
After 100 years World War I battlefields are poisoned and uninhabitable - sbjustin
http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/after-100-years-world-war-i-battlefields-are-poisoned-and-uninhabitable
======
hyperman1
Hello guys,

I live in the region (West Flanders, Belgium) so here are some local stories.

* When my brother in law was a kid, he found an old bomb at the roadside and decided to take it home on his bike, saying things like 'Look what cool stuff I found'. Of course mom panicked and called the deminers. All friends came to look how the dismantling went.

* In fact I know plenty of people finding old grenades and stuff. People die every year messing with them at their kitchen table, even if everybody should know by now not to do that.

* Lots of farms have a heap of old bombs on the terrain. Once a year or so DOVO comes and picks them up.

* Polish people are used a lot as cheap builders and road workers. In general they dont understand Dutch (the local language) or even English. So while people try to warn them not to touch any strange metal things they find on building terrains, the message doesnt come trough (' Know nothing. Talk boss'). Nasty accidents happen as a result.

* A few years ago, an old lady dug up a hand granade from her vegetable garden. So she calls DOVO, the organisation that does the demining. DOVO responds something like no time, call back later. This pissed her off enough to throw the bloody thing in a bucket, drive to dovo, and give the bucket at the reception desk saying ' This is yours'.

While typing this, my wife asks why I'm typing on that nerd site of mine. So
now she suggests going to the dunes 2 km from here and taking a photograph if
I see one. Sorry guys, Im not messing with old bombs in the dark after the
Brussels terrorist attacks, but yes, it's that easy.

~~~
random_upvoter
Story in my own family: we had some relatives who lived in a village near
Ypres. In their living room they had this giant iron stove. When the Germans
invaded they buried some cash and jewels under a tile under that stove, and
fled to France. After the war they returned to the village, in the hope of
retrieving the jewels. However, they were unable to find back the stove, due
to the fact that they could no longer locate the house... due to the fact that
they could not find back the street. The whole village was literally dust.

~~~
hyperman1
Funny one: A nephew of mine bought a house in the region, and started clearing
out the mess in the cellar. At the back, behind a fake wall, he found old
bottles with a small fortune in DMarks. Unfortunately, the german mark was
replaced with a new version after the hyperinflation between the 2 world wars,
so it wasnt worth anything anymore. We assume they were left behind by german
soldiers in WW1. No idea what he did with them.

------
stupidcar
There is a similar problem in the western desert of Egypt, where unexploded
ordnance from the battle of El Alamein in WW2 has been killing and maiming
Bedouin for decades:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspon...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8576292.stm).

It's strange to realise that there are still many people yet to be born who
will die as casualties of WW1 and WW2.

~~~
angersock
Somewhat darkly--is any of the software we write going to still be useful in
80 years?

Terrible devices with awful intent, but they do still work.

~~~
ansible
_Terrible devices with awful intent, but they do still work._

Technically, the shells being found now are the buggy ones, that didn't
explode when they were supposed to.

~~~
munificent
The worst-written software always lives the longest. Maintainable, modular
software, by definition, is easy to change and swap out. So the evolutionary
forces favor awful spaghetti codebases that everyone is too afraid to touch.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
So then the solution would be true natural selection and self-evolving
software. As long as external entities (programmers) are tasked with killing
off the unfit code, selection is going to be pretty bad.

------
purge
I feel I should do the obligatory Dan Carlin link here:
[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-bluepri...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/)

Long, harrowing and left me hankering for more. He covers Verdun in the later
episodes.

~~~
peckrob
This. "Blueprint for Armageddon" [0] is amazing. He spends a good bit of time
talking about what trench warfare was really like. The horror people there
experienced is just nearly unimaginable.

The entire length of the series is nearly 24 hours, but it is so worth it.
Even if you're not a fan of history, check it out because Dan weaves a
masterful true story that keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire 24
hours.

[0] [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-bluepri...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/)

~~~
eropple
Carlin is what I recommend to people who don't like history, before I get them
into The Great Courses (which are amazing, if pricey when you're not on
Audible). I have a catalogue of minor beefs with the way he presents some
stuff, but he's always up-front that he's not a historian (and I appreciate
that acknowledgement) and they haven't stopped me from happily paying for
everything he's done for Hardcore History.

It's a good listen, and it's worth your time if you haven't tried his stuff.

~~~
sosuke
Thanks I've never heard of The Great Courses.

edit: Woah where do I even start on that?

~~~
eropple
Most of them are really good. Here's a partial list of the ones I've enjoyed:

\- Machiavelli in Context (probably the best course of theirs I've listened
to)

\- Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

\- Conquest of the Americas

\- Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages (same lecturer--one of the best)

\- Foundations of Western Civilization I and II

\- History of Ancient Rome

\- Birth of the Modern Mind

\- Story of Human Language

\- History of Science from Antiquity to 1700

~~~
the_economist
Thanks for the list. Do any others come to mind?

~~~
ryankshaw
Prophets of Doom

It was fantastic! it talked about the anabaptist takeover of munster
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_Rebellion).

------
speeder
During WW1, the term "Shell Shock" showed up, that later got changed to PTSD,
when people started to think it had to do with psychology, rather than
physiology (when Shell Shock first showed up, it was blamed on constant
explosions hurting people).

Then some days ago we had here on HN frontpage, research that shows that PTSD,
even in more recent conflicts, IS shellshock, that the air pressure of the
explosions and the shaking actually damage the brain, and cause inflammations
that cause PTSD symptoms.

I wonder then, how bad it was for the WW1 people, those that were near the
concentrated fire of 150 explosions per hour nearby, and survived, maybe some
of them wished they had been hit instead of surviving...

