Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
By addebook • Sep 8th, 2008 • Category: Chemistry
Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
By Jacob Darwin Hamblin
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Number Of Pages: 311
Publication Date: 2008-02-28
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0813542200
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780813542201
Binding: Hardcover
In the early 1990s, Russian President Boris Yeltsin revealed that for the previous thirty years the Soviet Union had dumped vast amounts of dangerous radioactive waste into rivers and seas in blatant violation of international agreements. The disclosure caused outrage throughout the Western world, particularly since officials from the Soviet Union had denounced environmental pollution by the United States and Britain throughout the cold war.
Poison in the Well provides a balanced look at the policy decisions, scientific conflicts, public relations strategies, and the myriad mishaps and subsequent cover-ups that were born out of the dilemma of where to house deadly nuclear materials. Why did scientists and politicians choose the sea for waste disposal? How did negotiations about the uses of the sea change the way scientists, government officials, and ultimately the lay public envisioned the oceans? Jacob Darwin Hamblin traces the development of the issue in Western countries from the end of World War II to the blossoming of the environmental movement in the early 1970s.
This is an important book for students and scholars in the history of science who want to explore a striking case study of the conflicts that so often occur at the intersection of science, politics, and international diplomacy.
Summary: God Help Us All
Rating: 5
Having grown up in the span of time covered in this book,(and not paying much attention), I found myself often aghast at the waste disposal practices and the decisions made by the corporate “they” who determine our fate. Green devotees will be appalled to learn the global history of cavalier dumping of toxic waste into our waterways. This is not a sensational expose, but rather a well researched, extremely well-written illumination of what was going on with regard to radioactive waste in the beginning years of our modern nuclear age. It should be required reading for all environmental studies.
Summary: Game Over
Rating: 5
Unequivocally, the most depressing book on Amazon. The most damning critique of industrialization. How anyone could have been stupid enough to dump tons of nuclear waste into the Baltic and waterways emptying into the Pacific has got to be the terminal rhetorical question we will never live to answer. I feel sick simply looking at this heavily documented tome. Yes. This mess really did happen. Who can help us?
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