Doom

Poststructural Pub
1

Morning all! :slight_smile:

(From ‘The Cold War’ thread).

I don’t know if Jerry is talking specifically about ‘global warming’ here (he spoke about it in an earlier post in that other thread) or man-made disasters.

Some would likely say that climate change is a man-made disaster, but I’m not sure I agree. We’re contributing to climate change for sure, but climate changes constantly and there’s plenty of geological evidence for that (we’re still technically coming out of the last ice age). Strange to think that the UK once boasted mangrove swamps, or a Mediterranean climate, and even arid deserts. Not so very long ago either, in geological time.

Jerry mentioned frogs (sorry to keep mentioning your name here old chap, but credit where it’s due and all that), and they and other amphibians are indeed recognised as “environment indicators” or bio-indicators. Some time ago I was doing some research for a book, and was mortified to discover that here in England fish and frogs are ‘spontaneously’ changing sex in some of our rivers; rivers polluted by the oestrogen discharged by millions of women on the Pill or HRT.

(Oestrogen can’t be filtered out of the system by our waste-water treatment plants - far too expensive to try. It’s in our tap-water. It’s not simply a British issue either, so don’t feel smug over there in the US of A)

Makes me wonder a bit when I read and hear about global declining birth-rates. Even though ‘they’ say it won’t affect humans. Just amphibians and fish. Okay.

Reminiscing about the Cold War put me in mind of my childhood, and the worry about plutonium in milk from all those nuclear tests over there in Nevada. It was a big thing at the time but soon faded from the public consciousness. Until Chernobyl. I did a fair bit of research on biological warfare testing here in the UK (Dorset, to be precise) and got sidetracked into the US ACHRE report, and the somewhat thought-provoking publication “Killing Our Own” (you can find it on the 'net in .pdf) which is focused on nuclear fallout from the Nevada tests and its effects on the US (and world) population. “Please, God, don’t let us have killed John Wayne” (quote from a scientist from The Defense Nuclear Agency People magazine October 11, 1980).

So, from oestrogen in the water to the massive stockpiles of nuclear and chemical weapons left over from the cold war, global climate change (which although perfectly natural is clearly human-assisted), industrial pollution, radioactive waste to genetically-modified crops, and a plethora of other excesses, what d’you reckon?

Are we all doomed?

2

Interesting. I’ve heard that many of the film crews who worked in the Nevada and Utah deserts making westerns suffered from cancer later.


I’ll bet you spell “orthopedic” as “orthopaedic”. :wink:

Estrogen (oestrogen) in the water? Hmmm. We’ll be seeing men’s bra’s in stores soon.

I’ve pondered the idea that perhaps the planet regulates itself. When it’s cycles get knocked out of whack it will try to correct them. Could global warming engender a super-volcano eruption?

3

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_016.html

“Of the 220 persons who worked on The Conqueror on location in Utah in 1955, 91 had contracted cancer as of the early 1980s and 46 died of it, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Experts say under ordinary circumstances only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten cancer.”

There’s a lot more detail on that link.

4

What? No comment on my jokes? No snappy replies? Sheesh.

5

:astonished: There were jokes?

6

One of my favourite lines from Dad’s Army, after Fraser has gone through one of his five minute monologues..


Captain Mainwaring: So we take it, Fraser, that you have a diving suit.



Hmm. I think you have to see the episode to fully appreciate the moment.

7

Well not so much jokes as observations on spelling differences which I thought would elicit a witty comment.

What’s happened to the Gary kelly humor (humour) these days?

8

Look, this is a thread about Doom, and how we’re all as doomed as doomed things.

But are people speaking of doom? No. Instead of an encyclopaedic catalogue of Things of a Doomy Nature, we’ve got old British TV shows, diving-suits and a discussion about man-boobs.

As Private Frazer was wont to say, “Aye, we’re all doomed!”


9

I grew up in southern Utah in the 50s and 60s. I do recall one youngster in our town of 450 who died of leukemia (that would have been about 1959), but I certainly didn’t connect it to fallout (adults may have). In the mid 60s a group of physicians came to the small town we were living in at that time and had many (if not all) children in the town taken to the elementary school gymnasium where we stood in long lines to have our blood drawn. I never understood what that was for, but now assume it had something to do with the concerns that were starting to be raised about the effects of the fallout. (I could be wrong…I’ll have to ask my Dad about that…)

I have a pretty pessimistic view of where this world is going, but I’m a pessimist in general, so that’s not surprising.

Susan

10

Well at the risk of fanning political flames around here Susan you could have a look at http://www.downwinders.org/

And do a google search on that website for “Utah”.

Utah’s, well, the downwind State. :frowning:

I’d also recommend “Killing our Own” which is a disturbing read and makes much mention of Utah in relation to the Nevada tests. Note though that the publication is not without its detractors.

11

I’m very familiar with the Downwinders - we hear a lot about it here, not surprisingly. The biggest news lately has been the cutting off of government funding for a long-term study of thyroid cancers and fall-out. On the other hand, it’s my understanding that the government has earmarked $25 million to prepare the Nevada test site for more testing.

Susan

12

My father and his workmates took part in the testing at Bikini, Eniwetok and Nevada. At Bikini they went into ground zero within a few hours of the blast. They wore shorts, no shirts, and sandals. None of these same men, about 10 total, died of cancer. Several of them lived into their 80s. I believe one is still living. As time went on they began to take more precautions. It amazed me.

Ron

13

Wasn’t that in an episode of “Seinfeld”, where George’s father and Kramer invented the bra for men?

:laughing: