France Grossly Underestimated Radioactive Fallout From Atom Bomb Tests, Study Finds (sciencemag.org) 77
Adrian Cho writes via Science Magazine: From 1966 to 1974, France blew up 41 nuclear weapons in above-ground tests in French Polynesia, the collection of 118 islands and atolls that is part of France. The French government has long contended that the testing was done safely. But a new analysis of hundreds of documents declassified in 2013 suggests the tests exposed 90% of the 125,000 people living in French Polynesia to radioactive fallout -- roughly 10 times as many people as the French government has estimated.
The findings come from a 2-year collaboration, dubbed the Moruroa Files, between Disclose, a French nonprofit that supports investigative journalism; Interprt, a collective of researchers, architects, and spatial designers affiliated with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who focus on environmental issues; and the Science & Global Security program at Princeton. The findings were presented on 9 March on the project's website, in a book, and in a technical paper posted to the arXiv preprint server. Most French Polynesians were exposed to a relatively small amount of radiation, and the central issue is who is eligible for compensation under French law.
The findings come from a 2-year collaboration, dubbed the Moruroa Files, between Disclose, a French nonprofit that supports investigative journalism; Interprt, a collective of researchers, architects, and spatial designers affiliated with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who focus on environmental issues; and the Science & Global Security program at Princeton. The findings were presented on 9 March on the project's website, in a book, and in a technical paper posted to the arXiv preprint server. Most French Polynesians were exposed to a relatively small amount of radiation, and the central issue is who is eligible for compensation under French law.
Re:What does France need a nuclear bomb for anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
If a war broke out, all that would happen is it would just end up in enemy hands before they could even use it.
Oh, my another joker shows up to recycle the old 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' trope. The US would not be a country if it wasn't for the French. It was French guns and French treasure that fuelled the American revolutionary war, theirs and the Spanish. There were more French soldiers at Yorktown than there were American patriots. So what snappy riposte is next? ... 'Freedom fries'? ... 'Patriot toast'? ... ''Liberty cabbage"? ... A ten page essay on why the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are some of the most popular triumphs of US foreign policy?
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A ten page essay on why the wars in Iraq
The Iraq war was only due to a son granting his father's wish.
I always thought it was just a simple blood-feud between the Bush and Hussein clans.
Re: What does France need a nuclear bomb for anywa (Score:3)
Petain thought that Germany has won and that there was no way for anyone to reconquer France; after all, they had defeated all of continental Europe.
He did what he thought was for the best interest of his country: ensure France would stay relevant under the new world order led by the Naz is.
But that's only one short-lived French government. There was another one in exile which did fight for freedom and significantly contributed to reconquering Europe later on, on the same level as the UK and the USA.
It seem
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You're talking about the French resistance, no?
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That debt was repaid in 1917, and repaid again with interest in 1944. Ever since, French foreign policy has been "find out which side the Americans are on, and take the opposite." You can't expect that to be popular.
Besides, the France that helped America was a tyranny, and that treasure would have been better spent giving the French people better lives.
And yet you feel completely entitled to use the freedom they gave you to piss all over the French from great height because pissing all over people who did you a solid is such a gracious thing to do.
But French elites preferred to get involved in military adventures in distant countries instead of investing in the welfare of their own people. Much like our own government today continues wars in lands that are no threat to us. Say, can you tell me what why we're at war in Syria? I don't know and neither do you.
a) The goldfish memory of some Americans when it comes to the Bush administration and the consequences of its holy crusades in the Middle East never ceases to amuse me. The US is at war in Syria because you started a war in Iraq that was supposed to pay for itself becaue Iraqi oil would become America's birthrig
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because pissing all over people who did you a solid is such a gracious thing to do.
Dude. French do this *all the time* to Americans. It's a national hobby. You're doing it right now.
The US is at war in Syria because you started a war in Iraq that was supposed to pay for itself becaue Iraqi oil would become America's birthright by the power of manifest destiny and that war spilled over into Syria.
The US neocons destroyed Iraq because it was a threat to Israel. Here's Madeline Albright falsely claimi [state.gov]
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because pissing all over people who did you a solid is such a gracious thing to do.
Dude. French do this *all the time* to Americans. It's a national hobby. You're doing it right now.
Really? There are very few if any cultures that have as many derogatory terms for other nations and cultures as the US so being sore at the French for taking the piss out of you once in a while is pretty rich. You should really try to grow a thicker skin and try not to be such a victim/snowflake.
