Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Week 7: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
How many industrial technologies--authorized, claimed safe, etc.,--do you know that cause damage to 7 million people (3 million children in neighboring countries alone), unpredictably? And continue to fail on a regular basis without much being done to change the "organized irresponsibility?" Beck's "risk society" is usefully illustrated with some videos about nuclear power generation. So I wanted to post some films about Chernobyl this week that I recommend.
Chernobyl helps illustrate both the social and material aspects of Beck's "risk society" concept as well as potentially providing a way for us to discuss the heightened levels of subpolitical, regular-political, and economic pressures toward more ecologically sound choices of materials and technologies (which is known as "ecological modernization").
There are four films recommended. Three are short.
The third film in the list is long: it is a six part Russian documentary on Chernobyl with English dubbing, minute by minute, leading up to the accident. It is about one hour total viewing time).
1.
Greenpeace video on Chernobyl [for a Beck-like 'subpolitical' view of the accident, from an activist organization) [5 min]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_8frR0IpE
2. [graphic image warning, genetic deformities]
Chernobyl Decay and Deformed, 3 min 13 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related
3.
Disaster at Chernobyl part 1 of 6, 2 min 54 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
A U.S. documentary, minute by minute of the official story, with interviews of the still surviving people; Part 1 from Discovery Channel documentary. It has Russian subtitles, English off-voice, and Russian dialogues.
it continues:
Disaster at Chernobyl part 2 of 6, 8 min 42 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
(follow other links at the website for the rest)
4.
Inside the Chernobyl Reactor - Now (film footage from 2006)
Take a look at conditions inside the reactor where the hastily built sarcophagus (cover) over the reactor is falling apart and requires constant maintenance. (The melted bit is radioactive uranium-graphite sludge mixture that melted together then leaked out of the containment vessel cracks during the explosion, and then burned its way down through multiple floors, coming to look like (to some people's view) an "elephant's foot"). Its very rare to have video footage from inside the sarcophagus
"Sarcophagus" is perhaps a poor name for Chernobyl's hasty containment walls. That word implies something completed, that the accident is dead and finished. However, Chernobyl's accident is very much alive, right now--and will be alive for thousands of years. "Vampire" is the word that comes to mind for me about the Chernobyl accident. Why? Because the word "vampire" implies something that is temporarily blocked though very much alive and waiting to get out and attack people from its coffin. The Chernobyl vampire will be nearly immortal compared to humans that created it and upon us it will continue to prey for thousands of years. The vampire will will live longer than any human government that has ever existed, longer than any durable spoken or printed language, longer than this version of our human species.
Something I summarized from Elena's website--from her "subpolitical" view about Chernobyl, with direct links about Elena's motorcycle ride through the 'dead zone' with pictures:
5.
CHERNOBYL BIKE TOUR OF THE DEAD ZONE, WITH PICTURES
Ghost Town - Introduction .
My name is Elena. I run this website and I don't have anything to sell. What I do have is my motorbike and the absolute freedom to ride it wherever curiosity and the speed demon take me.
" Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 to 3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight."
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter1.html
And remember, this is only with 10% of the radiation estimated escaping:
"Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy. Some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water."
Elana's background, father nuclear physicist
If I tell someone that I am heading to a "dead zone"... the best case response is; "Are you nuts?"
My dad used to say that people are afraid of a deadly thing which they can not see, can not feel and can not smell. Maybe that is because those words are a good description of death itself.
Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.
My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. I always go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.
I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and within a few hours of the accident, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.
The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, incuding unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.
...
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter2.html
How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 30 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.
The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and maybe not our childrens either.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter5.html
The day after the accident, this place on the bridge provided a good view of the gaping crack in the nuclear containment vessel that was ruptured by the explosion. Many curious people came here to have a look and were bathed in a flood of deadly x-rays emanating directly from the glowing nuclear core.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter22.html
Belorussia is a separate country. PLEASE NOTE, the neighbouring country suffered more then the country where disaster taken place. Radiation has international nature and don't need invitations or visas to travel. The evil dark wind of that day carried 70% of Chernobyl's heavy radiation into the neighboring country of Belorussia.
As we travel northward, we begin to grasp the immensity of the total area that was poisoned, and will still be poisoned in the year 2525.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter28.html
Farms in Ukraine.
By territory Ukraine is a bit bigger then France and in history books it was called a bread basket of Europe.
It is because in Ukraine is 40% world supply of black earth.
Soil is good here, put a stick into this soil and it will grow.
