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He Smoked 20 Cigs a day, Got Cancer… Must be the nukes!

February 2nd, 2009

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Via The Sleaford Target:

Widow goes to High Court in radiation exposure case

Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 10:00
THE widow of a Cranwell serviceman told the High Court she is convinced her husband’s fatal cancer was connected to radiation exposure.

Wendy Brothers, 70, from Cranwell, is one of more than 1,000 claimants who say they or their loved ones suffered illnesses because of exposure to ionising radiation during nuclear tests in the South Pacific during the 1950s.

Mrs Brothers took the stand at the High Court on Monday and told judge Mr Justice Foskett she will always be convinced radiation exposure was at least partly responsible for her husband John’s death.

She said: “It was precisely John’s job to fly through the mushroom clouds and I still believe his atomic service was partly responsible.”

Her 67-year-old husband died from cancer of the oesophagus in 2000.

Mr Brothers was one of the RAF’s top navigators when he was sent to Christmas Island with 76 Squadron in 1956 and 1957.

Under cross-examination, Mrs Brothers accepted her husband’s 20-a-day cigarette habit may have magnified the risks of cancer.

Ministry of Defence lawyers are arguing the surviving atomic veterans and the widows of those who have already died have left it too late to sue.

The hearing is expected to last another two weeks.

Well, this doesn’t seem like it is that difficult a case.   I don’t know how it works in the UK, but in most places the burden of proof in a lawsuit is not as strict as a criminal matter, but the litigant must still prove that the damages being sued for were caused by the dependent as shown by “Clear and convincing evidence.”   In other words, the fact that a loss may, possibly have been caused by a dependent is not good enough, there must be at least good reason to think that they probably caused the loss.

Now lets just consider the situation here:   We have a man who has smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day and who develops esophageal cancer at a fairly old age.   Esophageal cancer, as it happens, is very strongly associated with smoking.   On the other hand, while radiation can theoretically increase the overall risk of cancer, esophageal cancer does not have a strong correlation to radiation exposure (unlike thyroid cancer, for example.)   The individual in question was supposedly exposed to radiation from nuclear fallout.  If this were the cause of a cancer, that cancer would be most likely to show up in a part of the body that has the potential to accumulate material from fallout.   This might include the thyroid, bone marrow and possibly lung tissue, but not the esophagus.

The radiation exposure that the individual was supposedly subjected to apparently comes from having served on Christmas Island (Kiritamati) during nuclear tests that were conducted in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  The tests that took place were part of the British Grapple series of tests and later the joint US/British Operation Dominic tests. These tests consisted primarily of high and medium altitude tests as well as a few surface level tests conducted on barges at sea.

Although the Christmas Island tests used the island as the test base, most of the detonations actually took place within several miles of the island.     Those which did take place at the location were mostly confined to high altitude tests, in which most of the fallout would decay before falling to earth and would generally not be strongly concentrated at the test site.

The British Ministry of Defense has provided data that has shown that, except for a few isolated circumstances, the personel at Christmas Island were never exposed to any hazardous levels of radioactivity.

In closing, I’m sympathetic to the widow who has lost her husband to cancer.  Although he was not exactly young, I know how difficult that kind of a loss can be.  My own grandmother has had a great deal of difficulty adjusting to my grandfather’s death and is still lonely and unsure of what she wants to do, even five years after his passing.   However, this should not be blamed on the boogie man of radiation.   The evidence is pretty compelling that it was most likely not related to his service during nuclear tests.

Besides, it looks like it was kinda fun…


This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, Nuclear, Politics. 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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72 Responses to “He Smoked 20 Cigs a day, Got Cancer… Must be the nukes!”

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  1. 51
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    That phone with that name is still in service for other surviving radiated vets or their survivors to contact us regarding Chalk River. I have a private line.

    They dont have state pensions in Canada you moron. Mine is a veterans affairs Canada pension and its not much but it is symbolic of damages caused by the by the nuclear industry. They are not handed out for nothing you twits.

    You cant have the information you want because the files were deleted ,covered up and the Department of National Defense is slowly releasing what it has for the class action because it is now declassified and they have to release that data under the Freedom of Information Act which takes on average 2 years.

    You must apologize to PROFESSOR Edwards of CCNR and the veterans you called MONEY GRABBERS you slimeballs.