The US neocons destroyed Iraq because it was a threat to Israel ...
Don't blame the Israelis, they are a tinpot colonial state in the Levant, the USA is a superpower. The idea that Israel dictates US foreign policy is an anti-Semitic trope, the decision to go to war in Iraq was 100%
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No, 'peace with honour' is conservative ego balm, the US flat out lost the Vietnam war.
Nope! The situation was stable when US troops left. Did you know the Vietcong were decisively destroyed four years before during the Tet Offensive in 1968? Yup. In 1972 the Communists solemnly promised they had gotten what they wanted and would keep the peace, just like Hitler in the Sudetenland in 1938. They lied.
US Americans started that war, you started it for the only oil reserves in the Middle East that had b
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No, 'peace with honour' is conservative ego balm, the US flat out lost the Vietnam war.
Nope! The situation was stable when US troops left. Did you know the Vietcong were decisively destroyed four years before during the Tet Offensive in 1968? Yup. In 1972 the Communists solemnly promised they had gotten what they wanted and would keep the peace, just like Hitler in the Sudetenland in 1938. They lied.
US Americans started that war, you started it for the only oil reserves in the Middle East that had been largely untouched since 1990, and you considered them payment for 'liberating' Iraq.
[citation needed]
From my citation, which you obviously did not read and contains many primary sources from the horse's mouth [informatio...house.info]: "In the Persian Gulf region, the presence of American forces, along with British and French units, has become a semi-permanent fact of life. Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein" (p. 14)."
No, the US got hosed by a bunch of communists and Iraq was about oil for American multinationals. All of that tripe you wrote is ego balm for conservative Cold War hawks and Bush administration neocons.
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The US is at war in Syria because you started a war in Iraq that was supposed to pay for itself becaue Iraqi oil would become America's birthright by the power of manifest destiny and that war spilled over into Syria.
The US is at war in Syria because Western interests want/wanted to build a natural gas pipeline across Syria. Russia is a close ally of Syria and wants to sell it's Natural Gas and doesn't need the competition.
Hillary's neo-con buddies nearly got the Syrian boil popped and the pipeline built, but she couldn't make the smooth transition from Secretary of State to President so the land war in Syria has had to be delayed.
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The US lost the Vietnam war
You really ought to look at the origins of the Vietnam war before you speak about it. It really doesn't look favorable to the French. In fact the US militarily did very well in Vietnam, to the point that the NVA ultimately surrendered; the loss occurred after the US had long since left Vietnam. Contrast to that of Dien Bien Phu, which resulted in a very, very decisive French military defeat and surrender. Oh and also look into the history of the Hanoi Hilton, and what France used it for.
As for Iraq, taking
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And the American view has been "They'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for me, so why the hell don't they salute me when I show up as a tourist?" Bah, I'll call them Freedom Fries and then they'll be sorry!
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Which part of Europe are you from: the part whose ass we saved, or the part whose ass we kicked?
America is realizing that maybe we don't want to spend so much of our money protecting an ungrateful Europe and maybe Europe can do it for themselves for a change. After reading the many anti-American comments on any article published concerning the US, I would say good riddance. I've never seen such an ungrateful bunch of free-loaders.
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And it was also the French who funded the Confederate States, so drop your faux righteousness, OK.
Really? France isn't even mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. According to this the confederate government financed itself with domestic bonds and high risk loans from Dutch banks. Furthermore neither Britain nor France ever intervened in the N-American civil war. Finally in 1863 the Confederacy threw a tantrum and expelled all foreign representatives, all of them British or French diplomats, for advising their subjects to refuse to serve in combat against the US. If France really wanted to
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Mon cher Jacques,
Je suis un petit fromaged-off avec votre decision to blow up La Pacifique Sud avec Ies Francais bombes nuclears. Je reckon vous must have un spot in la Belle France pour Ies explosions. Le Massif Central? Le Champs Elysees? Votre own back yard, perhaps? Frappe les crows flamboyant avec stones, sport. La Guerre Cold est fini. Votre forces militaries need la bombe atomique about as beaucoup as les poissons need Ies bicycles. Un autre point, cobber - votre histoire militaire isn't tres flash. Une bombe nouveau won't change votre tradition glorieux
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In reality the French fought hard for their country during WW2, and continued to fight even after surrender. The problem was that technology was rapidly advancing and their old defences were inadequate. In fact almost any practical defence would have been inadequate at that time, and sure enough the N@zi war machine simply rolled into a number of other countries who were unable to do much about it either.
