The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
How Australia is complicit in China’s uranium and human rights abuses
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Today is the 60th anniversary of China’s one-party communist state — a fitting time to consider Australia’s role in supplying China with uranium and the associated impacts of the nuclear industry, within China and in terms of Australia’s non-proliferation commitments. The expanded Roxby Downs uranium and copper mine being proposed by BHP would see Australia selling uranium-infused bulk copper concentrate for processing in China, transferring more than one million tonnes a year of radioactive waste and thousands of tonnes of uranium. In opening up these markets, Australia is abandoning obligations that it has agreed to under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by supplying uranium to a nuclear weapons state that fails to comply with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). China is modernising — rather than eliminating — its nuclear arsenal and has so far failed to ratify the CTBT. On these grounds alone, Australia should not be dealing in uranium to such a state, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Australians should be asking whether it is appropriate to be trading uranium with a one-party state that clearly fails to comply with international human rights obligations and treats dissenting voices within its nuclear industry to forced incarceration. In Gansu Province in north-west China, a former uranium mine worker and whistleblower Sun Xiaodi and his daughter, Sun Dunbai, are languishing in a forced labour camp since July this year when a Chinese court sentenced them for “criminal acts that endangered state security”. Their crimes include inciting the public with libellous slogans including “nuclear pollution” and “human rights violation”. Sun Xiaodi is a former worker at No.792 Uranium Mine, a base of production of nuclear material in Gansu Province. Since 1988 he has repeatedly travelled to Beijing to petition the government to end the corruption that saturates China’s nuclear industry and spoken out for the rights of the mines workers. If this is how the Chinese government treats workers who dare to speak up, how can Australia conscionably supply uranium — one of the most dangerous substances of earth — to such a country that fails to meet the basic standards of transparency, accountability, democracy and respect for human rights that Australians take for granted. If we do so, are we not then complicit in nuclear risks and in suppression of human rights in China? Australian uranium will effectively disappear off the safeguards radar on arrival in China — a country where the military is inextricably linked to the civilian nuclear sector. The first shipment of BHP uranium from the existing Roxby Downs mine has recently left Australian ports — China-bound. |
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19 Comments
Far from being “one of the most dangerous substances of earth”, uranium represents about the only serious alternative to carbon to fuel China and India. Rather than belatedly trying to stop China becoming a nuclear state, rescuing the greenhouse should be the most visible activity of the Australian Conservation Foundation. The human rights plaint would have more credibility if it came from Amnesty International.
Excellent story James. Of course it’s a tad embarrassing to have the ACF convenor of the Mittagong Forum now pimping the federal ALP pro uranium export party as current Environment Minister.
Indeed when he’s not self censoring on Gorgon on a class 1 nature reserve at Barrow Island or our third worst oil leak and counting off NW Australia, he’s taking the pay off PR profile on large reservation of Indigenous lands in the NT, under what level of threat we have no idea.
If the ACF can shake off the reality of Garrett’s footprint on your face with a distinct ALP figleaf design on the heel, then well and good. Really sometimes I think radon is too good for him compromising the whole green movement investment in the Green Party with his own ego and careerism.
Certainly my list is getting big of the ALP pimping the environment to the benefit of big business. Last weekend it was an advert of MacBank in good weekend with a fluffy on it. Not to mention the “land bribe” according the environment court at Catherine Hill in the name of trade off for a local national park link. And on and on it goes. Even Keating is getting in on the act claiming a natural bay and green slope at Darling Harbour East really to veil a ramp up of commercial floor space ratio. Rudd as king coal on climate.
Really the ALP are all sleaze, and the Coalition all redneck. They don’t have a sustainability bone in their body.
For those who see nuclear as the answer to climate change, I genuninely desire a real answer to these questions:
- what do you do with the waste?
- how do you safely transport the waste to where-ever it will go?
- how do you guarantee that no waste will ever go “missing” and be used in dirty bombs?
- how can it help in the fight against climate change if it takes at least 15 years to build a nuclear station and bring it on line?
All I have ever received in reply to these questions, is a change of discussion to the supposed advantages of nuclear power.
“No.792 Uranium Mine, a base of production of nuclear material in Gansu Province…”
Evidently China has uranium resources of its own. This is unsurprising, as U is not that uncommon in Earth’s crust. So stopping Australian U exports to China will achieve what, exactly, other than making nuclear power marginally more expensive for the Chinese?
