Bananas and radiation

At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/16/going-bananas-over-radiation/ there is a nice post from Anthony Watts on bananas containing radiation. Apparently, several foods are naturally radioactive and bananas in particular due to potassium-40. The point is that fear of radiation leaking from nucleur power stations has been over-hyped as there is a lot of radiation out there in the human world – especially if you live somewhere like Cornwall. Its a bit like the scare over asbestos -which strictly does not apply to white asbestos – but you wouldn't think so. Bureaucracy determines that as it has the same name as the dangerous kind of asbestos it is subject to the same rules on use and disposal. When you think about it there have been an awful lot of scaremongering over the last 40 to 50 years, even going back to ideas of a nucleur bomb creating a 'cosmic winter' – which is now recognised as grossly exagerated. However, the idea of testing nucleur devices in the atmosphere was probably extremely dangerous – but when it comes to ozone and the hype over an ozone hole, which apparently comes and goes in the normal course of events, the comparison can be made explicitly with greenhouse gases. Nature is biting back. The ozone hole naturally closed and global warming has stopped – and more and more scientists are saying so (see for instance www.notrickszone.com Feb 17th). However, the BBC are still convinced AGW is happening. They even went so far as to make a just released study headline news last night, the 16th Feb. Apparently, a group of scientists say that all that water in the atmosphere right now is down to AGW – but what happened to all those forecasts of drought and expanding deserts? (see www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-driven-climate.html … it's good for a snigger).