    How can I be living in my parents home if they are deceased? You are so dumb.

    And as usual you make personal attacks avoiding to respond to actual facts and allegations in reference to the above subject.

    One can not prove a negative yet in your arguments you use unrelated local disasters in an attempt to justify your ignorance.

    I am glad I have sparked your interest in so much as you would look me up. You sick stalker.

    GET INFORMED


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  2. 52
    DV82XL Says:

    Let me remind you, moron that you posted the number.

    You have done nothing here but rant Lloyd, you have made wild accusations laced with obvious inaccuracies and have not offered any other proof than your own statements.

    I certainly won’t apologize to Edwards until I see some proof that he held tenure at Concordia, the only way he could hold the academic rank of professor.

    You are a waste of everyone’s time here I certainly will not continue to humor your paranoia by engaging with you.


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  3. 53
    drbuzz0 Says:

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    They dont have state pensions in Canada you moron. Mine is a veterans affairs Canada pension and its not much but it is symbolic of damages caused by the by the nuclear industry. They are not handed out for nothing you twits.

    Ohhh… it’s a veterans affairs pension. So where did you serve? The second world war? Korea? Occupied Germany? Or is it more recent? Afgahnistan?

    Or did you serve in one of the special detachments like the Canadian Forces Maritime Command special operations search and rescue division?

    Is that why you get a pension? We’re you plucking fishermen off of icebergs or fighting Nazis or Jihadists?

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    I am glad I have sparked your interest in so much as you would look me up. You sick stalker.

    Funny. You’re the one who keeps coming back here…


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  4. 54
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    I am one of the few who receive this pension and if I had to give a reason it would be for being a cold war veteran.

    You know nothing of the cold war. Part of my illness is not being able to forget the facts combined with the fakes. I also tend to be too honest and I disregard my privacy.

    The Atlanta Center for Disease Control and Professor Edwards concur low level radiation exposure causes cancer and is pensionable.

    Dr./Professor Edwards has no need to prove his credentials to you nor does he want to. You are beneath him’

    You are wrong and I am right , end of story.

    Based on your collective attitudes, intelligence and lack of compassion I now see why there are over
    TWO MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND (2,500,000) HOMELESS VETERANS in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA today.

    You are doing them a great service dissing them, CONGRATULATIONS.

    By the way Gulf War Syndrome was caused by depleted uranium.

    Germany is still paying reparations to people for WWII (64 years ago). and you think something that happened 51 years ago and only declassified in Sept 08 is a money grab?

    I keep coming back in the hopes to help you develop your cranium. My fathers story is factual history and so are YOU. History. Whats your proof the nuclear industry is safe. The onus is no longer on me.

    Dont waste your time trying to prove it cause I KNOW better.. TO KNOW AND NOT TO HAVE DONE IS NOT TO HAVE KNOWN…………….GET INFORMED and then grow up little boys.


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  5. 55
    Q Says:

    Wow. What a trainwreck. If anyone had any respect for this Lloyd Paulson dude then it’s gone by now. I really love it when someone comes in here all high and mighty and after being called for their lies once too many times has a complete meltdown like that.

    Lloyd would do well to cut his losses and avoid looking like even more of a fool, if that’s even possible, but I bet he won’t!


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  6. 56
    Finrod Says:

    When I did the google search, a number of Gordon Edwardses turned up, and one was indeed a professor of entomology at San Jose University, California. Apparently he was also a long-time member of the Sierra Club. He appears to have done some good work trying to undo the damage cuased by Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, lobbying to bring back DDT in the battle against malaria. There is also a Gordon Edwards Ph.D who seems to be some kind of anti-nuclear activist, but I can’t see any evidence or even any claim that he enjoys professorial status.

    Professor Edwards died in 2004. Dr. Edwards was still alive enough to sign a letter on nuclear disarmament sent to Pres. Obama before his inauguration.


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  7. 57
    DV82XL Says:

            Finrod said:

    When I did the google search, a number of Gordon Edwardses turned up, and one was indeed a professor of entomology at San Jose University, California. Apparently he was also a long-time member of the Sierra Club. He appears to have done some good work trying to undo the damage caused by Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, lobbying to bring back DDT in the battle against malaria. There is also a Gordon Edwards Ph.D who seems to be some kind of anti-nuclear activist, but I can’t see any evidence or even any claim that he enjoys professorial status.

