests, are making
| nuclear tests Are making nuclear tests, are making
| nuclear tests Are making nuclear tests ...
| Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific Ki te la
| pacific, get out of the pacific Ki te la pacific
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZD8dA678ss
|
| It's long past the time for the French to GTFO out of the
| Pacific. Decolonise and free the Tahitians and Kanaks.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| You know these territories regularly vote on independence,
| right? https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-
| news/375335/tahi...
|
| And the answer is usually "no", because most of these islands
| are poor and get net funding and support from France (or
| whatever other country holds sovereignty).
| boudin wrote:
| If you're talking about New Caledonia it's as really biased
| view. It was a special agreement following a stron crisis
| with the Kanak independance mouvement that allowed to agree
| on 3 independance votes. There's a big difference in votes
| between the people from metropolitan France and a much
| stronger support for independance in the Kanak population.
| We'll see next year what's the result is going to be, but the
| last one was quite close.
|
| Other territories do not have the opportunity to vote on
| their independance.
| dr_faustus wrote:
| 1 mSv is a pretty low threshold. It's actually a bit more than
| 10x the radiation of a thorax x-ray done with modern equipment.
| But its 1/10 of a thorax ct. It's also less than the yearly
| difference between the exposure of people living in regions with
| low and high natural radiation here in Germany (which, as has far
| as could be determined, has no impact on the cancer rate).
| lostlogin wrote:
| Could you expand on this? I didn't understand the problem to be
| the threshold, but the convenient underestimation of dose by a
| factor of 2-20x.
| dr_faustus wrote:
| It's not my place to evaluate which method of calculating the
| exposure was correct. Just pointing out, that 1 mSv is a
| rather small amount of radiation. The smallest amount of
| radiation where one sees some indications of an increase in
| cancer risk is at 50-100 mSv [1].
|
| I'm not arguing either way whether this should have an impact
| on any payments. Putting the threshold for compensation at 1
| mSv is very conservative and will lead to the payment of
| compensation for many cancers that weren't caused by
| radiation. Which, again, is fine by me because I do believe
| that very little interest was paid to the protection of the
| neighboring populations.
|
| [1] Pretty good summary:
| https://www.pnas.org/content/100/24/13761
| Mkm1800 wrote:
| 87
| youeseh wrote:
| What was the incentive to adequately estimate the fallout vs.
| underestimate it?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There's no real incentive to estimate accurately because it's
| in Algeria, which the French did not care much for.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > because it's in Algeria
|
| Wasn't it more in the south pacific?
|
| There was a need to underestimate radiation doses so as to
| undercut our opposition.
|
| When we made the fuss those in power in France took the time
| to send a military team to bomb a Greenpeace ship in
| Auckland, killing someone. They followed up with economic
| sanctions when we caught their amateur operatives, and later
| gave the soldiers medals for the murder they committed.
|
| Who needs enemies with friends like these?
| boudin wrote:
| France did the first tests in Algeria but this is about the
| ones done at Mururoa, in the pacific indeed.
| jshmrsn wrote:
| I had not heard of this before, thanks for bringing it to
| my attention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_th
| e_Rainbow_Warri...
| onion2k wrote:
| If you need to use your bombs on a country that invaded you a
| few decades ago you want to make sure you don't accidently
| irradiate your own country.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Back in those days whatever the answer was the decision would
| he the same e.g. the people in charge of windscale probably
| knew it wasn't safe but if you don't have a bomb you are a
| complete nobody.
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(page generated 2021-03-12 23:00 UTC)