That's pretty much exactly what it means.. They have actual measurements of environmental radiation.. In anything orange or red, you're looking at a minimum of 20mSv/year which is about 1/2 of the annual dose limit for US nuclear workers.. In the deep red areas, you're looking at more than 50mSv/year which is approaching the level of increased cancer incidence. Nobody is going to live in those areas for a very long time.
Nobody is going to be allowed to live in those areas for a very long time. That doesn't mean it isn't safe to live there. It means an overcautious government won't let people live there. You even said yourself the highest levels outside the plant grounds are only approaching the levels of increased cancer incidence. So, what other than abundance of caution and paranoia about radiation is keeping people from returning?
Are you honestly arguing that dozens of mSv of radiation annually are safe? That big bad government is preventing people from doing what they want?
50mSv is approaching the level of guaranteed higher incidence of cancer -- If you lived in the exclusion zone, you'd be receiving that every single year for the rest of your, and your childrens' lives.
Canada did a survey a few years ago of all their nuclear workers, at much lower levels of lifetime radiation (<7mSv), there were significantly higher levels of nearly every type of cancer.[1] Now imagine receiving multiples of that dosage every single year in perpetuity.
The relative lack of cancer deaths in Ukraine wasn't due to 'safe' fallout, but due to the fact that they just closed entire cities and forced everyone within a thousand square miles to leave.
> Canada did a survey a few years ago of all their nuclear workers, at much lower levels of lifetime radiation (<7mSv), there were significantly higher levels of nearly every type of cancer.
However, this holds for practically every worker near industrial equipment. Steelworker cancer rates used to be off the charts--the old saw at Bethlehem Steel was "nobody ever retires from the car shop"--you wound up dead before retirement. (car shop being a place where they made railroad cars).
IBM used to remove (probably still does) pregnant women from their semiconductor fabrication jobs because IBM had data about birth defects. Remember, most fabrication line tools are completely sealed, and the air is some of the most filtered stuff on earth. So, is it the presence of something causing the problem or the absence of something causing the problem? Nobody knows, and the company is sure not going to take any risk to find out.
So, you not only have to show higher rates but also show that it was due to the radiation and not something else. That's a very tall order.
And yet you leave out an important point directly in the abstract:
> The following significant results were found for males and females combined: a deficit in the standardized incidence ratio for all cancers combined
This makes me suspicious as it probably means we have too little statistical power so that an increased elevance in one or two rare cancers skews the numbers.
It also includes the 1950's in its analysis. And, let's face it, we weren't that far from people playing with plutonium spheres. It was in the 50's when people started to get serious about nuclear safety.
> Are you honestly arguing that dozens of mSv of radiation annually are safe?
Yes, I am (despite the downvotes). The average background dose at sea level is 4mSv/year. A chest CT scan is 7mSv. The EPA has declared that 50mSv/year is perfectly safe exposure for nuclear, and any other, workers.
> That big bad government is preventing people from doing what they want?
I shouldn't address this, but I feel the need to. Your snide "big bad government" crack implies you think I'm putting a political spin on my arguments. I'm not.
> 50mSv is approaching the level of guaranteed higher incidence of cancer
No, 50mSv is approaching the 100mSv threshold for conclusive evidence of increased cancer risk.
> If you lived in the exclusion zone, you'd be receiving that every single year for the rest of your, and your childrens' lives.
Please stop the vapid appeals to emotion. This is totally unscientific and the root cause of why the general public freaks out unnecessarily over radiation.
> Canada did a survey a few years ago of all their nuclear workers, at much lower levels of lifetime radiation (<7mSv), there were significantly higher levels of nearly every type of cancer.[1] Now imagine receiving multiples of that dosage every single year in perpetuity.
I will have to look at that paper in detail when I get home. My quick skim though shows you many have misread it. The dosages presented are annualized numbers, not "lifetime".[1]
> The relative lack of cancer deaths in Ukraine wasn't due to 'safe' fallout, but due to the fact that they just closed entire cities and forced everyone within a thousand square miles to leave.
And the relative lack of terrorist attacks in the past 14 years wasn't due to terrorist attacks being hard, but due to the TSA and full-body scanners. You can't prove causality for a lack of events based only on a correlation.
[1] "Doses from the individual workers' various types of exposures have been combined into 'annual doses,' which are the basis of calculations in this study."
> The EPA has declared that 50mSv/year is perfectly safe exposure for nuclear, and any other, workers.
So when a government agency declares a radiation dose safe, the measurement is immediately to be trusted, yet when it declares them unsafe and creates exclusion zones it is "overcautious"?
And even today there are areas even in Germany where you can’t eat mushrooms or eat boars because they are still having residue radiation from chernobyl!
I still stand by my statement that I think a lot of the public reaction to Fukushima was overblown (as a resident of Germany and a supporter of NPPs, I am biased ;) ). Have to admit I falsely remembered the radiation levels being lower by a factor of ~5 (additional radiation).