    Professor Edwards died in 2004. Dr. Edwards was still alive enough to sign a letter on nuclear disarmament sent to Pres. Obama before his inauguration.

    I know the Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility as he lives in my city. In reality he is a teacher at a local CEGEP called Vanier College, which is a cross between a senior high school and a community college; that institution does not grant professorships to its teaching staff. It has been claimed that he holds his professorship from a university called Concordia (also in Montreal) but I can find no evidence to say he was granted tenure there.

    The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility was founded in 1975, by him, but by 1981 had lost all of its board of directors. Edwards has kept the name alive to give his activities a veneer of being that of an organization. He shows up as a talking head at antinuclear meetings and occasionally on TV, styled as an expert on nuclear subjects, it is my understanding he collects a fee for these activities. However I cannot find any scholarly publications by him that would indicate he has ever worked in the nuclear field or done any research there.

    The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility is nothing more than Edwards’ personal conceit, and a vehicle to augment his income.


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  8. 58
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    The only train wreck around here is YOU pronukers. The only people acting high and mighty is you. Especially BUZZ who must be high all the time. He is NOT a doctor of anything.

    Regarding Professor?Dr. Edwards

    Comment 46: no proof…
    Comment 52: see some proof…
    Comment 56: cant see ANY evidence…
    Comment 57: DV82XL now knows him, because he lives in the same city of 3 million. WOW! Good proof ???
    (as he lives in my city) HA…
    Comment57: claimed to hold a professorship…

    You claim I try to shut you down or shout you down on this matter.

    You claim I have suffered a meltdown and my LIES have been found out.

    You claim DR Edwards has written no significant papers or is recognized as a scientist or an expert on this matter, and CCNR has been doing nothing since 1981.

    Well it is with a heavy heart I now must INFORM you of the error of your ways and IN FACT the reverse of your claims is true. This time I will hold your hands and walk you through the internet as it is obvious you have no knowledge of how to search the web for facts.

    Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency: 1992…..2003 Dr. Edwards was hired by The Science Council of Canada to carry out a study of mathematical sciences which was published in 8 volumes. He is also recognized as a scientist and an expert in this inquiry/review which you can READ…. http://www.cegg-acee.gc.ca

    Uranium the Deadliest Metal
    Radioactive Daughters Dr. Gordon Edwards http://www.ccnr.org
    Irrefutable Evidence

    Blasting Nuclear Weapons proving CCNR is alive and well as at March 05/09…www.hour.ca

    Port Hope Families Against Radiation Exposure…April 15/05…www.ph.fare.com

    I alleged:

    1) Veterans are not money grabbers as alleged above.
    2) There is no safe way/ place to dispose of nuclear waste.
    3) There is no SAFE dose of low level radiation.
    4) And as my father HANNIBAL the GREAT would say—You dudes are as useless as tits on a boar.
    And you dont know weather your asses were punched, screwed or bored.
    5) After observing the effects and government (actually AECLs and DNDs) behavior for 41 years
    regarding the Chalk River Meltdown of 1958 I have much more first hand knowledge than most of in
    as to the effects of low level radiation on the military involved.

    I just think your ignorant and have to be INFORMED. Also apologize to Professor Edwards for calling him a fraud and advertising CCNR as defunct.


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  9. 59
    DV82XL Says:

    Edwards has written no significant papers that I can find in any peer reviewed publications on the topic of nuclear energy. He was a coordinator for the The Science Council of Canada for the study: The Role of Mathematics in Canadian Business, Government, and Science, which had nothing to do with nuclear energy, and which he certainly did not write himself.

    I know him because I attended his antinuclear presentation at Vanier College (which is in Montreal,where I live) in Fall of 2006 – as he is still listed as a member of the Vanier College staff we can safely assume he is still living here in the Montreal area.

    The Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, who still teaches at Vanier College does not hold a professorship, or a tenure-track position at any accredited university, anywhere, and thus has no right to be styled ‘Professor’

    While he has presented several times in front of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency on nuclear related matters, it has been as a public participant, not an invited expert. The transcripts are available and they make amusing reading. At one hearing he was openly accused by the board of being misleading, and at another was forced to redact himself when he accused the board of bias.

