Chernobyl: The end of a three-decade experiment [View all]

[hunter]

Since the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, an area of more than 4,000 square kilometres has been abandoned. That could be about to change, as Victoria Gill discovered during a week-long trip to the exclusion zone.

"This place is more than half of my life," says Gennady Laptev. The broad-shouldered Ukrainian scientist is smiling wistfully as we stand on the now dry ground of what was Chernobyl nuclear power plant's cooling pond.

"I was only 25 when I started my work here as a liquidator. Now, I'm almost 60."

There were thousands of liquidators - workers who came here as part of the mammoth, dangerous clean-up operation following the 1986 explosion. The worst nuclear accident in history.

--more--

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47227767

This accident demonstrated how humans going about their ordinary business are worse for the natural environment than fallout from a nuclear power plant accident.

And now humans are returning...



I'm quite serious.

If anyone here wants to save the world, there are a few ways to go about it, mostly involving human rights especially for women, realistic sex education, universal access to birth control, and a broad scientific education emphasizing literacy, numeracy, and respect for the natural environment.

The ordinary activities of ordinary humans are more damaging to the natural environment than, say, tritium from the accident at Fukushima.

As Pogo says, "We have met the enemy and he is us."