[HN Gopher] France grossly underestimated radioactive fallout fr...
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France grossly underestimated radioactive fallout from atom bomb
tests, study
 
Author : pseudolus
Score  : 37 points
Date   : 2021-03-12 20:59 UTC (2 hours ago)
 
web link (www.sciencemag.org)
w3m dump (www.sciencemag.org)
 
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The fallout of the French bombs was on non-whites. This would
| have been a huge story in Western media of genocide if it was
| done by say the Chinese (or insert any other non-white nation).
 
| markdown wrote:
| Do you know what makes the ocean glow         Do you know what
| makes the ocean glow         When unwelcome guests, are making
| nuclear tests         Are making nuclear tests, are making
| nuclear tests         Are making nuclear tests              ...
| Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific         Ki te la
| pacific, get out of the pacific         Ki te la pacific
| 
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZD8dA678ss
| 
| It's long past the time for the French to GTFO out of the
| Pacific. Decolonise and free the Tahitians and Kanaks.
 
  | bpodgursky wrote:
  | You know these territories regularly vote on independence,
  | right? https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-
  | news/375335/tahi...
  | 
  | And the answer is usually "no", because most of these islands
  | are poor and get net funding and support from France (or
  | whatever other country holds sovereignty).
 
    | boudin wrote:
    | If you're talking about New Caledonia it's as really biased
    | view. It was a special agreement following a stron crisis
    | with the Kanak independance mouvement that allowed to agree
    | on 3 independance votes. There's a big difference in votes
    | between the people from metropolitan France and a much
    | stronger support for independance in the Kanak population.
    | We'll see next year what's the result is going to be, but the
    | last one was quite close.
    | 
    | Other territories do not have the opportunity to vote on
    | their independance.
 
| dr_faustus wrote:
| 1 mSv is a pretty low threshold. It's actually a bit more than
| 10x the radiation of a thorax x-ray done with modern equipment.
| But its 1/10 of a thorax ct. It's also less than the yearly
| difference between the exposure of people living in regions with
| low and high natural radiation here in Germany (which, as has far
| as could be determined, has no impact on the cancer rate).
 
  | lostlogin wrote:
  | Could you expand on this? I didn't understand the problem to be
  | the threshold, but the convenient underestimation of dose by a
  | factor of 2-20x.
 
    | dr_faustus wrote:
    | It's not my place to evaluate which method of calculating the
    | exposure was correct. Just pointing out, that 1 mSv is a
    | rather small amount of radiation. The smallest amount of
    | radiation where one sees some indications of an increase in
    | cancer risk is at 50-100 mSv [1].
    | 
    | I'm not arguing either way whether this should have an impact
    | on any payments. Putting the threshold for compensation at 1
    | mSv is very conservative and will lead to the payment of
    | compensation for many cancers that weren't caused by
    | radiation. Which, again, is fine by me because I do believe
    | that very little interest was paid to the protection of the
    | neighboring populations.
    | 
    | [1] Pretty good summary:
    | https://www.pnas.org/content/100/24/13761
 
| Mkm1800 wrote:
| 87
 
| youeseh wrote:
| What was the incentive to adequately estimate the fallout vs.
| underestimate it?
 
  | sudosysgen wrote:
  | There's no real incentive to estimate accurately because it's
  | in Algeria, which the French did not care much for.
 
    | lostlogin wrote:
    | > because it's in Algeria
    | 
    | Wasn't it more in the south pacific?
    | 
    | There was a need to underestimate radiation doses so as to
    | undercut our opposition.
    | 
    | When we made the fuss those in power in France took the time
    | to send a military team to bomb a Greenpeace ship in
    | Auckland, killing someone. They followed up with economic
    | sanctions when we caught their amateur operatives, and later
    | gave the soldiers medals for the murder they committed.
    | 
    | Who needs enemies with friends like these?
 
      | boudin wrote:
      | France did the first tests in Algeria but this is about the
      | ones done at Mururoa, in the pacific indeed.
 
      | jshmrsn wrote:
      | I had not heard of this before, thanks for bringing it to
      | my attention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_th
      | e_Rainbow_Warri...
 
  | onion2k wrote:
  | If you need to use your bombs on a country that invaded you a
  | few decades ago you want to make sure you don't accidently
  | irradiate your own country.
 
  | mhh__ wrote:
  | Back in those days whatever the answer was the decision would
  | he the same e.g. the people in charge of windscale probably
  | knew it wasn't safe but if you don't have a bomb you are a
  | complete nobody.
 
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(page generated 2021-03-12 23:00 UTC)