Chernobyl Health Effects

1-1. May 10, 2000

1-2. The nuclear radiation and waste can travel over air and make some food harmful to eat.

1-3. In the fish around Norway.

1-4. In the first few years of the explosion, caesium was found in ‘foodstuffs’ and water.

1-5. Because scientists say the caesium is becoming immersed in the soil.

1-6. It’s because of a concentration gradient, pushing the soil into the water, etc.

1-7. For another 10 to 15 years.

1-8. They will remain restricted for about 50 years more.

2-1. These are the children that are victims of Chernobyl radiation. They were born to parents working at the nuclear reactor.

2-2. Members of clean up teams who were sent in after the nuclear reactor exploded.

2-3. Because they contain a higher amount of radiation in their bodies.

2-4. The internal controls were the children’s siblings that were in the womb during the explosion. The external controls were families that were not exposed to the radiation.

2-5. The DNA could have been changed by the children themselves, but scientists reject this theory.

2-6. A change could be because of somatic mutation in the children conceived after parental exposure.

3-1. Low doses are typically no problem, but high doses can kill cells in the body. The rule applies for organs and DNA as well.

3-2. All acute health victims were immediately sent to hospitals- some died as well.

3-3. Late health effects usually grow in people gradually and is mostly unnoticeable at first.

Conservation for the People

Notes

• three vultures were placed into the wild and the populations reached 40 million by the 1990’s but then if fell 97%
• it fell because of anti-inflammatory drugs
• caused renal failure(sharp kidney failure)
• people from Conservation International discovered 25 hot spots
• Some of the hot spots are
• the Brazilian Cerrado
• The horn of Africa
• the concept of hot spots provided a set of rigorous quantifiable criteria by which to guide conservation investment
• for the past 15 years the strategy has been embraced by philanthropic and multi-national organizations alike
• one recent survey showed that only 30% of Americans have heard of the term “biodiversity”
• biodiversity hot spots clearly are not galvanizing the public to fund or participate in conservation
• Neither Louisiana’s marshes or Sri Lanka’s mangroves rank among the world’s biodiversity hot spots because they have virtually no endemic plant species.

• Connections between habitat loss and economic loss that are not always as obvious can also be significant.
• Without a close connection between conservation and social issues, policies that protect biodiversity are unlikely to find much public support.
• The conservation efforts we envision will be assessed not just by the number of species protected, but by improvments to people’s well being.
• Services were divided into four categories:
• provisioning (supplying products such as food or genetic resources)
• regulating (contributing regulatory functions such as flood control)
• cultural (supplying non material benefits such as a sense of spiritual well-being)
• supporting (providing basic elements of the ecosystem, such as soil formation)
• At issue are not just “exotic” diseases, however. By eliminating wolves and mountain lions, people in the eastern U.S. triggered an explosion in the deer and deer tick populations, which has resulted in more than 20,000 new cases of Lyme disease annually
• Every animal in the food chain is important
• One quarter of a million people join the planet every day. More forests and wet- lands will be cleared for agriculture, and more ocean species will be fished to depletion.
• Biodiversity is going to decline
• Wilderness separate from human influence no longer exists.
• The future of ecosystem services as a conservation strategy may depend on the unlikely collaboration of ecologists and finance experts.