Showing posts with label nuclear pollution. Show all posts

Saturday, 10 September 2016

Cannabis Can Decontaminate the Planet

Hemp and the Decontamination of Radioactive Soil

Hemp science is now advancing in leaps and bounds compared to the stagnation of the previous few decades. One significant area of research that is currently receiving particular attention is phytoremediation, or decontamination of soil—although the discovery that hemp leaches contaminants from soil has been known for some time.

The Chernobyl phytoremediation project

For over a decade, industrial hemp growing in the environs of the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine has been helping to reduce soil toxicity. Now, the Japanese are considering following the same course in order to rectify the environmental damage caused by the Fukushima meltdown—however, due to the Cannabis Control Law forced into Japanese law by the occupying U.S. powers in 1948, hemp may only be grown under license—which are highly restricted and difficult to obtain.

In 1989, just three years after the initial explosion, the Soviet administration of the time requested that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assess the environmental situation. In the 30km exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, high concentrations of various toxic metals including iodine, cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium were found in the soil, as well as in plants and animals themselves.

Hemp has been found to absorb heavy metals from soil at a very high rate

Which Plants are Useful in Phytoremediation?

In response, it was decided that a concerted effort to reduce soil contamination through the use of beneficial plants would be undertaken. This process, known as phytoremediation, began immediately, and used various plants to take up specific contaminants—two brassica varieties to remove chromium, lead, copper and nickel, maize to take up lead (various researchers have demonstrated the remarkable lead-uptake capability of this important crop), and more recently, sunflower and hemp.

Sunflower plantings began in 1996 subsequent to the development of a variety that promised hitherto unheard-of efficiency of decontamination; hemp plantings soon followed, in 1998. Slavik Dushenkov, a research scientist with Phytotech, one of the organisations behind the hemp plantings, stated that “hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants we have been able to find”.

As well as in the Ukraine, much rural land in neighbouring Belarus was affected by the explosion, and authorities there are also pursuing the use of hemp as a decontaminant. The harvest produced will be turned into ethanol, as increased production of biofuel is a key target for increasing the overall economic and environmental health of the region.

The Chernobyl exclusion zone, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, is slowly being returned to health as plants and animals begin to reclaim the land

Differences in Metal Uptake From Soil

In 2012, a Romanian study i nvestigate d the nutritional safety of hemp seed produced from plants grown in soils rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium and iron. The study determined that five distinct Romanian hemp strains developed different nutritional profiles according to uptake of the various metals in the soil. For example, the Zenit strain exhibited highest rates of calcium uptake, while the Armanca absorbed least calcium; the Diana, Denise and Silvana strains absorbed magnesium at the highest rates, and the Zenit variety showed the highest concentrations of iron.

Despite the differences, the seeds and oil of all five strains exhibited high levels of magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese, zinc and potassium, all highly beneficial dietary metals. However, all varieties also tested above the safe legal limit for cadmium, a toxic heavy metal that may cause various health complications—despite the soil being within the safe limit for cadmium concentration. The Armanca and Silvana strains showed particularly high cadmium levels.

Hemp and Cadmium Absorption

Excessive consumption of foodstuffs high in cadmium can lead to joint and bone deformities, respiratory illness, anaemia, and kidney failure. In areas where cadmium is present in the soil, in order to be safe for human or animal consumption, hemp varieties should be selected on the basis of poor cadmium uptake.

According to a study into Chinese hemp strains conducted in 2011, many hemp strains have the ability to absorb and accumulate even large quantities of cadmium in soil without detriment to the plant itself. While this does throw up various implications for selection of sites for cultivation of food-safe hemp, it also indicates that cadmium-contaminated sites will particularly benefit from phytoremediation schemes that make primary or exclusive use of hemp. Furthermore, even if hemp used to decontaminate soil is unsafe for consumption, it can still be used in a number of industrial applications, such as for biofuel.

As vegetation slowly reclaims formerly inhabited areas, adding species known to be effective extractors of soil-based heavy metals can aid in ecosystem rejuvenation

Hemp is Mostly Unaffected by Heavy Metals in Soil

Hemp’s resilience to contaminants in soil is well-documented. Even as early as 1975, a study published in the Agronomy Journal described how soil characteristics influenced elemental uptake and could even affect final cannabinoid profile in psychoactive strains. To illustrate this, fifteen sites with varying soil profiles were planted with the same strain of Afghan cannabis, and their harvests tested for metal content. Researchers concluded that differences could be used to determine geographic origin of cannabis through foliar analysis.

