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Wildfires Could Spread to Region irradiated by Chernobyl Disaster
Emergencies Ministry warns of nuclear threat
The Russian Emergencies Minister is warning of possible radiation risks, as wildfires approach closer to the area affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
A forest fire near the village of Golovanovo, Ryazan region, on August 5. A noxious smog choked Moscow as Russia moved to protect military and nuclear sites from the relentless spread of wildfires that have have killed 52 people.
(AFP/Natalia Kolesnikova) The main fear is that the fires, which are moving further south of Moscow toward the Bryansk region, could disturb and spread the contamination buried in the ground after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
"Several laboratories are closely monitoring the situation in the Bryansk region - the territory which was contaminated following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster," Emergencies minister Sergey Shoigu said. "If fires erupt there, there is a risk that radionuclide can be released into the air with other combustible gases, and more areas could become contaminated."
Firefighters have been dispatched to the area to avert possible outbreaks. They have been battling hundreds of blazes across Central Russia, which have claimed fifty lives thus far.
Meanwhile, the smog created by the wildfires is the thickest so far. It has already disrupted air travel, with Moscow's Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports diverting forty incoming flights to the airports located either north of the city, or to St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod or Kazan.
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107 Comments so far
Show AllActually peat bogs form anywhere there is stagnate water, unless I'm really wrong. I know that there are peat bogs south of the permafrost. They used to use the bogs in Ireland to get rid of the unwanted, or human sacrifice in the very old days, and not so old days.
Peat in Ireland is also the traditional home cooking and heating fuel, and later even power plant fuel - it is basically what, with deeper burial and time, becomes coal.
Drill baby drill! We must stop the insane eco-fascists who seek to destroy our way of life! All our problems are easily solved by unleashing the deregulated marketplace! Next-generation nukes, clean coal, and oil oil oil will heal our world! The melting arctic is freeing up hidden treasures of oil and natural gas that must be exploited! Warming climate is good for you! Keep on drivin', baby! Oh baby, all these advertisements are so sexy!
What's methane?
Yeah, that's really "productive" of you, huh?
What was so offensive that it had to be flagged? I don't agree with Michael on this one but can you people get over your urge to flag?
michael's hart is too pure to appreciate sarcasm....
And you're not? Riiiiight. Whatever.
Are you sure? Who is anyone to judge anyway?
I read Webwalk's post as an obvious satire. Seems no need to flag it.
I laughed out loud in...disgust... when I saw the latest jeep commercial where the driver claims he is a solar powered, wind powered driving machine! As he rips along, top down, in his gas guzzler! This shit is reaching the point of lunacy. The messages that people are getting are so far removed from where humanity needs to be going that the whole green movement is becoming a farce. The rhetorical and now even scientific discussion is becoming a nonsensical mess. No problems can ever be solved this way. I suspect we're already too far gone anyway.
I'm worrying more about the huge amounts of CO2 these fires -including large amounts squestered in the form of peat.
I don't think many of the fires are in permafrost areas, so there is no mathane being released by the fires, although the very hot weather in the permafrost areas certainly is.
Large swathes of British Columbia are also aflame.
An increase in the number of forest fires was predicted by those who support the science of Global Warming.
Fires in the huge forests of the north are just one of the positive feedback loops which are leading to runaway global warming. The more heat, the more fires (and more beetles killing the trees, which makes them easier to burn) which creates more CO2, which creates more heat, and so on.
Two other positive feedback loops are,
1) the melting of the polar ice caps which exposes dark ocean, absorbing 10 times as much sunlight. The more melting, the more heat, the more heat, the more melting.
2) release of methane (23 times as potent as CO2) from both melting tundra and from the arctic ocean floor. The more heat, the more methane, the more methane, the more heat. And so on.
Climate scientists don't know how to accurately measure the effects of these feedback loops, which is a major reason, I think, that the reality of global warming keeps on exceeding their expectations. But probably within the next 10 years these loops will become irreversible. Which means that even if we could stop burning fossil fuel overnight, runaway warming would continue.