We should stop selling our Uranium because it would be an ethical stand - setting a positive example in the world.
We talk about being a world leader and doing the right thing… or at least sometimes, some people talk about such things.
We want to lead the way on real action on climate change (some of us). Even if we do it before some of the bigger nations. We led the world some years back on serious economic reform… opening our shores to lots of imports as we dismantled tariffs etc. It might have been the wrong move economically (maybe it was the right move), but Australia stepped up and did it before a lot of other nations did it. And i cost us a bit. We talk about protecting the environment of Antartica and leading by example.
Leading by example… novel idea hey. I guess if there is money to be made, why bother?
You know, when slavery was big, that same kind of argument is what some people said to Wilberforce: why end it? If Britain ends it others will just do it. And Britain will lose trade and maybe lose some power in the world as a result. The French will just fill the gap! They will make the money and get power from it.
But Britain led the way and others eventually followed.
In the end whether it is slavery or uranium or fighting climate change or protecting our part of Antartica or not whaling or protecting forests, or caring more for the poor, or helping our indigenous…. It is about moral courage and doing the right thing. It is about stepping up to the plate and being a good example in the world. It is about showing others that we can do it, we can afford it, and it is better for the world as well.
Honestly: it is about time we were led by real leaders, not just economists!
Jim Reiher called for for specific answers on nuclear energy. The questions need to be specific too, rephrased clinically.
You will get good solutions if you break down the word “waste” and search the Web for its component phrases of spent fuel, fission products, long lived fission products, actinides, transuranics, reprocessing, MOX, burning plutonium, borosilicate glass, wet storage, dry storage, transport casks, geological storage, decommissioning…
Mechanisms that stop used fuel going “missing” can be found by searching for IAEA safeguards, nuclear proliferation, Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP principles, leasing nuclear fuel, fast neutron reactors, reactors for developing countries, nuclear inspections…
Do they take years and years to build? First-of-a-kind and development reactors do, but modular reactors are already designed and debugged, so take 3 to 5 years from first concrete to first power. Mass production would make a big difference: the Queen Mary took 3.5 years to launch, but the Liberty Ships averaged six weeks.
There’s a fact that should be acknowledge and then the debate can continur. If all the countries of the developed world had nuclear power, there’d only be enough uranium for the next 20 yrs or so. Many reactors in both the US and Britain are well past their used by date. SO, those countries have to make some big decisions, decomission those reactors and replace them(which will cost billions?and they’ll still have to be guarded/monitord etc) or behave in a really smart manner, and look to renewable energy sources, like solar, wind, thermal etc.
One of the so-called solutions(in recent years) re waste from its nuclear reactors, is the US use of depleted uranium as the fuel for bombs. Iraq has felt the horror of the radiation of this horror in the horrific escallation in childhood cancers, and the number of genetic mutations - babies born with terrible abnormalities. I read only yesterday, that women in Gaza are giving birth to babies with horrific genetic problems that are recognised as a by-product of the weapons Israel used in January. I find these situations abhorrent, and Israel should face the International Criminal Court. Having said that, it follows, that the country that supplied these weapons should also face criminal charges. I feel only disgust and great sadness!
ROGER CLIFTON- You didn’t mention the Pakistan experience of some years ago. The 2nd in charge to Mushareff, who was closely involved with the nuclear fuel cycle was caught allegedely selling nuclear materials or informing other countries on how to establish a nuclear reactor. What happened to him? He was castigated via a slap on the wrist with a feather???
Israel has how many nuclear weapons, and I read today, that because its not a member of the IAEA it can more or less do as it pleases? Totally amazing.
Let’s have UN inspections on the US, Russia, China, Israel and others, starting from today! I should say at this point, that I hate all weapons, but particularly nuclear weapons and other WMD’s?
Liz45: The overwhelmingly important fact is that we have run out of space to dump our emissions. It is our outputs which are constrained, not our resources. Our climatologists have been trying to tell us this for the last 30 years. The IPCC was assembled with the highest possible scientific authority to ram the unpalatable truth home. That is the fact that should be acknowledged before the debates begin.
It is a sad fact that we have far more coal than we or our descendants could ever burn: it is the atmosphere which is full - of its waste.
