What's amazing to me is how little space is required to have a completely self-sustaining ecosystem. A 60km diameter circle just doesn't seem like a very big space to have enough plants to support "flourishing" numbers of multiple types of large herbivores, without migration, as well as all the different prey species required to keep things in balance.
Regardless of the arguments about radiation, it seems pretty clear that lack of humans is really the most important thing for animals to flourish.
The European green belt is an even starker example, it’s thousands of miles long but just a few tens to hundreds meters wide in most locations, yet its stability and continuity have made it a huge wildlife conservation area.
They write all this `scientificy` stuff then put stuff like "Recent research has found that the combination of heat emitted from radioactive contamination ..."
The energy released by these environmental isotopes is microscopic. By the time that energy dissipates into the surroundings, the macroscopic thermal output is practically zero. It cannot alter local temperatures, it cannot warm a microclimate, and it certainly cannot cause "heat" stress to wildlife.
I wonder if the editors added this bit in a bout of 'whatboutism' to get some global warming agenda in there?
They totally made this up because in the linked source it's just "Radioactive contamination and climate warming affect physiological performance of Chornobyl barn swallows" and not "radioactive warming".
This. Also, Higginbotham's "Midnight in Chernobyl" is brilliant prose about the disaster, from the run-up through to the aftermath. At times, it reads more like a thriller (and a fast-paced one at that!) than prose.
I thought the show was horrible. It was moralistic, quite on the nose, and the dialogue was pretty corny. There were a lot of obvious appeals to your average NYT and Atlantic type viewer, which is surely the main factor behind its critical acclaim.
It’s embarrassing for humanity that we cause an almighty ecological disaster and then one of the biggest factors in the recovery of local ecosystems is our absence.
For a deep dive into the state of life in the exclusion zone about a decade and a half after the disaster, I highly recommend reading Wormwood Forest, by Mary Mycio, published in 2005.
1) It is always interesting with nuclear articles to separate the language from the actual measure of harm. On the one hand we have the "abandoned, irradiated landscape of Chernobyl... not far from the ruins of the power plant at the centre of the world's worst nuclear disaster". On the other hand we have all these animals who, being unable to read and forced to rely on observable harm, think the situation is pretty good.
This article is much better than most because it links a study that talks about the actual levels of radiation around Chernobyl, but the amount of legwork these reporters make people do to try and figure out the "so what?" of the thing is remarkably lazy. It baffles me how fearful people get without being at all worried about whether there is an observable problem.
> For years, researchers have documented weird, twisted trees, swallows troubled by tumours and even an eerie black fungus that lives inside the radioactive ruins of the reactor building itself.
I mean, y'know, oh no! Outside the Chernobyl exclusion zone I can't imagine encountering a twisted tree or a cancerous swallow. How big an issue are we talking? Are they going to make me spend my afternoon reading papers? Are these swallows helpful enough to live only in the irradiated areas for us or are these swallows migratory? What's their air-speed velocity?
I won't even begin on the horrifying implications of black fungus. My poor bathroom needs a clean.
2) This is one of the few places on earth where these animals are safe from the #1 apex predator that is actively ... I don't know what the next one up from genocide is, lets say ... speciescidal. I'd expect wild mutations since the most important evolutionary pressure in the rest of the world isn't present. While evolution due to radiation is possible it is going to be quite challenging to tease that out. Evolution due to human irrationality creating an animal sanctuary seems more likely.
What's amazing to me is how little space is required to have a completely self-sustaining ecosystem. A 60km diameter circle just doesn't seem like a very big space to have enough plants to support "flourishing" numbers of multiple types of large herbivores, without migration, as well as all the different prey species required to keep things in balance.
Regardless of the arguments about radiation, it seems pretty clear that lack of humans is really the most important thing for animals to flourish.
The European green belt is an even starker example, it’s thousands of miles long but just a few tens to hundreds meters wide in most locations, yet its stability and continuity have made it a huge wildlife conservation area.
They write all this `scientificy` stuff then put stuff like "Recent research has found that the combination of heat emitted from radioactive contamination ..."
The energy released by these environmental isotopes is microscopic. By the time that energy dissipates into the surroundings, the macroscopic thermal output is practically zero. It cannot alter local temperatures, it cannot warm a microclimate, and it certainly cannot cause "heat" stress to wildlife.
I wonder if the editors added this bit in a bout of 'whatboutism' to get some global warming agenda in there?
They totally made this up because in the linked source it's just "Radioactive contamination and climate warming affect physiological performance of Chornobyl barn swallows" and not "radioactive warming".
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Related, if you haven't seen the TV show Chernobyl, I could not recommend it highly enough!
This. Also, Higginbotham's "Midnight in Chernobyl" is brilliant prose about the disaster, from the run-up through to the aftermath. At times, it reads more like a thriller (and a fast-paced one at that!) than prose.
Same goes for his other book Challenger.
I thought the show was horrible. It was moralistic, quite on the nose, and the dialogue was pretty corny. There were a lot of obvious appeals to your average NYT and Atlantic type viewer, which is surely the main factor behind its critical acclaim.
I found the dialog fairly realistic. Maybe because I grew up in a similar country - it sounded like real world people talk.
Also, events and actions were close to how reality unfolded with simplified cast of characters, basically.
Yes it is very good cinematic. Unfortunately it is far from the truth.
I'm wondering where to find a good official guide for nuclear disaster survival. HHS (1) looks reliable. Anything else?
1. https://remm.hhs.gov/nuclearexplosion.htm
It’s embarrassing for humanity that we cause an almighty ecological disaster and then one of the biggest factors in the recovery of local ecosystems is our absence.
For a deep dive into the state of life in the exclusion zone about a decade and a half after the disaster, I highly recommend reading Wormwood Forest, by Mary Mycio, published in 2005.
1) It is always interesting with nuclear articles to separate the language from the actual measure of harm. On the one hand we have the "abandoned, irradiated landscape of Chernobyl... not far from the ruins of the power plant at the centre of the world's worst nuclear disaster". On the other hand we have all these animals who, being unable to read and forced to rely on observable harm, think the situation is pretty good.
This article is much better than most because it links a study that talks about the actual levels of radiation around Chernobyl, but the amount of legwork these reporters make people do to try and figure out the "so what?" of the thing is remarkably lazy. It baffles me how fearful people get without being at all worried about whether there is an observable problem.
> For years, researchers have documented weird, twisted trees, swallows troubled by tumours and even an eerie black fungus that lives inside the radioactive ruins of the reactor building itself.
I mean, y'know, oh no! Outside the Chernobyl exclusion zone I can't imagine encountering a twisted tree or a cancerous swallow. How big an issue are we talking? Are they going to make me spend my afternoon reading papers? Are these swallows helpful enough to live only in the irradiated areas for us or are these swallows migratory? What's their air-speed velocity?
I won't even begin on the horrifying implications of black fungus. My poor bathroom needs a clean.
2) This is one of the few places on earth where these animals are safe from the #1 apex predator that is actively ... I don't know what the next one up from genocide is, lets say ... speciescidal. I'd expect wild mutations since the most important evolutionary pressure in the rest of the world isn't present. While evolution due to radiation is possible it is going to be quite challenging to tease that out. Evolution due to human irrationality creating an animal sanctuary seems more likely.
Are we talking about an African or a European swallow?
The chernobyl radiation issue denial on HN runs strong.
The longer you live, the more of a problem cancer is. Most animals have pretty short lifespans compared to humans. I think that must also be a factor.