What then? It might be a good idea to know how to grow food, and to have a lot of friends.
If the climate becomes unsuitable for even professional farmers to grow food, how is "knowing how to grow food" going to help you?
Yeah, it's easy to grow enough food feed yourself, all year, indoors or on a small plot of land outdoors; sure.
Is this comment supposed to be sarcastic?
It is possible. You aren't gonna have the choices you get at a super market, but you can grow your own and could survive. For outdoor gardening... There is this little thing called 'canning your produce' to get you through the winter months. A rifle and the ability to hunt for deer or elk would also help increase your food supply. One deer or elk is A LOT of food. Another helpful thing is owning a few chickens. Eggs all winter long, and a chicken every month or so is pretty tasty.
Lemme guess... Are you an urban dweller? Growing your own is much harder to imagine as a possibility for somebody who lives in a city. Up here in the mountains it is a real thing (not to mention that there is all kinds of new urban indoor growing movements happening all across the country... look it up). If the shit goes down I won't be eating like I do now, but at least I know I will be able to survive.
I agree. I've got about 20 quarts of home grown, homemade spaghetti sauce canned, a bunch of canned peaches, and frozen blueberries from local farms. Im getting ready to can some home grown red cabbage. And we have a bunch of other home grown stuff in the freezer.
We've planted some blueberry bushes, some peach trees, and an apple tree. We also have a lemon tree, an orange tree and a coffee plant that we have to bring in for the winter. We have 6 acres of land, but the amount of land so far devoted to growing food is about 1/4 acre.
Right now our home grown/locally grown food efforts supplement our food intake, but if we had to we could ramp things up to supply most if not all of our food supply. Like you say you won't have the choices of food like you have in a grocery store, but you do what you have to do if/when the going gets tough
I don't want to put the kabash on your survival plans but what does that farm look like when millions of starving urban dwellers start showing up at your doorstep? Got guns?
Doom and gloom aside, I am becoming exceedingly uncomfortable at considering even the remote prospects of what could come. We are burning more than ever with no reasonable plan on the horizon.
For the masses of landless wage-slave folks this will not be possible. Will you share with them? This will be a necessity.
Maybe hydroponics will become more popular one of these days.
An other feedback loop, glaciers hold unstable mountainsides in place. One of them melted enough to let the flank of an old vocano slide into a valley and plugged up a large river in BC yesterday. Floods in China, Pakistan and Kashmir too. And slow but sure, rising sea levels. Now people get to wonder what is going to get them first, fire or water.
As Snydly used to regularly point out here, the stability of the tectonic system of the Earth's crust is very likely to be affected by the shift of mass on the surface as ice melts and water moves. So we will almost certainly see increased seismic activity, earthquakes and volcanoes.
Massive volcanoes possibly leading to sudden cooling on Earth due to ash in the atmosphere reflecting the sun's energy. Snydly suggested that this could explain why past warming periods would end with sudden dramatic cooling, as revealed in the Earth's geologic record.
Meanwhile, the corporate kingpins who distort the discourse on science have millions believing that the "risky" "radical" "hateful" "anti-human" path is one of conservation, careful steps, regulation, and the precautionary principle.
These fires are a glimpse into the future. When France is burning- consider the nuclear facilities sprinkled around that country. Future generations are going to have a very hard time of it.
Except the French Reactors have not melted down and the surrounding environment is not contaminated like Chernobyl. Obviously wildfires and nuclear facilities don't make for a nice mix, but stirring up nuclear contaminants in the French countryside is not a worry.
Wildfires in Russia causing global warming and now wild fires threatening nuclear disaster? This kind of scare talk is going too far. Chernobyl happened a long time ago. I would assume that Russia took care of this a long time ago and would have come up with safety measures. Russians are smarter than Americans in physics so the fears are overblown. First concentrate on putting out the wildfires and then worry about more global warming and nuclear threats.
