[ndt]

"Much of this is anti-nuc BS. ... The radiation leakage at Chernobyl/Pripyat did not cause this. "

This is not "mystery science". If you expose living things to radiation you get cancer, chromosome damage and exactly the effects that are visible.

Feel free to buy up all that cheap farm land. Don't let a little thing like a worst case scenario nuclear disaster scare you away.

[MindBender26]

Actually, if you read any of the hard science on Chernobyl, you will see that is a a great living lab, because we are seeing chromosomal changes, but without many of the resulting long term health changes. Health problem in many goblasts (counties/districts) are nowhere nearly as severe as they were expected to be given the level of radioactivity.

Seems we are a very adaptive race.

It appears to defuse many arguments of the environmental wackos that pollution will kill us all.

For example, in "Zone of Estrangement" all is polluted with radioactivity, but 700 people live off land there and are doing reasonably well.

[jess35]

The effects from Chernobyl are not nearly as dire as were predicted. There has been no increase in birth defects attributable to radiation. The only cancers that have been linked to the accident are Thyroid cancers and that is an expected consequence considering the area already had a high rate of iodine deficiency before the accident and the government didn't evacuate immediately or distribute potassium iodide.

The gloom and doom predictions have failed to materialize.