Similarly we have excess of uranium. One mine alone, Olympic Dam has “proved up” 300,000 tonnes or 15 years of current world consumption. As demand arises, they will prove up some more. And thorium? There is even more of it than uranium. Both could rescue the greenhouse.
Please let’s stop talking about mutant babies. The medical statistics show a lack of correlation between the incidence and irradiation. Instead, it associates baseless hysteria with environmentalism.
In these darkening days, the world needs sober-speaking environmentalists more and more.
“If all the countries of the developed world had nuclear power, there’d only be enough uranium for the next 20 yrs or so”
Not true, Liz45. And it would only get within a bull’s roar of being true if all U exploration stopped today. U exploration has only resumed in the last few years after a hiatus of several decades. There’s a lot more out there yet.
ROGER CLIFTON - How dare you just cast my observations aside with such derision! There is too much evidence, that you obviously want to ignore(It’s a bit messy isn’t it, these babies with no arms, legs or hearts, eyes etc) as you’ve skimmed over every reasonable question raised for you t o answer! Watch, “The Doctor, Depleted Uranium, and the dying children of Iraq”. Put Depleted Uranium into your search engine! Watch “Blowin’ in the Wind”. A highly respected US ex-military person, Donald Rokke? was given the job of decontaminating military machinery after the first Gulf War. What he found out about DU was chilling, and due to his work, he’s contracted some very serious, lethal illnesses. When he started to speak out, he was ‘rubbished’ by the same military group who’d previously given him a very prestigious award - it doesn’t pay to tell the truth, and get in the way of the big fellas! He made this documentary, and he has no doubt, that the use of depleted uranium in bombs is causing cancers and birth defects. The doctor who’d been in Iraq 20-30 yrs prior to the yrs after the gulf war, also believes it. And he was almost killed by those who wanted to shut him up. So, don’t cast off my assertions as to the horrific effects of this filth, which, incidently, the use of is against the Geneva Conventions. The US, Britain and Israel should be dragged before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, and anyone who defends them, is just as culpable in my view; being an accessory after the crime/s. I suppose kids in the middle east aren’t really as important as angl-saxon kids are they? Part of the ‘unpeople’ brigade!
There have been many incidences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and other places, where the numbers of cancers grew overwhelmingly after the countries were bombed. There are US and British military people who’ve had kids with some horrible illnesses and genetic difficulties after their parent/s arrived home. There have been deaths in the US military due to the last 6 yrs in Iraq, and I suggest to you, that Australia will be ‘denying any significent research results, tying the sick/dying veterans with depleted uranium’? For gods sake, ex-military people(and their kids) are still trying to get justice due to their ‘cleaning up in Hiroshima’. The military has denied that they were even there? Then there’s those who got cancer and other illnesses from cleaning out planes etc? The US still refuses to admit/clean up/compensate Vietnam for Agent Orange mate. What silver cloud do you live on?
The whole nuclear industry is dirty, dangerous and insecure. It’s also inefficient as a third of the energy is the emission of steam, and it’s also common, that reactors aren’t set to their optimum as a safety precaution. The industry requires huge amounts of water, from the tailings dam to the reactor core, to the cooling ponds for spent fuel rods. Australia is the driest habitible country on the planet. BHP Billiton is building a desalination plant for the huge expansion of its Olympic Dam site. Putting the unwanted salt back into the ocean or streams or ?? will lead to the probable destruction of some marine life. The use of rivers, lakes etc in the US near reactors has caused this type of destruction, as the water going back into these places raises the temperature of the water, enough to kill off fish stocks and other marine life. Some creatures only need a raised temp of 1 degree to prevent spawning. It was Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth years ago, who informed us, years ago, during the life of the Hifar Reactor at Lucas Heights, that contanimated water was going in to the Georges River.
There is no permanent site anywhere in the world for the safe storage of high level nuclear waste. The costs of security, decommission (which always means, that original costings blow out in the many millions if not billions) contanimation surveillance and other costs are not included in the costs of nuclear power. I recall a couple of yrs ago, when an ALP member of Parliament, raised questions re the almost new Lucas Heights reactor. Julie Bishop(the Liberal relevant minister) had to be ‘dragged, kicking and screaming’ to the dispatch box, before she finally admitted that the reactor was shut down due to ‘teething problems’. There’s another very good reason why nuclear power is not a safe option - everyone involved has a vested interest NOT to tell the citizens the truth; from the company that builds it, the scientists, workers(unless they start getting sick) security people, police and of course politicians. Why would you trust politicians with a nuclear industry, when they won’t give a straight answer over almost any subject now? I certainly don’t. And the lives of my kids and grand kids are too important to take any risks. I don’t know if you have any, or if you give a damn about anyone else’s kids, but I do, and I ‘got’ mine with too much difficulty to have some glib smart arse fool around with their safety! Perhaps if men were closer to ‘creating’, nurturing and giving birth’ to new life, men like you’d take a bit more notice on the dangers to their lives. Pity!
