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[–] Kannibal [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

It's good to get a decent understanding of orders of magnitude.

https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

but point taken.

It would certainly depend greatly on weather patterns, etc. Northern vs southern Hemisphere, for example.

I suspect that sea life would far better. but even so.

I would have to check numbers on Fukishima, Chernobyl, etc.because the conclusion does not feel right, but it is not outrageous either

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[–] CrustyBeaver52 ago 

When Fukushima first happened, the majority of the radioactive emissions escaped into the atmosphere in the form of radioactive gases. Over time, these gases made a ring of radioactivity in the upper atmosphere that stretched around the entire planet, with the heaviest concentrations located in the Northern hemisphere. These gases were eventually bound to raindrops and came back down to the earth in the form of radioactive rain fallout. The majority of radioactive emissions have a range of 1 centimeter with a half life of 64 - 68 years. The net effect of this was to increase the level of background radiation in all rain exposed areas and surfaces - whereas areas with higher rain exposure also received higher levels of radiation.

Plants, animals, and humans, for that matter, are tolerant and can compensate for a certain amount of radiation. It has the effect of damaging the building blocks of our cell structures, but our life forms are also self repairing - we can take a certain amount of ongoing damage and depending on the level of exposure, we can self repair faster than the damage occurs. This is how we handle the normal background radiation levels as well.

Once the radiation concentrations become too high, such that the rate of damage exceeds the ability to self repair, the subject dies.

This is reflected at my place here. During the Fukushima fallout, the rain from the roof was concentrating in the downspout, and coming out on the ground in intense concentrations at that point. What was normally the best place in the garden became the worse - as all life within two feet of the downspout died. Nothing will grow there now. Eventually, the government ordered that all of these downspouts be buried four feet underground. They didn't tell the poor workers why they made that order.... so those workers did that work completely unprotected, because, fuck them, right?

It was the same thing with the radiation monitors - once the government realized there was fuck all they could do about the rain, they just shut down the monitors. That was cute.

Fukushima is still going on, but the gas emissions have been reduced by keeping the site constantly flooded with water. That water is radioactive and it has been flushed into the ocean. There it has gone on to do further damage of an unknown quantity.

So anyway, that is just one site, and they managed to offset most of the ongoing damage by flooding the place. Can you imagine the damage caused by over 100 such sites in full meltdown with their nuclear fuel stockpiles maintaining an ongoing reaction? It's the downspout - but everywhere. After the rain evaporates, it leaves behind radioactive dust that gets tracked into everything.

In the end, if the bombs and their plutonium radiation, with half life of 24,000 years - if they don't get you, and they will get most of us... but if they don't get you, then when the nuke plants go critical, the fallout from those plants will finish the job.

More than that - The solar wind from the sun constantly strips away oxygen from the planet, and that loss is replaced by oxygen production from all of the plant life. If that plant life dies off due to radiation exposure, then the atmosphere itself gets stripped away - and along with that all water, and water production. The oceans evaporate and we become Mars part 2.

There is life here that will survive even this, trapped deep in the rocks and caves of the Earth, that will reemerge, adapt to and change the environment far into the future.

For us it's game over.

Just saying, perhaps we should do something about this.

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[–] Kannibal [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Just saying, perhaps we should do something about this.

agree that would not be a bad idea