    Anyone can fill out a form and get to submit a twenty-minute presentation at these public hearings, that does not mean you are or necessarily have to be an expert.an expert.

    The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility has not functioned as a group since 1981 because, in the words of its own board of directors “there was a growing feeling within CCNR that the organization had outlived its usefulness”. It closed its office in 1985. CCNR is no longer a coalition but claims to function as a research, referral and resource center and operates as an informal network with its former coalition members. This is a matter of public record.

    You also have no academic or professional standing Lloyd, and your ignorance on these topics is painful obvious. Not only have you summited no evidence to back up your ravings, I honestly don’t think you know what evidentiary proof is, or how to go about finding it.


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  10. 60
    drbuzz0 Says:

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    The only train wreck around here is YOU pronukers. The only people acting high and mighty is you. Especially BUZZ who must be high all the time. He is NOT a doctor of anything.

    No I’m not a doctor and I make that pretty obvious on the front page. The name is because I have always used this as a screen name. It’s not something I’m pretending in any right.

    I don’t need to be a doctor anyway, we’re not comparing degrees, we’re comparing facts. Facts transcend credentials or background.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    Regarding Professor?Dr. Edwards

    Comment 46: no proof…
    Comment 52: see some proof…
    Comment 56: cant see ANY evidence…
    Comment 57: DV82XL now knows him, because he lives in the same city of 3 million. WOW! Good proof ???
    (as he lives in my city) HA…
    Comment57: claimed to hold a professorship…

    Quite honestly, I don’t care about Edwards, what degrees he holds or where he lives. The fact is that he has had his own political agenda, which makes whatever he says suspect, but that’s not even the big issue.

    The issue is facts, data, science. I need citations and I need numbers. Without that, it’s meaningless fluff. It doesn;t matter if it’s coming from a nobel lauriet or anyone else. Show me the EVIDENCE, the verifiable studies. EVen if he didn’t do the studies, that’s fine.. he just needs to cite them.

    I don’t want to hear “Nuclear power causes cancer” because that’s meaningless – there’s nothing to refute. If you want to make that statement you have to say “Nuclear power causes cancer as demonstrated in study XXX in the XXX Journal and as shown in XXXXX and based on statistic XXX”

    In this case XXX is the place holder for data, because nobody has produced any.

    If you pony some up, then I’ll look at it and either agree or refute it, but without data it’s meaningless.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    You claim I try to shut you down or shout you down on this matter.

    You claim I have suffered a meltdown and my LIES have been found out.

    Honestly, I don’t care if you have a meltdown, just keep it contained.

    I don’t see you trying to shut me down or shoot anything down. I see you whining and making a big scene. At worst, you annoy me.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    You claim DR Edwards has written no significant papers or is recognized as a scientist or an expert on this matter, and CCNR has been doing nothing since 1981.

    Despite the fact that Dr. Edwards has no expertise, again it really does not matter to me. Even if he did, that doesn’t make him right. Linus Pauling, Nicola Tesla and many others were experts in their field and dead wrong.

    “I’m and expert and I say…” Doesn’t cut it. One must answer the question “Why…”

    He doesn’t need to even author the studies, they just need to be there…

    Well it is with a heavy heart I now must INFORM you of the error of your ways and IN FACT the reverse of your claims is true. This time I will hold your hands and walk you through the internet as it is obvious you have no knowledge of how to search the web for facts.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency: 1992…..2003 Dr. Edwards was hired by The Science Council of Canada to carry out a study of mathematical sciences which was published in 8 volumes. He is also recognized as a scientist and an expert in this inquiry/review which you can READ…. http://www.cegg-acee.gc.ca

    Uranium the Deadliest Metal
    Radioactive Daughters

    Dr. Gordon Edwards

    http://www.ccnr.org
    Irrefutable Evidence

    Blasting Nuclear Weapons

    proving CCNR is alive and well as at March 05/09…www.hour.ca

    Port Hope Families Against Radiation Exposure…April 15/05…www.ph.fare.com

    I alleged:

    2) There is no safe way/ place to dispose of nuclear waste.
    3) There is no SAFE dose of low level radiation.
    4) And as my father HANNIBAL the GREAT would say—You dudes are as useless as tits on a boar.
    And you dont know weather your asses were punched, screwed or bored.
    5) After observing the effects and government (actually AECLs and DNDs) behavior for 41 years
    regarding the Chalk River Meltdown of 1958 I have much more first hand knowledge than most of in
    as to the effects of low level radiation on the military involved..

