What are the environmental effects of the Chernobyl explosion?

Question

effects relating to climate change

Answer 1

There is now a huge zone, I believe it's for 35-40 miles in a circle all around Cherynobyl.  Almost 22 years after the explosion, it is STILL extremely unsafe to live there.  Water is not safe to drink, the land is contaminated and not safe for food, etc.  

Beyond the exclusion zone where no one can live are towns like Minsk with millions of people living there.  The radiation levels there are very high as well.  The healthy baby rate is arond 20-30% and if you have one born healthy, chances are within two years they won't be from the radiation exposure.  It really affects children the worst.  To see the types of defomaties, watch the show "Chernobyl Heart" shown occassionally still on HBO.  

To get an even greater effect of how badly damaged the environment is, check out the website www.kiddofspeed.com and see how bad the areas are still to this day.  Nothing will be habitable there for thousands of years.  

We should think extremely hard before creating anymore nuclear power plants.  Regardless of how many safety features there are.  The nuclear power plant on Lake Erie called Davis Bessie in Ohio has almost melted completely down 3 times in the past 10 years or so.

Answer 2

All the radiation had little effect on global warming or bringing down the russians. It caused the immediate area around chernobyl to be contaminated and still is. There was about a 10 mile radius around chernobyl that was off limits limits to people, I dont know if the whole thing is still blocked off or not, I think most of it still is. There was a lot of radiation in the atmosphere immediatly after the explosion, but that has all spread out and more or less gone away by now.

Answer 3

More human and farm-land damage than world env'n'tal harm. Helped to bring down Russian Communism, for what that's worth.

Answer 4

Radiation spread around the globe. Increased levels of radiation were measured as far away as Arizona. I knew a guy from Poland. His dad still lives there. He said all of his dad's bees died right after the Chernobyl incident. Don't know if it's true. Oh, effects relating to climate change, eh? Don't know of any.

Answer 5

All that radiation probably contributed to global warming. Breathing in bad air is a major environmental effect.

Answer 6

It wasn't really a full on explosion as much as it was a melt down.  It was nuclear and not carbon based so it has almost no effect on global warming.  I have seen recent specials and the area has returned to nature pretty much. The radiation level is still a little high so people would not want to live there but the forest and animals are doing great. I guess you  could say that because of the increased vegetation that it is helping reduce some of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Answer 7

Only the heat generated by the melt down would have contributed to global warming... comparable to a few seconds of the sun's rays.

There is significant GHG effect of radon emitted, but the total amount is totally negligible in global terms.

Other effects of a meltdown make it an event to be avoided with the best methods available.