In 1995, the Polish Institute of Natural Fibres released a study demonstrating that tested varieties were able to withstand high levels of heavy metals in soil without impacting plant growth, yield or fibre quality. However, little research has been done into the safety of using fibres in clothing or other forms of industry, and this issue must be investigated fully in order to establish the possible uses for hemp grown in such conditions.

As a proven, valuable tool in the fight to repair human-inflicted damage to our soils and ecosystems, hemp could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of sites across the globe—it is estimated that in the USA alone there are 30,000 sites requiring remediation. As is so often the case, US restrictions on hemp cultivation preclude any large-scale operations from being implemented, and the contaminated sites are largely left unremediated, through lack of both funding and interest on the part of the government.

From Sensi Seeds @ https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/hemp-decontamination-radioactive-soil/

Hemp is Being Used to Decontaminate Europe's Largest Steel Plant Site

Are we ready to fully legalize hemp?

By Johnny Green

Hemp is one of the most versatile plants on earth. I once heard a statistic that hemp can be used to make up to 25,000 different things. I didn't personally see the list, so I don't know the accuracy of that claim, but I think it's safe to say that hemp is amazing.

The hemp plant can be used to make hempcrete, which is a substance that can be used to build houses and other structures. Hemp can be used to make food, paper, and fiber. Hemp has even been used to make car parts.

Hemp used as a decontaminate

Hemp is very efficient at pulling heavy metals from soil. It's what helps it grow so hearty and so quickly. Trees take decades to harvest, whereas hemp only takes months.

Because of hemp's ability to pull metals from the soil, it can be used very effectively to clean up areas that are contaminated. One town in Italy (Taranto) is using hemp to clean up a contaminated area that has housed Europe's largest steel plant for a long time.

The steel plant, which opened in 1965, has ravaged the local ecosystem, pumping toxic levels of contaminants into the ground. It is estimated that from 2005-2012 alone, upwards of 11,000 local residents died as a result of health issues directly related to the steel plant.

“A long time ago, a choice was made to sacrifice this part of Italy, jeopardizing the health of the citizens of Taranto and its community and the biodiversity of the two seas,” said politician Domenico Finiguerra, according to Slate. “It was decided to sacrifice this land in the name of Italy’s economic future, supplying its industry with all the steel it needed.”

Hemp has been cultivated near the site of the steel plant for the last five years, with production increasing from 3 hectares to 300. About 100 farmers grow hemp, with the harvest being sold to manufacturers to be made into various products.

Hemp works, so why isn't its use more widespread?

Taranto, Italy is not the first time that hemp has been used to decontaminate the soil. For many centuries hemp was used as a rotation crop because it essentially flushed out the soil so it could be better conditioned for other crops.

Hemp was planted at the site of the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, along with various other plants such as sunflower plants. Hemp has consistently proven to be the best plant at decontaminating the soil it is planted in because of hemp's tremendous uptake ability.

Unfortunately, the reason why hemp isn't used more often is entirely for political reasons. It's certainly not for scientific reasons. Hemp is non-toxic. According to an estimate from the movie Hempsters, a person would have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole in order to feel euphoria from hemp. To overdose on it is humanly impossible.

The fact of the matter is that opponents have fought hemp legalization at all costs because of the plant's versatility, and the likely dramatic affect reform would have on many industries. It's not coincidence that many of the same people that have historically opposed hemp also come from industries that hemp reform would directly affect.

It's a shame too, because science is clearly on the side of hemp reform. I don't know that I would go as far as some people and claim that hemp will save the world, but I do feel confident in saying that hemp could go a long ways in helping improve the world in many ways.

From Green Flower @ https://www.learngreenflower.com/articles/172/hemp-used-decontaminate-europe-largest-steel-plant-site

For more information about hemp see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/hemp

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Friday, 26 August 2016

The Untold Story of Global Nuclear Bomb Testing

Religion is a region with a li(e) in it by R. Ayana

by Christopher Chase

August 6th this year marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. On August 9, 1945, a second nuclear weapon was dropped on Nagasaki City. To commemorate these tragedies, the people of Japan will hold moments of silence, pray for those who died and float small lanterns on rivers near ground zero.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs were the largest weapons of mass destruction ever used on civilian populations. More than 90,000 civilians died in Hiroshima, and over 60,000 in Nagasaki, with about half the people dying on the days the nuclear bombs were dropped.

It was a terrible tragedy, and afterwards many nations vowed not to use such nuclear devices, except as a last resort. But tensions developed between the Capitalist and Communist blocks and so began “The Cold War.”

In reality, the military activities of that time were far from “cold.” From 1948 until 1963, over five hundred nuclear devices were exploded around the world, spreading massive amounts of nuclear radiation into the oceans and atmosphere. A Japanese researcher made the following time-lapse video, mapping out the date and location of all atomic weapons exploded from 1945 to 1998.