Did you even read the article?
The guy stating that there might be a danger is the Russian Emergencies minister.
And Russia Today, is to a some extent at least, a pro Russian government site.
Yeah I read the article and I believe it's too much scare talk to make a fortune out of a disaster. What do politicians know or care about physics anyway?
What does he know or care about physics? Probably nothing.
If he fucks up on the job? Putin gets rid of him.
There, there now. Why don't you have a nice glass of warm milk, and a cookie, and just ignore the scary man....... Ignorance IS bliss.
He's not ignorant, he's here to disrupt the thread. We should all ignore him.
Ignoring him without debating what he says doesn't help. Do we all have to say the same thing on a thread and call disagreements disruptive? He could be ignorant or he might not see things the way you and everyone else do. If we just ignore him with faulty assumptions that they're here to disrupt, then your silence makes him credible by default.
That's a good piece of advice I hadn't thought of sticking up to know it all arrogants on this forum. If ignoring dissent on a forum is all they can do, they stand to lose as if their failure to organize isn't already keeping them in the losers' column. Contrary to "webwalk", I state what I truly believe and I don't mind corrections and feedback. I may debate but disruptive I'm not.
Mike, I have read all the comments on all the articles of the last week or so. I have seen your comments too. I don't think that you are a troll, disruptive, or part of some group. You must be new to the forum because I haven't seen your name before. Being young and having gone through a rough life in your job, education, and relationships is common with most young Americans so stop getting too angry and emotional about it.
Your mentioning your ex-girlfriend doesn't sit well with a lot of posters on this site. Whatever happened happened. She was a progressive and you're a recovering conservative but I don't believe that she made you hate progressives. At your age, it is normal of a young male to be unsure as to what ideology he wants to identify with. Most young women who I have seen here are strong progressives because life made them go for it. Even most young conservative females have some progressivism still left in them while young male conservatives are fixed. I would recommend that you not bring up anything about your ex and especially if you are writing a fighting response.
The way you address your positions on issues may sound authentic but controversial and too generalized. I saw what you wrote on global warming, immigration and some other issues. You come off at first as a conservative but then explain your anger that you say made you write that. I see that you are trying to change and all but you cannot afford to let your anger ruin your character or else nobody will take you seriously. Whatever position you want to give, state it with grace and if necessary back it up so that others can learn.
The final suggestion I have is to stop worrying about others being smarter or more fortunate than you. There are people who will make a big deal about themselves but trying to score against them only hurts you. You mentioned your GPA and finishing late but it's ok. You don't have to have graduated with a 4.0 GPA just to be a progressive. There are progressives who haven't even done a college degree so at least consider yourself fortunate for having done some college education. I am sorry to hear what happened to you on your two separate dates but you're here to learn and maybe your learning experience on this site might land you a great partner someday. You should also be aware that there are a lot of unemployed and retired people on this site so don't feel bad about yourself being unemployed.
I hope this helps and keep in mind that each of us will have friends and enemies. The ignore button is not coming anytime soon and I think that even those saying they'll ignore you will give you another chance as soon as they're in a better mood but try to improve upon yourself. Some people believe in second chances while others believe in zero tolerance. Don't worry about it. Some of the comments against you such as the latte joke and calling you names were wrong of them but you have to be careful if you choose to retaliate. They don't know you personally and you don't them personally unless you met any of them in person. I'll give one dirty secret. If somebody says that they'll ignore you, chances are they're afraid of what is different about you and they won't ignore you. These things come up on various forums.
If you're new here, then welcome to CD and good luck sir.
Thanks for the welcome and I'll think about what you said.
Right you are, Peter Pike. If progressives ignore everyone who disagrees with us, or even just belittle them, we leave them as they are, and nothing will ever change.
No, we may not change the right wing ideologues, but if we make a good argument we can win over the vast middle. CD is a good place to start practicing the arts of persuasion.
