A Yuletide Apocalypse

Faking it | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine: “I found these paragraphs especially enlightening, and their tone is representative of the rest of the book”:

With hyperbolic interest groups trying to either exaggerate or downplay the disastrous effects, it’s little wonder that Chernobyl’s long-term health effects remain so controversial, allowing the nuclear industry to claim limited consequences, while some politicians, activists and the victims claim a profoundly negative impact on health.

Journalists, both domestic and foreign, fuel the fire with their macabre tendency to focus on sensationally deformed children even if they were born far from Chernobyl and the maladies cannot be traced to the disaster. In fact, the descendants of A-bomb survivors have shown no increase in congenital deformities and the same is true of Chernobyl survivors. What deformities occur are those that sadly occur in any population.

One thing is for sure; the disaster was a godsend to the plants and animals in the contaminated zones, now Europe’s largest wildlife preserve. Being radioactive is less detrimental than living in close proximity to human beings — and believe me, I am not suggesting that being radioactive is a good thing.

(Via Gristmill @ Grist Magazine .)