Hello everyone! Welcome back to our blog. In the next few posts, we will be looking at radiation pollution. Having served my time in National Service as a chemical, biological and radiological specialist, I thought that radiation should be something that the general public should be more aware on and not just be fearful because they do not know the good of radiation.
“Ignorance is the parent of fear” – Herman Melville
In this post, we will be introducing radiation and look at the how radiation is part and parcel of our life. While the quote above is not representative of everyone as there are many others who know radiation better than we do, we thought we discussed radiation objectively – exploring its good and bad. However, our stance on pollution has not changed as we believe that pollution only does harm to our environment and us. With that, let’s begin!
The spectrum of radiation
Nuclear fallouts (World War II), mutants (Sci-Fi) and disasters (Chernobyl and Fukushima). These are some images we imagine when we think of radiation. However, radiation is much, much more than just that. Radiation is also colours, microwave, phone signals and radios. Scientifically speaking, radiation is electromagnetic waves, the same “thing” that gives us colours, heats up our food in the microwave and allows us to our phones and radio (CDC, 2015). The former “imagery” of radiation should be defined more closely as harmful radiation, also known as ionising radiation (UWHealth, 2020), which is the form of radiation we will be analyzing for the upcoming posts and also what we refer to when we say “radiation”.
Sources of Radiation
As always, sources of pollution typically have natural and anthropogenic sources. In fact, radiation is all around us. Stars, including our sun, produce cosmic radiation which Earth receives constantly (think of light and sensible heat) (NRC, 2017). Thus, you naturally receive more exposure to cosmic radiation when you are further away from the ground (or closer to the skies) (UWHealth, 2020). Another natural source of radiation is the Earth, where radioactive isotopes of certain elements, such as Radon, Potassium and Thorium, decay and produce radiation as a byproduct (NRC, 2017). Ever since studies being done on radiation began in the 1970s, it is said that at least half of UK’s annual dose of ionising radiation comes from natural sources and has been the case ever since (Hughes, Shaw, & O’Riordan, 1989; Watson, Jones, Oatway, & Hughes, 2005).
While we can conclude that the remainder of radiation sources are anthropogenic, the sources are definitely not what you are expecting. For an average individual, anthropogenic sources include televisions, cigarette smoking, smoke detectors and building materials (NRC, 2017). For those who visit the hospital often, other anthropogenic sources can include X-rays and CT scans (Watson et al., 2005). For others, it can be due to their occupation, such as those working in sectors that involves radiation or radioactive substances (Watson et al., 2005). These sources are far from the “doomsday scenario” sources of radiation propagated by mass media.
Of course, it is not to say that increased exposure to anthropogenic radiation does not occur for everyone else. Radiation from nuclear sources, such as uranium mining, spent nuclear fuel or nuclear disasters can produce radioactive isotopes as well (NRC, 2017). Nonetheless, it is important to note that most of us would not typically be exposed to such problems. However, improbability is not impossibility. Radiation pollution from nuclear sources do occur, such as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in 2011 (Otaki, 2016).
We begin to see a split in the two ways we can receive radiation: slow and over a long period of time of accumulation, or acute and sudden increase in exposure. With this, we will be exploring the effects of radiation for both scenarios in our next post. What is the wildest thing you have seen or heard about radiation? Comment down below! For me, it is the recent coronavirus outbreak being able to be transmitted over 5G signals, which is an extremely unscientific and ridiculous claim.
See you in the next post!
Ryan
References
CDC. (2015). What is Radiation? Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/what_is.html
Hughes, J. S., Shaw, K., & O’Riordan, M. (1989). Radiation exposure of the UK population-1988 review. Retrieved from
NRC. (2017). Natural Background Sources. Retrieved from https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/sources/nat-bg-sources.html
Otaki, J. M. (2016). Fukushima’s lessons from the blue butterfly: A risk assessment of the human living environment in the post‐Fukushima era. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 12(4), 667-672.
UWHealth. (2020). Radiation Exposure: Risks and Health Effects. Retrieved from https://www.uwhealth.org/health/topic/special/radiation-exposure-risks-and-health-effects/abl0600.html
Watson, S., Jones, A., Oatway, W., & Hughes, J. (2005). Ionising radiation exposure of the UK population: 2005 review: Health Protection Agency Chilton, Oxon.