Britain got very lucky. Tactical errors by the Germans and favourable conditions prevented an early inva
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Nay, the French should have been able to stop the Germans. They almost did, with DeGaulle leading the attack. The real reason was that General Gamelin, the top military leader, had seen what happened in Poland. He determined that reserves could not be deployed due to interdiction, and pushed all of France's armies up front in an all-or-nothing gamble. His Breda Variant was insane, but that's what they went with. When the Germans broke through second-line troops at Sedan and the French dropped their rifl
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Britain got very lucky. Tactical errors by the Germans and favourable conditions prevented an early invasion that would likely have been impossible to resist.
The big moat they had also played a significant role in preventing German attack.
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France was actually quite bellicose until after World War I. That's when they gained a reputation for being "surrender monkies".
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So what snappy riposte is next? ... 'Freedom fries'? ... 'Patriot toast'? ... ''Liberty cabbage"? ..
What are French tickler, and French maid, Alex?
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The US would not be a country if it wasn't for the French.
And there would be more stability in the middle east if the French didn't insist upon drawing arbitrary borders that ignored cultural and religious distinctions after WWI in order to suit their colonial ends. And Vietnam would be a stable country if it weren't for the French trying to enslave them for the 50 years prior to Dien Bien Phu. So many military conflicts the west is involved in today can have their origins traced back to France somehow starting it and then somehow surrendering it and then leaving
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And that's why they say that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Patriotism is overused and overblown and easily corrupted. Also remember that you were required to wear an American flag lapel pin as a US legislator otherwise you were not patriotic enough. No, don't go do anything grand for the country or it's people, you merely have to wear a 15 cent pin. And to this day most legislators are still too scared to take that pin off despite the silliness of it all. Similarly, to support the troop
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That is why they keep their nukes on submarines.
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That is why they keep their nukes on submarines.
So they can run away to Algeria (Mers El Kébir) with them if war breaks out?
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A. So they can see the old French Navy!
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If a war broke out, all that would happen is it would just end up in enemy hands before they could even use it.
So.... you'll be sending back the Statue Of Liberty, when?
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Or do you think that France's enemies are the same as your enemies? Why would you think that?
More details (Score:4, Informative)
Here: https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
Re:More details (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick summary: the numbers above refer to how many people were exposed to over 1 millisieverts.
And 11,000 were exposed to 5mSv.
However "Epidemiological studies suggest that the lowest dose value of ionizing radiation at which good evidence of increased cancer risks in human exists is 10–50 mSv for an acute exposure."
So as far as I can tell, there is no evidence that any harm was done by the fallout. Still, they did make an error and cover it up.
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So as far as I can tell, there is no evidence that any harm was done by the fallout.
To prove it is safe, the French should detonate an identical device in Centre-Val de Loire.
Or is it only safe for brown people on the other side of the world?
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To prove it is safe, the French should detonate an identical device in Centre-Val de Loire.
Or is it only safe for brown people on the other side of the world?
Are you geographically challenged? Mururoa is 1200km from Tahiti. Centre-Val de Loire is closer to Algeria than that! .
The Trinity test site in Nevada is 100 miles from Albuquerque (French name?)
The Maralinga test site in Australia was only 800km from a major city, and much closer to smaller cities.
Not to mention the millions of brown people in metropolitan France.
So please put away your virtue-signalling race card.
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Not one of your brighter comments. What does any of this have to do with your perceived racism? Clue: Nothing
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This is all true. But we still know that small additional doses should have an effect and we can predict the risk: The probability of death increases by 0.005% per 1 millisievert (or something like this). This additional risk is certainly negligible for each individual (especially compared to the very high risk for cancer we have anyway), but if you affect a large enough number of people you still can expect to kill a couple of them.
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The issue here is that the law allows anyone who likely received 1mSv or more to claim compensation. Regardless of if you think 1mSv is too low to matter, the fact is that those people were exposed to radioactive fallout without their consent.
Also it's 11,000 people exposed to at least 5mSv, they could have got higher doses. Because it is impossible to prove that a particular cancer resulted from a particular exposure event, or to account for cumulative effects, the previous law which rejected most claims w
Re: More details (Score:3)
People will always stoop low when there are benefits to collect from the government.
Doesn't matter whether there are real risks, all that matter is that we get a free extra shekels.
