Life in the zone comes at a hight cost for the individuals and species involved:

They have gathered a rising mountain of data and published dozens of papers, all suggesting that the chronic low-level radioactivity of the zone and the hot particles that find their way into the soil and food in the area cause long-term damage to the organisms that live there. In barn swallows, they found deformed beaks and eyes, tumors, damaged toes, and asymmetrical tails. (All of these changes, of course, can make the birds less successful at catching food, migrating, and breeding.) They also found high rates of dead or deformed sperm in birds nesting in the most contaminated areas, further demonstrating the reproductive cost of living in the zone. When they examined a wider sample of bird species, and then invertebrates and spiders, they found similar results: “a very strong signal of contamination effects on abundance and biodiversity,” Mousseau says. In other words, populations declined as radioactivity increased. The evidence of the damage caused by the contamination was alarming: Gathering their results on abnormalities in barn swallows for a Biology Letters paper that same year, they described the external examination of 7,700 individual birds, declaring it “the most extensive data set on abnormalities in animals ever recorded.”

So much so that it seems it requires a constant inflow of animals to sustain the populations.

Most startlingly, in 2005, Møller and Mousseau did a chemical analysis of the feathers of swallows captured in Ukraine and Denmark to identify where each bird had spent its winter migration. They compared the results with those from specimens caught in Ukraine before 1986, found in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History in Kiev, and noticed a distinct pattern. Barn swallows were now coming into the zone for the summer from a greater number of locations than before the accident. This suggested that the population of birds living in contaminated areas around Chernobyl was not sustaining itself without outside help: The area was a sink. Given the low survival and fertility rates, the population could only be propped up by constant immigration. And what is true for swallows might also be true for the other species whose presence in the zone, drawn in by the absence of humans, has seemed so remarkable.

There are of course also critics cited, but it seems much of it is due to the politics that the science either way would have direct and strong implications for. The argument sounds pretty solid and differentiated to me:

“I’ve never seen any data related to any kind of census, any kind of quantitative assessment of numbers,” Mousseau says. (Indeed, Gaschak’s assertions about the population density of large mammals in the zone are based on observational estimates.) This year, Møller and Mousseau hope to finally gather enough data to conclusively establish the density and abundance of mammal populations in the zone, returning with a team to conduct a widespread census. In the meantime, they have continued to produce attention-grabbing research on avian life. At the beginning of February, the online journal PLoS ONE published their latest paper, showing that birds they captured within the zone had brains 5 percent smaller than those they found outside it. “Microcephaly,” Møller says. “A common condition in humans in Ukraine in these contaminated areas.”

Which raises a key point: If the entire debate about the ecosystem of Chernobyl were simply about the fate of barn swallows or wild boar, the conflict might be easily dismissed as arcane bickering between biologists. But the stakes are much higher, because the animal studies may shed real light on the effects of long-term radiation exposure on humans. Post-Chernobyl, obtaining statistically significant epidemiological data on cancer was complicated by Soviet-era secrecy and disinformation and by the scattering of the hundreds of thousands of workers who participated in the cleanup and then returned to their homes across the Soviet Union.

But one of the few certainties to emerge from research into low-level radiation since 1986 is that different species react to chronic exposure in different ways. Pine trees cope less well than birch. Migrant barn swallows are apparently very radio-sensitive, resident birds less so. Winter wheat seeds taken from the Exclusion Zone in the days after the disaster and since germinated in uncontaminated soil have produced thousands of different mutant strains, and every new generation remains genetically unstable, even 25 years after the accident. Yet a 2009 study of soybeans grown near the reactor seemed to show that the plants change at a molecular level to protect themselves against radiation. No one can be certain where human beings might fall on this continuum of DNA damage and long-term adaptation. “That’s what we want to know,” Møller says. “Are we more like barn swallows or soybeans in terms of radiation-induced mutation?”

Finding the answer to this question may take decades or even centuries. The genetic effects of chronic radiation exposure on each species studied so far have often been subtle and varied and only conclusively shown after many generations. The potential genetic changes in human beings—only now producing their third generation, as the children of the liquidators themselves raise families—may take hundreds of years to fully unravel. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government, seemingly satisfied with the anecdotal evidence of the zone-based research team, is pushing ahead with its plan to open the zone to tourism. Sergey Gaschak fears that future plans will include repopulating the Exclusion Zone at the earliest opportunity.

