Waiting for another meltdown…

I was trying to figure out a way to prove that Energy is a Women’s Issue. But let’s talk progress here: There’s no such thing as a “women’s issue.” If it’s a women’s issue then it’s a human issue. Men who are progressive about life, humanity, and a shared dream and vision for the future also care about these issues (health care, children, disorders perpetuated by media imaging, hate and prejudice, etc.). And anything that pops into my head as a fear for my children goes into the category for me. So here we go.

Part One: Nuclear Weapons Testing. Case Closed in 1963… Not really.

Until the 1963 ban of above-ground testing, called the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the U.S. and several other countries had been testing nuclear weapons in the atomosphere and in the oceans. A lot of people in the generation of my parents (50+) and older know about the adverse effects of nuclear weapons testing, because they were exposed to the testing results: radioactive isotope strontium-90, which spread around the world by the winds and ocean waters.

A recent obituary in the U.K.’s TimesOnline (see this) highlighted Walter Bauer, a pathologist, member of the Greater St Louis Citizens Committee for Nuclear Information and the leader of its study on 300,000 baby teeth between 1958 and 1970, explains more about the fall out radiation exposure in humans:

“The fission products [radioactive strontium-90] were widely spread by the winds. Some radioactivity was brought down to Earth, particularly by the rain, and cows ate some of the contaminated grass. Human beings then drank the cows’ milk and absorbed the radioactive strontium, which behaves like calcium in the body, into their bones and teeth. To speak out about the serious adverse health effects of nuclear testing during the Cold War in the 1950s took considerable courage…. The first nuclear test took place at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. Between then and October 10, 1963, when the PTBT came into force, about 518 nuclear tests were conducted in the atmosphere, by China, France, the Soviet Union, Britain and the US.

The total yield of these nuclear tests was about 40,000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The radioactivity from them spread all around the Earth resulting in the pervasive pollution of the Earth, damaging the health of people well into the future.

Today, caesium, strontium and plutonium radioactive isotopes from the atmospheric tests pollute our food and water… It is estimated that more than two million people will die of cancer because of their exposure to radiation from fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests; many have already died.”

The story doesn’t end there, though. Radiation is coming at us from another direction, too.

Part Two: Nuclear Power.

Nuclear power is a clean alternative to fossil fuels for our energy needs. Heard this before? Me too. Well here’s some evidence against that highly political slogan–and I’m only offering some because there isn’t much to give. We are in greaet need for more studies and investigation into the effects of long-term, low-dose radiation on peoples’ health.

For example, there is Thyroid Cancer, and I quote here from a study done by the Radiation and Public Heath Project:

“The rate of thyroid cancer, which is rising faster than any other cancer, is highest in Pennsylvania. Within the state, the highest rates are in the eastern counties closest to and east (downwind) of four nuclear power plants. Because radioactive iodine found only in nuclear weapons and reactors is known to cause thyroid cancer, it would be helpful to conduct closer examination of reactor emissions and the disease.”

While this study acknowledges right off the bat that there is still not enough information or analysis to determine why Thyroid Cancer is the fastest rising in the country, when it breaks down the rise in cases into states and then geographic locations within those states, the results are staggering: “The risk factor most commonly associated with thyroid cancer is exposure to radioactive iodine…. When iodine enters the body, it seeks out the thyroid gland, where it kills and injures cells, leading to cancer and other disorders…. Radioactive iodine is only created when atomic bombs explode or when nuclear reactors operate.”

The study continues to prove that in Pennsylvania, Thyroid cancer rates spike just down-wind of nuclear reactors. And it states the implications of this study thus: “Implications. There is considerable state-by-state variation in the incidence of thyroid cancer, fastest-rising cancer in the U.S. The rate in some states is more than double that of others. In Pennsylvania, the state with the highest rate, there is considerable variation by county. Rates are highest in the counties in the eastern part of the state, each of which lies east of a nuclear power plant. The release of radioactive iodine into the atmosphere from these plants raises the possibility that these emissions are driving up thyroid cancer rates. More detailed study should be undertaken to better understand this relationship.”

Note the call at the end for more investigation into this matter.

Here is a link to the study, which is a quick read and will supply you with graphs.

I can understand why a lot of politians LOVE nuclear energy–including Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton is on board if you can come up with a good way to keep all of the aforementioned facts from surfacing too much. They love it because it’s like a peace flag that they can wave at everyone scared for the environment, pretending to have a solution that will save our children and grandchildren from ecological disaster. But it’s not that simple, as more and more evidence will show.

In this election, Kusinich and Edwards were the only real “change” candidates as far as environmental issues. (And, as a matter of fact, read This if you want to know what other issues Obama and Clinton aren’t really progressive about. If you’re going to vote Obama or Clinton, you might want to think twice before throwing around “Change” as the reason.)