MARK DUFFET - Prove it! I heard someone with more experience, knowledge than mine say so. (If all the energy used around the world was via nuclear power via uranium)The smart thing is to look for alternatives now. The lies about the safety of nuclear power is spread by those who are making the money from the filthy mining of the stuff. While ever there’s uranium to make money, they’ll keep on lying about its safety?Some people take amazing risks for money now - and they don’t give a s**t about my kids or yours, but I do! What if the next lot of ‘red dust’ comes from the huge extended tailings dam in South Australia? Why is it, that cancer is such a threat these days? Why have the numbers risen so markedly each decade? Why is it, that 1 out of every 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime? I’ve lost too many extended family members, friends and I can’t recall the last older person who died from ‘natural causes’? Why is that, or don’t you care? My partner’s daughter died in June-she’d have turned 47 last week? Horrific!Why are babies diagnosed with cancers, poor diets? a death wish, genetic perhaps, why is that? I predict, that on my death bed I won’t be thinking of the economic boost from flogging our uranium overseas, but I will smile when I think of my hopefully healthy grand and/or great grand kids!
Here’s some for starters! there’s lots more evidence re the use of this filthy and lethal stuff! Cancers ‘love’ little bodies, as their tissue etc is nice and pink and new! Horrendous! Immoral at best! Use of such foul stuff should be a war crime. Israel used it, and also phosphorous bombs. Evidence is too real to ignore!!!!!
1 - 10 of about 98,000 for The Doctor,Depleted Uranium and the dying children of Iraq - 0.48 sec. (About this page)
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The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children
The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children. 53: … The film exposes the use and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. …
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=514677
YouTube - Depleted Uranium
Dr. Doug Rokke talks about depleted uranium and the effects on people. … Depleted Uranium (My Public Service Announcement ) 19,876,839 views. Mredwards12. Added
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Frontline Films - Blowin’ in the Wind
Blowin’ in the Wind examines the secret treaty that allows the US … Blowin’ In The Wind reveals that Iraqi babies are now being born with major birth defects. …
http://www.frontlinefilms.com.au/videos/blowin.htm - 11k - Cached
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-8PlJVhogs - 122k - Cached
Roger: You have not addressed my questions adequately and Liz45 has more than demonstrated problems with your position. Transport and store nuclear waste… you have not shown me how it can be done safely, and the reason is that it cant be done safely.
Instead of seeing nuclear as the answer, why not invest your focus and energies into clean renewable research and advocacy?
You ended by appealing for “sober speaking enviornmentalists”, as if you are one of them! But you advocate nuclear power stations!
When did black become white?
When did black become white? Maybe about the same time Green became Red.
Seriously, Jim, large sections of environmentalism have moved on since the 1980s (as has nuclear technology). Here’s some more ‘sober speaking environmentalists’: Patrick Moore. James Lovelock. Barry Brook. James Hansen. Why don’t you find out what they reckon about nuclear energy?
Liz45, leaving aside your outrageously sexist remark insinuating that men don’t care about the welfare of their children as much as women, I strongly recommend you have a read of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. I don’t hold with everything he says, but there’s one take home message I think you need to hear: Our health is getting better, not worse. To the extent that cancer rates are rising at all, it’s mainly because we’re not being carried off by other diseases first, that have been reduced to obscurity by vaccination and vastly improved hygiene and medicine.