Now, this bread basket flavoured with wormwood [Chernobyl radiation] and no one want to buy food products made in Ukraine.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter30.html
How many industrial technologies--authorized, claimed safe, etc.,--do you know that cause damage to 7 million people (3 million children in neighboring countries alone), unpredictably? And continue to fail on a regular basis without much being done to change the "organized irresponsibility?" Beck's "risk society" is usefully illustrated with some videos about nuclear power generation. So I wanted to post some films about Chernobyl this week that I recommend.
Chernobyl helps illustrate both the social and material aspects of Beck's "risk society" concept as well as potentially providing a way for us to discuss the heightened levels of subpolitical, regular-political, and economic pressures toward more ecologically sound choices of materials and technologies (which is known as "ecological modernization").
There are four films recommended. Three are short.
The third film in the list is long: it is a six part Russian documentary on Chernobyl with English dubbing, minute by minute, leading up to the accident. It is about one hour total viewing time).
1.
Greenpeace video on Chernobyl [for a Beck-like 'subpolitical' view of the accident, from an activist organization) [5 min]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_8frR0IpE
2. [graphic image warning, genetic deformities]
Chernobyl Decay and Deformed, 3 min 13 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related
3.
Disaster at Chernobyl part 1 of 6, 2 min 54 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
A U.S. documentary, minute by minute of the official story, with interviews of the still surviving people; Part 1 from Discovery Channel documentary. It has Russian subtitles, English off-voice, and Russian dialogues.
it continues:
Disaster at Chernobyl part 2 of 6, 8 min 42 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
(follow other links at the website for the rest)
4.
Inside the Chernobyl Reactor - Now (film footage from 2006)
Take a look at conditions inside the reactor where the hastily built sarcophagus (cover) over the reactor is falling apart and requires constant maintenance. (The melted bit is radioactive uranium-graphite sludge mixture that melted together then leaked out of the containment vessel cracks during the explosion, and then burned its way down through multiple floors, coming to look like (to some people's view) an "elephant's foot"). Its very rare to have video footage from inside the sarcophagus
"Sarcophagus" is perhaps a poor name for Chernobyl's hasty containment walls. That word implies something completed, that the accident is dead and finished. However, Chernobyl's accident is very much alive, right now--and will be alive for thousands of years. "Vampire" is the word that comes to mind for me about the Chernobyl accident. Why? Because the word "vampire" implies something that is temporarily blocked though very much alive and waiting to get out and attack people from its coffin. The Chernobyl vampire will be nearly immortal compared to humans that created it and upon us it will continue to prey for thousands of years. The vampire will will live longer than any human government that has ever existed, longer than any durable spoken or printed language, longer than this version of our human species.
Something I summarized from Elena's website--from her "subpolitical" view about Chernobyl, with direct links about Elena's motorcycle ride through the 'dead zone' with pictures:
5.
CHERNOBYL BIKE TOUR OF THE DEAD ZONE, WITH PICTURES
Ghost Town - Introduction .
My name is Elena. I run this website and I don't have anything to sell. What I do have is my motorbike and the absolute freedom to ride it wherever curiosity and the speed demon take me.
" Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 to 3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight."
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter1.html
And remember, this is only with 10% of the radiation estimated escaping:
"Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy. Some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water."
Elana's background, father nuclear physicist
If I tell someone that I am heading to a "dead zone"... the best case response is; "Are you nuts?"
My dad used to say that people are afraid of a deadly thing which they can not see, can not feel and can not smell. Maybe that is because those words are a good description of death itself.
Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.
My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. I always go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.
I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and within a few hours of the accident, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.
The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, incuding unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.
...
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter2.html
How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 30 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.
The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and maybe not our childrens either.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter5.html
The day after the accident, this place on the bridge provided a good view of the gaping crack in the nuclear containment vessel that was ruptured by the explosion. Many curious people came here to have a look and were bathed in a flood of deadly x-rays emanating directly from the glowing nuclear core.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter22.html
Belorussia is a separate country. PLEASE NOTE, the neighbouring country suffered more then the country where disaster taken place. Radiation has international nature and don't need invitations or visas to travel. The evil dark wind of that day carried 70% of Chernobyl's heavy radiation into the neighboring country of Belorussia.
As we travel northward, we begin to grasp the immensity of the total area that was poisoned, and will still be poisoned in the year 2525.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter28.html
Farms in Ukraine.
By territory Ukraine is a bit bigger then France and in history books it was called a bread basket of Europe.
It is because in Ukraine is 40% world supply of black earth.
Soil is good here, put a stick into this soil and it will grow.
Now, this bread basket flavoured with wormwood [Chernobyl radiation] and no one want to buy food products made in Ukraine.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter30.html
Thursday, April 8, 2010
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