Download Manual for Survival A Chernobyl Guide to the Future eBook Kate Brown

Product details File Size 3591 KB Print Length 432 pages Publisher W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 12, 2019) Publication Date March 12, 2019 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B07DP6GCB5

Manual for Survival A Chernobyl Guide to the Future eBook Kate Brown Reviews

•  Kate Brown's book is extremely well written. The problem is that the points she makes ignore the best science available from hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and instead defer to life-long anti-nuclear crusaders like Helen Caldicott.
  
  She ignores all the measurements conducted in the years after the accident both in the former Soviet countries and abroad, and unquestioningly trusts some researchers, while being deeply skeptical of others.
  
  Chernobyl was a tragedy-- but not for the reasons Brown asserts. It was a tragedy instead, because if we had continued to build nuclear plants at the rates we did in the late 70s and early 80s, much more of the world would be have clean electricity grids like France, Sweden, and Ontario do. Our chances at limiting global warming to 1.5C would be much better than they are.
  
  "Brown takes the views of the ‘usual suspects’ into account, but dismisses mainstream science where there is peer review, and accountability. The 'usual suspects' tell a good story – but without a shred of evidence from studies that are appropriately powered and controlled for confounders."
  - Dr. Geraldine Thomas, professor of pathology at Imperial College London, Founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank
  
  Having reviewed hours of Dr. Helen Caldicott lectures, I know that she is not a source of accurate information. And Manual for Survival, once past the Chernobyl retelling, and past Brown's own interviews with Liquidators, takes the Caldicott approach of questioning motivations, making poor assumptions about research practices, and the making of untrue statements which could easily have been fact-checked.
  
  "I was further shocked to read in this Chernobyl book Brown’s bald statement that radiation is the only known cause of myeloid leukemia, in the context clearly implying (wrongly) that there are no other causes."
  - Jim Smith
  
  "There have been many very careful studies conducted at huge expense over many years and it is a shame that she dismisses these and concentrates on contentious studies carried out by others that are not highly regarded within their own community."
  - Dr. Geraldine Thomas
  
  "Brown claims that the evidence collected and assembled by Greenpeace is more reliable than the evidence collected by hundreds of scientists working under the auspices of the UN and other international agencies."
  - Michael Shellenberger
  
  I've personally seen Dr. Helen Caldicott and Greenpeace make flat-out untrue statements regarding nuclear power. If Kate Brown wishes to "present both sides" and let the reader decide who is more credible, that is certainly one approach to writing a book. But only the Caldicott assumptions of Chernobyl's impact are fully articulated in Manual For Survival.
• There is a tremendous amount of information and studies that are ignored and some very basic errors that would embarrass a physics freshman to make.
  
  Take this for example
  
  "Now, for reasons they do not fully understand, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy estimate that the period for half of cesium-137 to disappear from Chernobyl forests will be between 180 and 320 years.² That means the berries the pickers were selling on the road would be nearly as radioactive now as they were a couple of decades ago."
  
  The author here cites Wired, of all places (the article is 'Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Radioactive Longer Than Expected'). My bet is that the article's mention of 180 to 320 years should have been in reference to cesium in general (as that's the only thing that makes sense). In 30.2 years half the Cs-137 is now barium for goodness' sake! Even if it never left biological creatures at all it'll still decay! In 320 years less than 1/1000 of the original Cs-137 will remain, a far cry from HALF. In my opinion this is a terrific mistake that could only be made by someone who doesn't know the very basics about this topic.
  
  For the record I calculated that a 320 year ecological half-life for Cs-137 gives an "effective" half-life of 27.6 years.
  
  Edit
  Before purchasing I recommend reading Jim T. Smith's review of this book for an alternate perspective.
• I simply cannot take this book seriously. Why? Because there is, of course, a cover-up. Really? One of the most studied events in human history- from a site that has been a working power plant (the other three reactors remained in operation, #3 in the same building for 14 years), and the construction site of the largest movable object on Earth, built by an international consortium, using thousands of workers, every day since 1986) -- and there is a cover-up? Chernobyl is a tourist destination now. This book is fiction, and not very good fiction at that. Seems like at least some of those folks would have said something... massive cover-up.
• Kate Brown's extraordinary tenacity and acuity in archival research and interviews, expressed through her honest, engaging prose, have provided us with the first thorough and coherent account of the Chernobyl disaster. It illuminates the hobbles placed by the terms of the Life Span Study of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb victims in pursuing the health effects of nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl--hobbles that also exploited in providing grounds for denial of harms, continuing through the treatment of Fukushima--wherein abstract dosimetric models permit the dismissal of the overwhelming presence of a panoply of illnesses. She shows us how Soviet-era bureaucracies operate in the face of such a challenge alongside the multi-armed operations of US and international agencies. It is an exceptionally detailed, principled account, with historical depth, of what Japanese have come to call the "nuclear village." Brown also shows us the many heroes, both named and nameless, who tried to grasp what was happening on the ground, to record it, and to devise means of help those living with the endless consequences of the disaster. The book concludes by challenging us to concretely envision what facing up to our contaminated reality might mean. This is a work of superb scholarship and a work of courage. It is also an urgent work as leaders present us--again--with the fantasy of usable nuclear weapons and conveniently sized, safe reactors.
  Norma Field
• This well-researched book is beautifully written and so informative. I bought it as a gift but could not put it down! I plan to recommend it to my book club.
• Kate Brown documents recent history making us understand how an environmental event can affect the world for decades. Important information as nuclear accidents continue to effect us all. Gripping personal narrative history mixing archival research and science. Great book!