    I have read ALL of this and none of it has any verification. Look, stupid, I’ve looked at all the pages you want me to and they contain vague stories and claims. That is no good. Now let me explain something else to you: When you alledge something that, by definition, puts the burden of proof on you. I don’t have to disprove anything. You come in here and make these unsubstanciated claims and don’t show any proof, there’s every reason to presume they’re not true. I don’t need to defend things until you offer some evidence, which you don’t

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    1) Veterans are not money grabbers as alleged above.

    No, they’re not. But **YOU** are. You call yourself a veteran of the Cold War? Give me a break. The Cold War was waged and won by those who made real sacrafices and faced real dangers. Pilots who stayed awake for days and flew through barrage balloons to keep Berlin from starving. Soldiers who manned radar stations in Alaska and Greenland during the winter, sailors who spent months away from their families crammed in a steel tube hundreds of feet under the North Atlantic. Those are the real veterans.

    Now, as for your father, I don’t know the man, but seeing as he served in Korea I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was indeed an honorable man. In that case, my sympathy goes out to him and those around him (except you) for his suffering through illness of any kind and of any source. Anyone who gets cancer from anything faces a tragic and difficult disease.

    However, you have not presented any evidence at all that he was in any way harmed by his participation at the 1958 cleanup. No study (and despite your claims there have been several) has found any kind of evidence of health effects from that incident.

    Myers, D.K., Morrison, D.P. and Werner, M.M., “Follow-up of AECL employees involved in the decontamination of NRU in 1958″, AECL Report, AECL-7901, 1982 September 1.

    “Mortality Follow-up of Canadian Servicemen Involved in Decontamination Duties at Chalk River and Observation of Nuclear Bomb Tests”, prepared for the Department of National Defence by Statistics Canada (Occupational and Environmental Health Research Unit), June 1985.

    You know what it sounds like to me? it sounds like he had recurrent skin cancer that had entered his lymphatic system and therefore even after the tumor was removed, the condition recurred later and may have spread as well. This is known to happen. Sometimes a person has a small tumor removed and later finds out that it was not caught fast enough and later on it flares up again, often somewhere else.


    Do I know this for a fact? Nope. I don’t and it can’t be evaluated. You REFUSE to provide any actual information. If you could give a complete background then it could be evaluated. What was the nature of the cancer? was it melanoma? Basal Cell Carcinoma? How long was the interval between outbreaks?

    If this information were provided then it would be possible to consider things. But no. We have to rely on your own unsupported claims

    One article I found about uses terms like “Not long after ..” and “a long series of operations”

    Those are not numeric terms and thus they don’t cut it. Care to cough up something useful?

    By the way, it’s interesting to note that it states he was an embalmer for medical samples at McGill University. It’d be nice to know what time span that was and whether he used much formeldahyde in the job or whether he used solvents like benzene on a regular basis.

    Could it be? Perhaps if if some enviornmental factor did come into play it wasn’t nuclear?

    Oh right… you tell us it was nuclear.

    Quite honestly, you disgrace your fathers memory.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    I just think your ignorant and have to be INFORMED. Also apologize to Professor Edwards for calling him a fraud and advertising CCNR as defunct.

    I have googled everything you wanted me to. Please INFORM me of where I CAN GET SOME REAL SCIENTIFIC DATA ON THIS!


    I will not respond to any further comments from you that do not offer some kind of data. And by the way, anicodtes and second hand stories don’t count


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  11. 61
    drbuzz0 Says:

    additional info here:
    http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-581-x/2006001/projects/4078833-eng.htm


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  12. 62
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    You say that require scientific proof and data before you can make a qualified decision on whether the radiation received by the atomic veterans re Chalk River 1958 caused cancer as well as who knows what else.

    For the moment let us say you are correct and I agree. If that is so how could you say or agree with “This is just another money grab.”

    That was the moment you lost your argument based on YOUR parameters of discussion. In other words you got sucked in and you were blinded by your subconscious bias on this subject. Otherwise you would have agreed with me, rather than ridicule everything I said. Because as you said “I need data, doses etc…Since you dont KNOW either way.

    In regards to Professor Edwards he is considered an expert by antinukes and not by pronukes. Also. since you know him or even if you dont, just E-mail him and you ask him why he STYLES himself to be a Professor.

    I attend Vanier CEGEP for 2 years and also attended Concordia University on Rue Sherbrooke part of Sir George Williams University. CEGEP is a two year pre university programme which counts as first year university in Quebec. I lived in Montreal for 15 years and meet Gordon on several occasions.

    As for your diagnoses of B.H. Paulson he work at McGill for about six months at that time when his radioactive low level exposure cancers began. They were all malignant. A couple of the more serious/strange operation was the removal of his anus and the removal of his growing breasts.

    You say you want studies, dose levels (some say dose doesnt matter). Its really incredible you havent read this stuff by now but you will find all your studies just by searching…..

    Low level radiation exposure:

    Low level radiation exposure and cancer:

    In regards to your statscan reference I already wrote of this . The study was done on the 13,000 AECL
    CIVILIAN workers who did not participate in either clean up 52 or 58 and the” Money Grabbing vets” medical files were deleted. Therefore the study was highly skewed and purposely so. DO YOU GET IT YET??

    If you are serious please read the studies regarding the above searches and dont continue to cherry pick in order to find dated info defending your argument.

    I know more about meldowns and cancer and nuclear industry cover-ups and disinformation programmes
    than you can conceive. I just happened to be born into it.

    Off topic just of interest a good friend of mine was an unwilling test subject in the MK Ultra programme during the sixties in Montreal run by Dr.Cameron.


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  13. 63
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    DEAR SIR-I DO NOT CARE IF YOU RESPOND-YOUR RESPONSES DO NOT CHANGE THE FACTS.


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  14. 64
    Finrod Says:

    This internet-based pro-nuclear activism has served well up to this point, but I believe we are hitting the point of diminishing returns.

    The next major step forward must be the formation of grassroots public pro-nuclear organisations to serve as a catalyst for focused political action.

    It may seem to be an unlikely achievement, but I say that based on my personal interactions and conversations with a wide variety of people over the past couple of years, there is far more latent support for a major pro-nuclear political push than the sequestered political classes are aware of, or indeed can be aware of until it hits them fair and square in the demographic.

    I’m organising, and I’ve encountered suprisingly strong support for my efforts. I urge others to do the same.


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  15. 65
    Lloyd Paulson Says:

    Based on my personal interactions and conversations with a wide variety of people over the past couple of years there is far more latent support for the theory that Adam and Eve lived on the earth at the same time as dinosaurs. Must be the same people as you are interacting with Finrod.

    Ignorant people/uninformed people will follow snake oil salesman. (for a while).
    Wind and solar power and lots of safe jobs are the wave of the future. Its possible and WE should all focus on that. You will have to sell all your nuclear power plant stocks though HA HA.


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  16. 66
    Finrod Says:

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    Based on my personal interactions and conversations with a wide variety of people over the past couple of years there is far more latent support for the theory that Adam and Eve lived on the earth at the same time as dinosaurs. Must be the same people as you are interacting with Finrod.

    Not really. My pro-nuclear associates tend to be the more intelligent, less ideologically driven kinds of people. It’s the hard-core anti-nukes who seem the more religiously motivated (in the sense of relying on faith, unsubstantiated claims, outright lies, demonstrable logical falsehoods and outright threats of force).

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    Ignorant people/uninformed people will follow snake oil salesman.

    You said it.

            Lloyd Paulson said:

    Wind and solar power and lots of safe jobs are the wave of the future. Its possible and WE should all focus on that. You will have to sell all your nuclear power plant stocks though HA HA.

    I agree that wind and solar power indeed have the potential to deliver many jobs. It takes a lot of people to excavate enough coal to run our civilisation, and thats where those jobs will be. Germany and (sadly) Australia are a case in point.

    I shall reconsider my position if you can point out to me where to find a windmill manufacturing and construction facility which is itself run by over 50% wind power, or a solar cell factory rum with over 50% solar power.

    I have no financial interest in any sector of the nuclear industry.