11-USfalloutmap

If aliens had been watching from space it must have looked like World War III, except that these bombs weren’t dropped on the population centers of “enemies.”

Instead, each nation spread toxic clouds of radioactive fallout over farmlands, cities, towns and fishing regions of their own citizens, neighboring nations or allies. In the United States, Nevada’s military tests sent clouds of radiation over much of the nation.

In 1953, there was an event called “The Troy Incident” where radiation that had drifted east rained down on the people of Troy, New York. We know about this because a college teacher and his students discovered the radiation with geiger counters, after the storm had passed. In most cases the nuclear fallout that fell on towns and villages was never discovered or reported.

In 1999, the U.S. National Cancer Institute completed a study and produced this detailed map (below) with calculations of I-131 radiation exposure to the continental United States. They concluded that “Americans born between 1936 and 1963, who were children at the time of testing,” are at higher risk of developing cancer.

People immediately to the north and east of the Nevada test site are often referred to as “downwinders” in the local news of their regions. National media outlets have never paid attention to this, but search the Internet or youtube and you can find quite a few local news stories, such as this one where Nevada downwinders tell how they used to go outside to watch the atomic bomb tests, the way people watch 4th of July fireworks nowadays.

During the 1950’s the British tested nuclear devices in Australia’s interior, spreading radiation over cities such as Sydney, and much of their close ally’s continent. The French exploded bombs into the atmosphere of Algeria, while the Russians detonated their nuclear devices up north of Siberia and within the borders of the former U.S.S.R.

The largest nuclear bomb ever exploded was by the Russians; it was nicknamed the Tzar bomb. It’s featured in this documentary of the era. Unfortunately, maps of the radioactive fallout from Russian and French atmospheric tests do not (to the best of my knowledge) exist.
In the early 1960s, U.S. President Kennedy moved to ban atmospheric nuclear testing, in part thanks to the Baby Tooth Study, led by physicians Eric and Louise Reiss. Their research showed that children born in 1963 had levels of strontium 90 in their teeth that were 50 times higher than children born before 1950. Follow-up research (see: NY Times, 12/13/2010), found that men in the study who died of cancer by middle age had more than twice as much strontium in their childhood teeth as male participants who had not died.

In October of 1963, the Americans, Soviets and British signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and agreed to move all their tests underwater or underground. Unfortunately, a few countries never signed the treaty. France relocated their atmospheric tests from central Africa to the tropic islands of Polynesia. Military documents declassified in 2013 show that fallout from France’s 193 weapons “tests” hit Tahiti, the most populated of the Polynesian islands, with over 500 times acceptable radiation levels.

China is another nation that declined to sign the 1963 treaty and conducted numerous above ground tests during the 1960’s and into the 1970’s. All were detonated within the borders of China, so the radioactive fallout fell on their own people, water supplies and farmland, as well as nations father east most probably, such as Korea and Japan.

Just exactly how much radiation was dumped into the oceans, forests, farmland and the atmosphere during the 20th century is unknown (or known but not reported). Measurements of Carbon-14, a radioactive isotope, show that atmospheric levels doubled from 1955 to 1963 (see graph to the right) and then began to drop once the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed.

Many people assume that Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are the only major incidents involving large releases of nuclear radiation that harmed people. Along with the fallout from global weapons tests there have been a number of catastrophic nuclear accidents around the world which received little media coverage, but where radiation releases have devastated communities or made the landscape uninhabitable.

If you look up the Kyshtym disaster, the “Windscale fire, the Goiânia accident or the Hanford Downwinders, the information is available. None of these stories are conspiracy theories or secrets, they’ve just been ignored by the mainstream media. Probably it’s not something people like to think about, or that the weapons industries and “leading nations” of the world want us to think about.

Leaders of nations that possess nuclear weapons often point to Iran and North Korea as potential nuclear “bad guys” but the truth is that these weapons have already caused great harm. Just building them (and being willing to use them) is a symptom of deep distrust and fear- a manifestation of the warrior mindset that has dominated the most powerful human civilizations for over two thousand years.

The anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings this summer provides an opportunity for people to reflect a bit. Think about what weapons of mass destruction and militarism have done in the past, how so many individuals and nations have suffered.

As we begin the 21st Century, it might be wise to consider how humans could be doing more to solve ecological problems together, help people living in poverty and build peaceful international relationships, instead of stockpiling weapons of death, fighting for dominance and preparing for war.

From Creative By Nature @ https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/the-untold-story-of-global-nuclear-bomb-testing/

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945

Color footage of soldiers being exposed to high levels of radiation

For more information about nuclear weapons see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/nuclear%20weapons