MARK DUFFETT - I used that as I can never understand why men in particular, as soon as (usually a woman) brings up the dangers, we’re treated with the patriarchal, patronising BS of not being ‘informed’? That we’re obviously uneducated about this issue, if we don’t calmly advocate the use of recognised poisons in the atmosphere, the waterways etc.Over the years, I’ve read heaps of the mistakes, incidents, accidents, what happened to those serving in the military, what happened to those who viewed the nuclear tests, how govts around the world allow their citizens to be made horribly sick with this filth. If that isn’t enough, due to the mounting of nuclear waste, in particular the spent uranium in the fuel rods after they cool, the US very smartly thought, they’d put it in weapons, where it can slice through everything like ‘a hot knife through butter’? I’ve even heard them use that term. Then, they can quite ‘rightly’ assert, that they’ve taken care of the waste, see??? I think it’s obscene, and I must also stress, that I don’t hear any women in the military etc advocating the wonders of DU. Read and watch the documentaries that I suggested, and then have another think.
As for cancers on the increase. The kinds of cancer kids get the most, are the leukemias, which have nought to do with them being immunised against anything. If these cancers had a ‘tag’ that said how they were caused, I believe your argument would flop - there’d be a riot by parents(and grandparents like me) re the unnecessary misery and death of so many children! Why do babies get cancer of the kidney or liver or bone? Many of these are the same as the cancers caused by nuclear materials. Go and read some of Dr Helen Calcicott, an Australian Pediatrician, living in the US, who has been writing, speaking and advocating against nuclear power for over 30 yrs! I’d rather take note of her, rather than someone with a vested interest in keeping the truth from me, due to his/her making lots of bucks. The fact is, that even if the normal use of radiated materials in reactors was OK, you can’t build a sports ground on top of it when you demolish it! In fact, it has to be monitored by security people for yonks!
Even the movement of the waste can only be carried out via oppressive means. We aren’t entitled to know when these containers on trucks are going to pass through our towns/cities - in the dead of night. It may not be near your home, but if it comes into the Illawarra to go by ship from Port Kembla, it certainly could impact on my life, and my kids. If men take exception to women’s ‘sexist’ assumptions about loving their kids, I’d strongly suggest, that they start acting as if they do. It’s a fact, that most if not all decisions about this subject, wars, what rubbish is put here or there etc is done by men; apart from Thatcher, those who’ve made the illegal and murderous decisions re Iraq & Afghanistan were men - us women just protested and appealed for them not to. Like you, they treated us/me with derision too!
So, what about the cancers Mark? If it was just old people now dying of cancer, you might have a point, but your so-called reasons aren’t even logical. I raised the situation of babies, kids and young adults like my mate’s daughter(who was my dear friend for 25 yrs) dying of cancers. Old people yes, I’d say they died of that because they survived measles, chickenpox, flu and other diseases; amazing surgeries re heart and so on, but 1 in every 2 people diagnosed with cancer? No, your statement is inaccurate and illogical! The logical conclusion or fear, is that it’s due to radiation; due to particles, pesticides, fertilizers etc in food; exposure to petrochemicals that includes plastics, carpets, some clothes etc. Scientists are working hard for a cure, but nobody seems to care about why it’s happening. I’m not content to ‘leave it to the experts’ as they have a vested interest in either rejecting these possibilities, or ridiculing them and those who raise them. I’ve been passionately against the whole nuclear fuel(fool) cycle for over 30 yrs; I’ve read heaps, and nothing I’ve read, seen or heard has changed my mind. It’s filthy, expensive, requires almost a police state re safety, and the waste can take up to 1/2 a million years half life - that is, in half a million years, it will still have years and years where it’s dangerous! They can’t even safely store the dangers of coal - how can they safely store plutonium, a man made product, of which every reactor keeps on making enough to blow up the world thousands of times over. Forget the ‘typical’ bombs, a couple of kilograms of plutonium, if it ‘gets together’ will explode - with lethal consequences. (It almost happened at Windscale in Britian yrs ago - they destroyed millions of gallons of milk to pacify the public when these substances were found, outside the reactor walls - near lush green slopes where cows grazed?) Those reactors are still going; many yrs after their used by date! It’s insane! don’t try and tell me, that they haven’t been emitting nasty stuff into the atmosphere, into the food, water chain, and in the bodies of cattle who give milk or are slaughtered for food?