"CD is a good place to start practicing the arts of persuasion."
Someone once told me that last year before I came here. A recovering conservative, I still like a lot of progressive ideas. I have yet to meet a liberal or a progressive out here in Fargo but even in states like WI, IA, MO, and KY where I used to live the only organizing among progressives and Democrats came in the big cities. I often come across a lot of social gatherings among conservatives and even the Democratic Party supporters have that going on. I've had to scratch my head and wonder why I could never find anything like that for progressives. Maybe this site and other progressive sites should set up a personal get together meeting once in a while. For now, I guess we're just a scattered minority.
They are concentrating on trying to put out the wildfires as quickly as possible but they are connecting potential issues that could arise depending upon the success and failure rates and how long it takes to put out the wildfire. Try to connect the issues. Let me help you out. Smog causes poor visibility and can disrupt flights similar to how the volcanic eruption in Iceland disrupted flights in Europe. Since you say you too physics as a major, let's go back and remember nuclear radiation. You can't bury nuclear waste to where it cannot interact with anything harmful. The waste can produce harmful gases that could cause widespread health problems all over Russia and possibly into other countries. Hope this helps.
I thought that if they were smart enough that they would try to prepare for any future worst case scenarios. Nothing is failsafe but I thought that the article's tone was too negative in assuming worst case scenarios. I'll rethink this one. Thanks.
Mike, your comment as usual, shows your lack of knowledge about just about everything. Every article has you showing up spouting thst it isn't true always without any links to prove your theories. Hopefully soon this site will have an "ignore this user name". Hope it is soon.
I just figured that out on another post.
Agreed. I chalk it up to school being out for summer vacation.
Your school crap talk is getting old. Try tranforming into something else you're ready to transform into. Do you overrated "intellectuals" have a life? No wonder progressives are made to be losers with poops like you, Rita.
It is not polite to insult others on their education just like you wouldn't want them to do to you. People have the right to speak up and discuss what is going wrong with our country. We can't have a proper organization until we can get a clear idea on what is wrong first. I understand your concerns about conservatives and Democrats organizing but they have a narrow but dangerous agenda. Progressives don't have such agendas and more broad about their plans. That they don't have any big name organization to rally around doesn't make them "losers". I don't think that either Rita or you personally know each other so your perceived jealousy on her being an overrated intellectual is out of line. She studied psychology while you said you studied physics. That's two different areas of study so there is no need either one to put down the other. Nobody is a loser or a poop here so let's drop those words and try to be understanding. Whatever you are angry with her about, you still owe her an apology for calling her a poop and a loser of which she is neither. If you want to be taken seriously on this forum, try not to be restless or moody. I think you still have a chance so don't ruin it.
The ignore user option was tried and tested on Alternet. It works at first but as soon as users find themselves ignored, they just get around it and it's flaming as usual. You could just skip his posts if you wish but the ignore option isn't worth the technology or discussions. What if that user you don't like changes for better overtime? Would you still prefer to ignore? It is pointless to have a forum if all opinions must sound alike. Mike's only been around for a couple of days or I assume so reading his posts. He was thanking people who he thought were helpful to him, odd on this site but shows that he may be open to seeing things differently and possibly the same as you. Are you sure you read every article where he posted because you seem to be only selectively recalling him on his bad points but not his good? What is the point of a forum if everyone has to agree on the same thing and anyone who dissents is to be ostracized? It's calling for the death penalty. Give him some time. If he turns out bad after sometime ignoring him might work. Someone suggested that even there, ignoring completely shouldn't have to happen. Why not give them credit where you notice improvement or willingness to improve? We are PROGRESSIVES, are we not?