Some of the chemistry involved:

While iodine-131 decayed long ago and the strontium and cesium are slowly becoming less potentially lethal, the hot particles of plutonium-241 scattered across the landscape are actually decaying into an even more toxic isotope, americium-241. A more powerful emitter of alpha radiation than plutonium, americium is also more soluble and can easily find its way into the food chain. Americium-241, in turn, decays into neptunium-237, another energetic alpha emitter that has a half-life of more than 2 million years. As of yet, the long-term effect of americium-241 on animals remains largely unknown.

Jedenfalls, 93.000 Flüge sind das wohl jeden Tag, immer ca. 10.000 gleichzeitig in der Luft. Hier kann man sie anschauen, jeder gelbe Punkt ist eine Passagiermaschine mit mindestens 100 Menschen:

In the new studies, across scenarios, participants downplayed future gains significantly more than future losses. Employing a formula used by economists, „with our particular scenarios and measurement techniques, [we] found annualized discount rates that averaged out to roughly 34 percent for monetary and environmental gains and 9 percent for losses,“ Hardisty said.

The findings make it possible to apply the large body of research on delay discounting of financial outcomes to environmental outcomes, which the authors said is „good news for researchers and policymakers alike.“

This could mean framing environmental decisions as ways to avoid future loss rather than realize future gains, said Hardisty. For example, homeowners could be told that better insulation will help them avoid losing money to high utility bills, not that it will help them save — a subtle but influential semantic change. Similarly, campaigns to encourage people to buy higher-cost fluorescent light bulbs could highlight how their use will reduce future energy costs – more loss avoidance.

Der Clou ist also, dass uns Verluste generell bedeutsamer vorkommen als Gewinne. Das hat wie beschrieben nützliche Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Außerdem aber vielleicht auch einen Zusammenhang mit verbreiteter Unzufriedenheit?

Erstaunlich ist die Höhe der Abwertung. Möglicherweise war das in unseren evolutionären Urzeiten sinnvoll, wo die Wahrscheinlichkeit, die Zukunft überhaupt zu erleben nicht so berauschend war. Oder es ist ein methodisches Artefakt dieser Studie. Vom Autor jedenfalls eine sanfte Warnung zum Schluss:

Finally, the discount rates in this study were dramatically higher than would be predicted by economic theory. For solid evidence-based policy, lawmakers and planners should consider how real people actually make choices, Weber said.

Die These des Artikels ist eine direkte Konfrontation des „Freiburger Lebenswandels“, auch des meinigen. Die Idee der glücklichen Oase. Kurze Duschen mögen hierzulande weniger revolutionär klingen als in den USA, aber die Idee die Welt besser zu machen (und möglicherweise zu retten), indem man Wasser spart, Müll vermeidet, fair oder regional und biologisch einkauft, möglichst nicht fliegt, … blüht gerade auch in unserer WG.

Der Autor sagt natürlich nicht, dass das schlechte Sachen wären. Er sagt nur, dass sie nicht die richtigen Mittel sind, um die Welt aus dem Schlamassel, das ihr (ökologisch) bevorsteht, zu retten. Seine Einleitung macht deutlich, aus welcher Perspektive er das Problem betrachtet:

WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Zu Recht stellt er weiter fest, dass der Großteil der Appelle, die mit den Warnungen vor der nahenden ökologischen Katastrophe verbunden werden, an das private Verhalten, insbesondere das Konsumverhalten adressiert sind. Und ebenso zu Recht führt er aus, dass für alle relevanten Bereiche (Wasser, Energie, Abfall) der Großteil der Umweltverschmutzung nicht durch private Haushalte sondern durch Industrie und industrielle Landwirtschaft verursacht werden.

Seine Folgerung scheint naheliegend:

If we choose the “alternative” option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn’t even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses.

Eine weitere Anmerkung zu dieser Konsum-Philosophie finde ich sehr spannend und nachvollziehbar:

The third problem is that it accepts capitalism’s redefinition of us from citizens to consumers. By accepting this redefinition, we reduce our potential forms of resistance to consuming and not consuming. Citizens have a much wider range of available resistance tactics, including voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting, and, when a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to alter or abolish it.