What’s happened to the small 10-15 megawatt? reactor at Lucas Heights? The one closed down for the new one? Kiddies playing hop scotch on it are they? Truly! I read a book years ago by a Walter Paterson called simply, Nuclear Power(I think) The book was full of incidents and accidents that were alarming in their simplicity, carelessness and human error. I don’t think humans are so clever these days as for these or similar situations occuring. Then, there’s the pure evil in my view, of putting DU into bombs? I don’t know how anyone can calmly justify this filthy stuff, when people with such contempt for humanity will use it in this way. The whole argument ends there - it just emphasizes my point, that this stuff in the wrong hands(regardless of whether they’re presidents, scientists or those at the Pentagon) is too dangerous to allow. The hypocrisy of so-called ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ is a joke, when yes, what they want to do is horrific, but those who are judging, jailing and killing their people on a grand scale, are supposed to be ‘the good guys’? You still want to justify this travesty? Go for it? I don’t - not one bit!
I suggest you read, ‘Just Testing’ about those who were struck down with cancers etc; ‘The Menace of Atomic Energy’ is another; ‘The Endangered Planet’ is another. Then watch the videos above, and read some of Donald Rokke, not your ordinary anti-nuke campaigner. Listen to the real stories of those young military people whose kids are suffering each day, and who will probably pass these things on to their kids; or perhaps decide not to have any? If you make any claim to being a caring human being, it must challenge your calm acceptance for an industry that is at best - filthy! what about the health of the miners? Who’s monitoring them? Who washes their clothes? Do they have kids? What’s their health like? We already know of high lead levels in Mt Isa, high levels in the fish in Botany Bay and how it’s impacted on kids? And you think the risks are worth it?
Incidently, the stats re the current situation in Australia in relation to cancer, the 1 in 2 diagnosis assertions were made by the Cancer Council last year as I recall? Yes, thankfully the recovery rate for kids with cancers has grown which is marvellous, but why are the little cherubs getting it in the first place? Must be a reason? What happens to the immune system if it’s put under stress from things in the environment like radiation, lead, plastics and other derivatives from oil? If cancers are caused? by a combination of the environment, genetic and lifestyle, how does it apply to babies and young kids? Don’t drink, don’t smoke(except passive, which is deadly - but they don’t get lung cancer, they get blood, bone and other cancers? and they don’t eat lots of bad food? Do you know? Aren’t you bothered by this?
Just as I was wondering if and where to aim a reply in what is a very target-rich environment, along comes occasional Crikey correspondent Geoff Russell to the rescue. This just-appeared piece, on why the likes of Helen Caldicott should be viewed skeptically, is well worth a close read.
But you have not addressed the increase in cancers in small children Mark… I sense a fob off in your referring us to another article.
Mark Duffett : Thank you for that link to the statistical analysis of Helen Caldicott’s figures. It is the sober, respectable approach that we need. However, his wording does lack the brevity required in exchanges like this.
As President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Ian Lowe must be using a more palatable phrasing when he gives feedback on internal analyses inside the ACF. If we knew what they were, we would have a vocabulary in common.
If we are all to move together on rescuing the greenhouse, we need to share a common language, or at least a respect for statistical reliability.
Jim: Hmmm, a couple of minutes Googling indicates cancer incidence in American children increased very slightly (from 13 to 15 per 100,000) between 1974 and 1994. Over the same period, child deaths from cancer halved, from just under 6 to just under 3 per 100,000. Make of that what you will, but my list of suspects for the increased recorded incidence would start with improved diagnosis and go through other risk factors like obesity and diet, before reaching synthetic chemicals (particularly organics) in the environment and yes, radiation - but not from anything to do with the nuclear industry. Something else we in the developed world have been doing a lot more of in recent decades is flying. Every time you do that, you’re greatly increasing your cosmic ray exposure by putting yourself above most of the atmosphere.
All cards on the table: Amongst other things I map radiation for a living. It’s a really useful tool for mapping geology and soils. That this is so tells you two things. One, that radiation is everywhere. Not just from uranium, but potassium as well. If you live on or near anything with clay in it (soils, bricks, crockery…) you’re being irradiated by it. Two, there is no evidence in all this radiation mapping for any signficant anthropogenic occurrence of radioactive material, outside the bounds of uranium mines. Everywhere outside the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl, radiation is overwhelmingly naturally sourced.
Rather than ‘fobbing off’, I was reluctant to engage further with Liz45, as I read statements like “I’m not content to ‘leave it to the experts’” as a big red flashing warning light that rational discussion is unlikely to be fruitful. She even said “don’t try and tell me, that they haven’t been emitting nasty stuff into the atmosphere”. So I won’t.