For someone who insists that Greg needs to provide more context, you’re awfully quick to leave it out.

“The areas around Chernobyl are thriving with biodiversity.”

And you started arguing against it, even though your sourced biologist agrees with me. The WHO, IATA, etc. agree with me. Virtually every scientific study agrees with my original statement.

If anyone wants to read about the health of specific species, I’ve provided some good starting resources, though there are more current studies.

Enjoy your cult.

Enjoy your spherical cows.

The full quote does support my premise. The animals are doing better than when humans were there (my original point), but it would be a mistake to conclude they are doing better than in a control group (I didn’t make that mistake).

I provided the IATA report with all its negatives that I was and am fully aware of. But overall there is greater biodiversity, compared to when humans were there (my original point). How many times do I need to repeat this?

Something can thrive (by which I meant overall reproductive success) compared to how it had been doing, and the ecosystem still be healthy or unhealthy, depending on how you define healthy. For example, there may be many more individuals of a particular species of bird (thriving) once the humans leave due to a contamination event, but the individuals don’t live as long as they did due to increased cancer from the event. Which ecosystem is healthier (before vs. after the event)? I don’t know.

Also, you should probably reread your own words before you start trying to criticize mine. I wasn’t the one making the healthy ecosystem claim. You were. “If by “nature itself” you mean the local ecology, then you should realize that if people evacuate the area for decades, the ecology will actually thrive.”

My first link was provided in regards to what Mousseau said, I never used boars to support my position. We have no way of determining how the animals would be doing in a control area. We can only compare life in the specific area before and after the event, which is what my original comment referred to. And Mousseau said that many animals are doing better in this area after the event. I (and he) said we can find detriment in some species, but overall things are better. Compared to a control group, they might be doing poorly (or not), but compared to how they were doing they are thriving.

My second link was provided as an example to illustrate the scientific evidence backing up what I’ve said.

From a consortium consisting of the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and others:

“The recovery of affected biota in the exclusion zone has been facilitated by the removalof human activities, e.g., termination of agricultural and industrial activities. As a result, populations of many plants and animals have eventually expanded, and the present environmental conditions have had a positive impact on the biota in the Exclusion Zone. Indeed, the Exclusion Zone has paradoxically become a unique sanctuary for biodiversity.”

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf

Again, this is a comparison of before and after, not with a control group.

“Healthy” ecosystem is too vague to address. Just like defining what a healthy human is, isn’t so simple.

Or his statements to Hannah: “But many scientists, Mousseau included, have done a great deal of ecological research at Chernobyl and have found decreases in the number and diversity of many taxa, decreased sperm counts and brain size, and physical mutations, particularly in Mousseauâ??s specialty species, the barn swallow.”

The end of the Cretaceous was great for mammals. That doesn’t mean an extinction event represents a healty ecosystem.

Mousseau even says so (bottom of Page 2):

“One of the great ironies of this particular tragedy is that many animals are doing considerably better than when the humans were there,” he said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html

It is true that there is an anecdotal aspect to some people’s experience (expecting to find a wasteland but instead finding thriving). And it is also true that some species are suffering detriment. But overall they are doing better. This has been extensively scientifically studied, I am not using anecdotes. Here is but one example:

http://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Chernobyl-Catastrophe-International-Collaborative/dp/1850706565#_