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  17. 67
    drbuzz0 Says:

            Finrod said:

    I agree that wind and solar power indeed have the potential to deliver many jobs. It takes a lot of people to excavate enough coal to run our civilisation, and thats where those jobs will be. Germany and (sadly) Australia are a case in point.

    One thing that I have admitted openly is that when it comes to power generation we do not *need* nuclear energy. We can do it entirely with coal. There is enough coal in the ground to provide energy for at least a century and possibly many centuries.

    If we want to continue running society on coal then we can do it. it’s technically possible. We’ll of course need to expand mining to acomplish it and we’ll need to build larger excivators and more of them, but it’s not beyond our capacity to build several more multi-story bucketwheel excavators.

    Of course if we want to do that we must accept the price. The price will be increased health problems from emissions, increased enviornmental damage ranging from massive amounts of CO2 to mercury levels that may get bad enough to close many fisheries.

    We will have to accept that large portions of the earth will be chewed up and when refilled will be piles of rubble. This will include the United States from about mid Pennsylvania down through the Appalachians into Kentucky as well as much of Colorado and Utah.

    It will also include a large portion of Eastern Australia – possibly most of it. Think basically the area from just north of tasmania up into the interior north to about Cairnes and then the southern swarth, all the way across the bottom half of the continent.

    Also much of Central and Eastern Europe, ranging from central Germany through Poland, the Checz republic and well into Russia. Also the area around borders of India and China and up into the areas North of the Gobi desert. Plus nearly all of Indonesia, much of Southeast Asia. Through Central Asia as well, from Kazakhstan through Afghanistan and into northern Iran.

    Coal is fairly plentiful, but we’ve already discovered that feeding a society on coal consumes many thousands of hectares per year. Current mining is not doing this slowly. In the US, whole mountains in the Appalachians are torn to shreds and left to fill the vallies. You’d think decapitating a mountain would provide enough coal to last a while, but they’re doing major projects each only expected to be viable for a year or two.

    We can do it – there is enough coal to do it. It’s a question of whether you consider that to be preferable to nuclear energy.


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  18. 68
    Finrod Says:

    There is enough coal in the ground to provide energy for at least a century and possibly many centuries./quote]

    Quite true, provided our demand for energy doesnt increase significantly beyond the current level. Given that, we should have enough to maintain ourselves for half a millenium or more. Of course, once we do run out, it’ll be back to nuclear power. Why dont we just go nuclear now, before tearing up half the habitable surface of the planet?


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  19. 69
    Finrod Says:

    OK. Let’s try that again.

            drbuzz0 said:

    There is enough coal in the ground to provide energy for at least a century and possibly many centuries.

    Quite true, provided our demand for energy doesnt increase significantly beyond the current level. Given that, we should have enough to maintain ourselves for half a millenium or more. Of course, once we do run out, it’ll be back to nuclear power. Why dont we just go nuclear now, before tearing up half the habitable surface of the planet?

    By the way, I was quite serios in comment #64 concerning grassroots political organisation. So are my collaborators. Expect some sort of public announcemnet within the next few months.


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  20. 70
    drbuzz0 Says:

            Finrod said:

    OK. Let’s try that again.

    Quite true, provided our demand for energy doesnt increase significantly beyond the current level. Given that, we should have enough to maintain ourselves for half a millenium or more.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about energy demand increasing signifficantly if we went the all-coal route. The impact on human health would be enough to keep the population in check and The economic impacts of having a large segment of the population afflicted with severe asthma or other such problems would be severe enough to stop much economic expansion.

    I think the general impact on quality of life and length of life would stop any great increases in energy usage. Industry is kinda limited when half the population is coughing up a lung or dead by the age of 30.

            Finrod said:

    By the way, I was quite serios in comment #64 concerning grassroots political organisation. So are my collaborators. Expect some sort of public announcemnet within the next few months.

    Oh now I’m excited.

    I realize this needs to be expanded. I know my page and others have reached some but there’s a bit too much preaching to the confirmed and not to the general population.


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  21. 71
    L---- P------ Says:

    Coal is also not a viable long term solution. A little cleaner today but still a serious pollutant.

    The Big Smoke http://www.newstatesman.com article paints an interesting picture.


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  22. 72
    drbuzz0 Says:

    I’m not serious about using coal. I think it’s a horrible idea, but it’s the ONLY viable alternative to nuclear… well except perhaps for a mass die-off.


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