George Monbiot

Prof. Dr. Chris Busby (George Monbiot, Aka ‘The Great Moonbat’, Understandably Refused To Come) On Long Term Radiation Effects (Video – Oxford Town Hall)

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Dr. Busby would have exposed the complete ignorance of George Monbiot, like Dr. Helen Caldicott did before.

Introducing ‘The Great Moonbat’:

– “Prescription for Survival”: A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott (Democracy Now):

Guests:

George Monbiot, British journalist and author. He is a columnist with the The Guardian (U.K.) and most recently wrote the article “Why Fukushima Made Me Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Power.”

Helen Caldicott, world-renowned anti-nuclear advocate, author and pediatrician. She has spent decades warning of the medical hazards posed by nuclear technologies. She is the co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

One might ask, how f****** stupid can ‘bought and paid for’ George Monbiot get?

(Rhetoric question.)

Rumors say he is in direct contact with the all-wise knowing stupidity.

Mr. Monbiot, why don’t you just move to Fukushima for good and ‘LOVE’ nuclear power?

This is an excerpt from the interview:

– The Propaganda From The Government And The Nuclear Industry About Low-Level Radiation Is Absolute Rubbish:

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

“Up to a million people have already died from Chernobyl, and people will continue to die from cancer for virtually the rest of time. What we should know is that a millionth of a gram of plutonium, or less, can induce cancer, or will induce cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilos, or 500 pounds, of plutonium in it. You know, there’s enough plutonium in these reactors to kill everyone on earth.
…..
You don’t understand internal emitters. I was commissioned to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the dangers of nuclear power. I spent a year researching it. You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”

See also:

– Dr. Helen Caldicott: How Nuclear Apologists Mislead The World Over Radiation


Prof. Dr. Chris Busby (George Monbiot, Aka ‘The Great Moonbat’, Understandably Refused To Come) On Long Term Radiation Effects (Video – Oxford Town Hall)


YouTube Added: 22.11.2011

YouTube Added: 22.11.2011

Dr Busby and George Monbiot were invited to debate the arguments about the health effects of radiation at Oxford Town Hall on Nov 3rd 2011. Monbiot refused to come as he was frightened that he would be shown to be ignorant. Therefore Busby came alone and gave this talk aimed at George Monbiot to give him the evidence. Instead of debating the issue Monbiot chose to attack Busby in the Guardian on 21st November.
see www.euradcom.org
www.llrc.org

More info:

Read moreProf. Dr. Chris Busby (George Monbiot, Aka ‘The Great Moonbat’, Understandably Refused To Come) On Long Term Radiation Effects (Video – Oxford Town Hall)

Dr. Helen Caldicott: How Nuclear Apologists Mislead The World Over Radiation

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George Monbiot and others at best misinform and at worst distort evidence of the dangers of atomic energy


A girl is screened in Iitate, about 40km from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, where high levels of radiation have been detected. Photograph: Takumi Harada/AP

Soon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the “nuclear renaissance” to slow down appears to be evident from the industry’s attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima.

Proponents of nuclear power – including George Monbiot, who has had a mysterious road-to-Damascus conversion to its supposedly benign effects – accuse me and others who call attention to the potential serious medical consequences of the accident of “cherry-picking” data and overstating the health effects of radiation from the radioactive fuel in the destroyed reactors and their cooling pools. Yet by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure – and they play a predictable shoot-the-messenger game in the process.

To wit:

1) Mr Monbiot, who is a journalist not a scientist, appears unaware of the difference between external and internal radiation

Let me educate him.

The former is what populations were exposed to when the atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; their profound and on-going medical effects are well documented. [1]

Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). [2] After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.

The grave effects of internal emitters are of the most profound concern at Fukushima. It is inaccurate and misleading to use the term “acceptable levels of external radiation” in assessing internal radiation exposures. To do so, as Monbiot has done, is to propagate inaccuracies and to mislead the public worldwide (not to mention other journalists) who are seeking the truth about radiation’s hazards.

2) Nuclear industry proponents often assert that low doses of radiation (eg below 100mSV) produce no ill effects and are therefore safe. But , as the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report has concluded, no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual’s risk of developing cancer.

3) Now let’s turn to Chernobyl. Various seemingly reputable groups have issued differing reports on the morbidity and mortalities resulting from the 1986 radiation catastrophe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2005 issued a report attributing only 43 human deaths directly to the Chernobyl disaster and estimating an additional 4,000 fatal cancers. In contrast, the 2009 report, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”, published by the New York Academy of Sciences, comes to a very different conclusion. The three scientist authors – Alexey V Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V Nesterenko – provide in its pages a translated synthesis and compilation of hundreds of scientific articles on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster that have appeared in Slavic language publications over the past 20 years. They estimate the number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl meltdown at about 980,000.

Monbiot dismisses the report as worthless, but to do so – to ignore and denigrate an entire body of literature, collectively hundreds of studies that provide evidence of large and significant impacts on human health and the environment – is arrogant and irresponsible. Scientists can and should argue over such things, for example, as confidence intervals around individual estimates (which signal the reliability of estimates), but to consign out of hand the entire report into a metaphorical dustbin is shameful.

Read moreDr. Helen Caldicott: How Nuclear Apologists Mislead The World Over Radiation