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I wouldn't call being compensated for being exposed to nuclear fallout a "benefit". Especially at the time when little was known of the effects of the exposure. Imagine decades of worry. Not knowing where the hot-spots were, or if you were going to get cancer in later life.
And of course, some number did get cancer as a result. Impossible to prove which ones.
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And of course, some number did get cancer as a result. Impossible to prove which ones.
You probably remember John Wayne, he did to cancer after making a movie in a radiated american desert, no idea if it was Nevada or Arizona or something.
The following years the whole crew of that movie involved during that particular filming died.
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Oh, and by the way, I would advise against the use of "shekels". It tends to be associated with anti-semitism, which I'm sure was not your intent.
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Did anyone give a shit until Eric Trump said it about Bob Woodward? And then, suddenly it was TDS all over the place, and must be anti-Semitic I spent a couple minutes googling and could find no earlier reference to such a thing.
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Did anyone give a shit until Eric Trump said it about Bob Woodward?
Yes we did.
Signed, a Jew.
And then, suddenly it was TDS [...]
Fuck off.
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Yes we did.
Signed, a Jew.
Backed by a total lack of evidence.
Fuck off.
Still suffering I see. BTW, I thought he never belonged in office and didn't vote for him, but you clearly have issues beyond that.
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Backed by a total lack of evidence.
Welp, found the racist.
Sure you don't think of yourself as racist, but you will always deny reality to people on the receiving end. Unless you personally witness racism happening egregiously, directly in front of you, plus with the signed testimony of two witnesses you will flat out deny it happens. You act to perpetuate racism, and that makes you racist.
Still suffering I see.
Ah yes, being a victim of anti-Semitism is being anti Trump. You are insane. and racist.
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Welp, found the racist.
Anybody can accuse anybody else of anything, any time.
Besides, who (apart from Nazis) thinks of Jewish people as a "race"? Judaism is a religion.
Anybody can join, and anybody can drop out.
And by the way, the shekel is the official currency of Israel and has nothing to do with antisemitism.
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Most people so low on income and poverty and in that situation do not even know that there is some "benefits to collect from the government" ... idiot.
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People will always stoop low when there are benefits to collect from the government.
The whole point of a benefit is to get something out of it. Besides, it's the people's money. They're just getting back what they paid.
Doesn't matter whether there are real risks, all that matter is that we get a free extra shekels.
It's not free if it's your own money being returned to you.
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Well, that radiation spread out over the globe, so where do you draw the line? Shouldn't we all be compensated? I want my reparations!
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Still, they did make an error and cover it up.
"Ribbit."
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Perhaps you want to reread what you just wrote, and the moderators should get a clue.
Perhaps you have a problem grasping what the difference is between a "1 millisieverts" and "0â"50 mSv" is, so reread it and grasp it.
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Underestimated? (Score:2)
Just like they lied after they murdered that Dutch photographer in the Rainbow Warrior.
BeauHD underestimated the originality of the story (Score:2)
Didn't they ban atmospheric tests in 1963? (Score:2)
Well, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty) were signed in August 1963 by no less than 126 countries, but France (and China, and North Korea) were not among them, and has, AFAIK, still not done so.
Re:Didn't they ban atmospheric tests in 1963? (Score:4, Informative)
The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (PNTBT) was supposed to be superseded by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CNTBT), banning all nuclear tests, not just the atmospheric ones. Countries not signing CNTBT, but had signed PNTBT are still bound by PNTBT.
The CNTBT was signed in 1996, by 170 states, but it is not in effect since some countries have chosen to not ratify it (China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and United States). Both France and Russia signed and ratified CNTBT.
It would be interesting to hear an expert opinion on where this leaves the PNTBT status in legal terms: does this 'superseded but replacement not in effect' status of PNTBT make it legal for some or all states to perform atmospheric tests?
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They sure didn't expect all the blowback from murdering a couple of people when they blew up Greenpeace's boat, did they?
I assume by "blowback," you mean "nothing of real consequence."
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I take it you haven't been in any pool halls in New Zealand, or the western suburbs of Sydney.
Journalism pu to best use (Score:3)
Call out these people who would poison the world. Call them out and make them atone. Negligence, death, and cruelty all for what?
yawn...more fear (Score:5, Informative)
Even if true, probably not dangerous. You can find the XKCD chart for yourselves
So... (Score:2)
It was a bad idea to build a Club Med on top?
By '...part of France" (Score:2)
I assume the summary means a french colony?