I choose to honestly post my thoughts about the issues. I expect disagreements and wacko replies but I get some pretty good help around here. The ignore option might not be a bad idea for them. They'll stop posting childish ad hominem replies or making idiotic assumptions about summer school or tag teams. On the other hand, nobody ends up helping anyone. It's all pat each other on the back or flame each other. Some people can get cheeky, arrogant, and all-knowing about their education, experience, knowledge, spirituality, etc... but if they can't show what they really learned from it, then just condescending others about their having it to bully others is meaningless. What bothers me and maybe some others on this site and other progressive sites is that some call themselves "progressive" but aren't ready to open up and actually move forward on assimilating good and interesting ideas from everyone no matter what each of their ideological positions are. I have said this and so have some others about the need to organize. I have no intentions of getting into an opinion contest because I know that I would lose for being honest. The other thing that bothers me is the way some people talking about spirituality ad nauseum. Being spiritual does not mean being too negative constantly. The truth is one thing but what to do about it and the approach(es) to take are also important. Anyone can write another end of the world as we know it article and cry all day about it but how many Americans will listen and what will they care at a time when they lack a lot of benefits the Russians have that we Americans could use? I'm all open ears and will take the time to go over whatever feedback I get. I won't change overnight or in a week. I might have a change of heart sometime down the road or I might not. If I still object, I'll say why I still do and explain my understanding vs what the sources given to me say. I cannot stop anyone from judging. If anyone still wants to be judgmental and stick their fingers in the ear and sing, they have every right to be meatheads. I just stick to debating and disputing factually and leave them to keep their own labels that they try to pin on me to themselves. I wouldn't worry about them. As I have learned from other forums, most of them will get over it over time. Thanks but I don't need any defending here.
One thing that might help is paragraphs. It's hard to take in what someone's saying when it's all one giant block.
As to the Russians being better at physics, I'm not sure that's quite true. More Russians *study* physics, but it's not clear that the schools produce better physicists overall. Any difference might only be due to the principle "to have more high-quality physicists, train more physicists". There's a lot of wastage in that, but feudal empires really don't care --there are always more serfs.
Sorry I just allowed my thoughts to pour without thinking about paragraphs. I'll keep that in mind.
That's an interesting thought on Russia. I just assumed. I don't know the country very well. Too many people keep saying that the US is the biggest loser in education so I assumed that it meant Russia had better scientists. Thanks for getting me out of my gloomy thought on that. No worker, foreigner or American, should be exploited for less pay.
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
BUT. His posting style is remarkably reminiscent of another poster, whose user name I can't remember at the moment.
I'm not convinced that he is a new poster.
Posting styles are usually not a good yardstick for trying to identify posters. A lot of CD regulars use very similar posting styles and could remind us of past users. The best anyone can do is guess but even guesses are tenuous at best. I usually don't care if a certain user might have been a former user. It often distracts me from writing my thoughts on an article being presented or replying to another user.
"It often distracts me from writing my thoughts on an article being presented or replying to another user."
The picky behavior of judging by posting styles often distracts everyone from being thoughtful and constructive when they post. I read these posts to see what I can talk about but the name-calling posts and endless accusations of someone being a former user is silly and discouraging. The quality of the writing from those posters doing the name-calling has fallen but when they refrain from name-calling, their posts usually turn out to be very helpful and intelligent. Whether you are unique from others or a lot like them shouldn't matter. Those doing the name-calling, discouraging, and excluding from all sides should attack the ideas and not the people. If we can't challenge them here, how can we challenge them in the real world? Putting the trolls away is one thing but going too harsh to the point of scaring too many innocent bystanders away only serves to harm more than help each other out. It can be like the "scorch the Earth" policy of murdering innocent civilians just to hunt down alleged terrorists.
I object to your blatant lie that Russian physicists are "smarter" than their American counterparts. I've worked with Russian scientists for over 30 years and yes, they are profoundly talented. However, due to some historical obsessions with dead-ends in fundamental physics and a belief that electromagnetics holds the universe together, their science and engineering is many, many years behind what is being conducted in the west. The Russian Academy is composed of these old codgers who refuse to embrace modern physics, and so are emptying Russia's science budget into go-nowhere research.