Das bringt uns auch schon zu dem enttäuschenden Teil des Artikels — wenn es also nicht das kleine, private Verhalten und Konsumverhalten ist, das die Welt retten kann, was dann? Der vorangehende Absatz klingt nach guten alten politischen Methoden, mit nur einem sanften Anklang von richtig wildem politischem Umsturz. Der Ton wird im Schlussabsatz aber schärfer:

The good news is that there are other options. We can follow the examples of brave activists who lived through the difficult times I mentioned—Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, antebellum United States—who did far more than manifest a form of moral purity; they actively opposed the injustices that surrounded them. We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.

Und so bleibe ich ein wenig ratlos zurück. Auf der einen Seite ist es unbestreitbar, dass unseren Protest und Änderungswillen im Konsum auszudrücken bedeutet, die im Rahmen der Regeln des „Systems“ zu bleiben. Auf der anderen Seite folge ich der Kritik nicht, dass der industrielle Teil der Umweltverschmutzung mit dem privaten Haushalt nichts zu tun hat — wenn ich weniger konsumiere fällt auch dort weniger Abfall an, wird weniger Energie und Wasser verbraucht, am Ende gibt es sogar weniger Geschäftsreisen im Flugzeug. Und mit den Alternativen bin ich ziemlich skeptisch. Die politischen Systeme die wir haben ausnutzen ist schön und gut, aber abgesehen vom Wählen muss man sich da auch fragen, ob man sich nicht zum Teil eines Systems macht, das einem nicht gut tut. Ganz zu schweigen vom gewaltsamen Widerstand, der da anklingt.

Ich glaube, in der Position des Autors kommen zwei Probleme zusammen: Kurzsichtiges Denken (die industrielle Zerstörung existiert unabhängig von unserem privaten Konsum?) und dieses:

Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

Das würde Sloterdijk „Zynismus der Mittel“ nennen. Ich hoffe, dazu bald mehr schreiben zu können. Es führt jedenfalls dazu, das moralische Urteil über die Mittel, die ich verwende, durch das angestrebte hehre Ziel ausgehebelt wird. Und Sloterdijk zeigt sehr schön, dass genau dieses Denken im Kern der Katastrophen des 20. Jahrhunderts liegt.

Golemans Botschaft ist eine andere: Ein industriell hergestelltes Produkt ist nicht einfach grün oder nicht, sondern mehr oder weniger „grünlich“. Auch wenn die Ökobilanz gemessen an den Alternativen günstig ausfällt, sollte es immer noch mit Bedacht benutzt werden.

With English subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWfb0VMCQHE

Das Thema ist moralisch heiß — im Kern stehen sich zwei Tatsachen gegenüber: Einsparungen durch moderne Technologien sind viel einfacher in Entwicklungs– und Schwellenländern zu realisieren als in der „Ersten Welt“. Letztere ist aber verantwortlich für einen Großteil des bisher angerichteten Schadens, und hat immer noch den höheren Lebensstandard, der sich in entsprechend großen Emissionen niederschlägt.

Wenn man sich nicht der minimalistischen Perspektive anschließen möchte, dass es toll ist dass USA und China überhaupt über Klimaschutz verhandeln, kann man den Artikel leider nur mit einem grimmigen Schmunzeln lesen:

For months the United States and China, by far the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have been warily circling each other in hopes of breaking a long impasse on global warming policy.

They are, as President Obama’s chief climate negotiator puts it, “the two gorillas in the room,” and if they do not reach some sort of truce, there is no chance of forging a meaningful international treaty in Copenhagen later this year to restrict emissions.

As a senior American team arrived in Beijing on Sunday for climate talks, the standoff was taking on the trappings of cold-war arms control negotiations, with gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions replacing megatons of nuclear might as a looming risk for people across the globe.

Both sides are demanding mutually assured reductions of emissions that are, in the current jargon, “measurable, verifiable and reportable.” In the background hover threats of great retaliation in the form of tariffs or other trade barriers if one nation does not agree to ceilings on emissions.

“This is going to be one of the most complex diplomatic negotiations in the history of the world,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, co-sponsor of an energy bill being debated in the House, who just returned from a week in China.
Many take the simple fact that the two nations, jointly responsible for more than 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, are even talking seriously to each other about the issue as a propitious sign after years of mutual distrust.