The memory of the Atomic Age
Few of you might be aware of the fact that the third world war has already been fought. Seven nuclear devices had been tested in 2000 by various countries, all these were underground explosions. You might have heard of this, and you might be worried about their effects.
During the fifties and the sixties the Americans used several hundred nuclear bombs for scientific, military and other purposes. So did other countries, but Uncle Sam alone blasted twice the amount of their nukes. There were military maneuvers in the Nevada Desert, during which using seventy or even a hundred atomic bombs were normal. These were all atmospheric or ground level blasts, causing a huge amount of radioactive dust appearing. Nowadays the Nevada test grounds are the most radioactive area of the known world, no life can survive there, and at some places the radiation is so strong that it can even destroy simple molecules - like it splits kitchen salt to chlore and natrium by only the force of the radiating particles. Such areas are also found in the area of the former USSR and the Pacific Ocean areas where Britain, France and others performed their tests. To conclude, Chernobyl was nothing more than a breeze.
Perhaps you've already heard statistics of the results of these bombings. Percentages in cancer increase, percentages of genetic distortions. This perhaps means nothing to you, you don't see the effects of these. But if you go to your school next time, you might spot the very effects of these blasts, as their radioactive dust is still in Earth's atmosphere, it rains down to us every day.
In most schools there are group photographs made about the leaving classes every year. These tableaus are usually placed on the walls of the corridors, so you can take a look. You need to find an old, patinated school, where you can also find photos of the classes leaving in the fifties. Let's see how the youth of different decades looked like, as I examined in my girlfriend's school while waiting for her and her exams to be finished.
Take a glance of the guys and the gals of the fifties. They are just normal. They're all around twenty, and they look like adults. The boys are already men, the girls are usually nice. There's nothing about it.
It's almost the same in the sixties. However, there are more wearing glasses. You can count, around double the number.
The first eyecatching people appear in the seventies. The students start looking grinning teens instead of adults. There are some who have hair growing in the middle of their cheeks, others have less hair than normal. Their teeth are growing weird. It's already hard to find good looking girls, however, there are still several.
When the eighties come, these nice girls disappear. Now you have to really search for them. Several distorted, very ugly faces appear, with too big heads, too small heads, pear-shaped skulls. Hair, moustache and such are usually growing without control. Their skins are usually not healthy, they have pimples, freckles, which means they still haven't ended their puberty at age 19-20 - a sign of hormone distortion.
So, when you reach the nineties, what you see is just a bunch of mutants. Nice girls and handsome boys are hard to spot. Even the nice ones have something wrong: distorted teeth, slightly different colored spots in the hair or so. Some guys grew extremely huge, others became little stickmen. Put a tableau from the nineties next to another from the fifties, and you will be surprised about the huge difference.
This subject would worth a thorough examination, and if some European country, or the European Union itself would prove it, it would be a strong weapon in the hands of the anti-nuclear movement. If USA's, USSR's and other nuclear powers' responsibility could be proved, that would mean a huge scandal and these countries would have to pay gigantic compensations. But as we know, governments rarely care.