~~~
asimuvPR
What about PTSD developed in non-combat zones? Or people who develop it and
are not even in war zones? Do you know if there is any information on that?

Not trying to start a flame war. Just interested in the PTSD thing itself.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Pretty much any environment that causes your body to frequently flood with
cortisol is a breeding ground for PTSD. The brain interprets the constant
threats to its well-being as a signal to rewire itself to be trigger-happy on
the flight-or-fight response to conditions that most others would not react as
intensely to.

Examples: childhood poverty; abusive/neglectful parents; societal
discrimination (especially if violence or a heightened possibility is a
factor).

~~~
dogma1138
There is so much about PTSD we don't understand (or more accurately there is
very little we do understand about it) that your claims are simply not true.
We aren't sure what causes PTSD, we don't understand what physiological,
neurological or psychological conditions are needed for "PTSD" to evolve.

As far as cortisol goes well it is again not that simple, both elevated and
lowered cortisol levels have been recorded in PTSD cases which is why it's
still debated if lower or higher levels of cortisol cause or are a symptom or
an indicator of PTSD, and since cortisol levels are only usually tested in
cases where the person has already been or being diagnosed the correlation is
even harder to identify, especially when considering that both lowered and
elevated levels of cortisol can be recorded in nominal people and in people
suffering from other mental disorders.

PTSD is just another placeholder akin to "shell shock" and the later "combat
fatigue", in the end it would be an umbrella of various disorders with various
preconditions and causes expressing themselves in a similar fashion.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I find it ironic that while critizing someone for making bold claims, you make
the unreserved assertion that their claims are false.

They could be correct, regardless of evidence.

------
willholloway
In the hopefully not too distant future, when humanity grows out of its
barbaric infancy and we cease to kill each other over petty disputes a long
term global renewal project will commence.

We will use all the means at our disposal to clean up and undo the damage we
have done to our home.

Swarms of autonomous robots, and possibly nanites will replenish the soil,
water and air. We will restore coastlines and replant forests.

Wiser, and ashamed of our primitive past, we will rebuild a pristine paradise
fitting of a spacefaring civilization.

~~~
lugus35
As a french, being enslaved by a german kaiser is not what I call a "petty
dispute"

~~~
random_upvoter
Responding to violence with violence may have been the right response in 1914
or in 1939. It may no longer be the right response in 2016. I find it
disheartening that in the current time the idea of pacifism seems to be dead
and buried and replaced by this moral defeatism that man is doomed to behave
like an animal for the remainder of history. Even from supposedly liberal
politicians like Obama or Hollande we hear nothing but that same old primitive
macho-ape language in response to terrorism "we will hunt down... we will
destroy... we will eradicate". I look forward to the day that a powerful
nation decides that it will no longer kill for any reason whatsoever.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"Those who have no swords can still die on them" \- Tolkein

Responding to violence _aimed at destroying or enslaving your society_ with
_enough violence to prevent it_ is kind of required by any society that does
not have a death wish.

I can choose to respond with pacifism to violence directed at me. I do not
have the right to choose that for anyone else, nor for my nation.

~~~
avar
None of the actors in WWI were set on destroying or enslaving entire societies
within Europe. The losers would have been forced to live under a different
political system, not been subjected to genocide.

Would it really have mattered to the common man? Maybe not. did it matter to
the common man that he or his sons got sent away to war to die? Definitely.

Pacifism can be a sensible policy sometimes. Some wars aren't worth fighting,
even if you "win" or force a stalemate.

~~~
bashinator
> None of the actors in WWI were set on destroying or enslaving entire
> societies within Europe.

This is not entirely true. The term "war of attrition" came from WWI, and it
was specifically referring to depopulating the opponent's country by killing
all the males.

~~~
avar
The context to my comment is AnimalMuppet's hyperbolic reply that pacifism in
the face of the enemy would somehow result in the destruction or enslavement
of your whole society.

I'm pointing out that if say the French had surrendered to the Germans early
in WWI there's no historical evidence that that would have been the case, and
likely countless lives would have been saved.

The destruction of the state is not synonymous with the destruction of the
people in it. Most wars only seek to abolish state power, not the people that
make up those states.

~~~
legulere
> I'm pointing out that if say the French had surrendered to the Germans early
> in WWI

Or even earlier, France could have declared neutrality in regard to Serbia
like Germany asked them to

~~~
avar
So many things would have changed for the better in that war if the various
actors had drawn clear lines in the sand in advance.

E.g. the Germans believed the British wouldn't go to war with them over
Belgium, the British knew Belgium was under threat in advance, but wouldn't
draw a clear line in the sand telling the Germans that violating Belgium was
an act of war.

Likely doing that would have kept Britain out of the war entirely since
Germany would have attacked France directly.

------
nkurz
Perhaps this is the right crowd to ask. I've been looking for a particular
article on WW I for a couple decades now, but I haven't been able to find it
online. It's an Encyclopedia Britannica article which I think is entitled
"War", although that may not be exact. It's from one of the editions published
in the 1930's, which would make it the 14th Edition. I owned the set in hard
copy for a while, but had to give it away when I moved.

The article one of the most poignant things I've ever read. The tone was
essentially "Finally we've figured out how nations can live together in peace
and harmony, and never again will humans engage in a war of that magnitude".
Crucially, this article was from one of the editions published after World War
I, and shortly before World War II. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I've often wanted to reread that the article and ponder how applicable it is
to the present. Does anyone happen to have a copy? The 11th Edition is
available online from archive.org, but that's too early. And I presume it was
revised quickly in any editions printed after World War Two.

------
finid
Now imagine the state of the battlefields of Vietnam and surrounding
countries.

There are places in Cambodia that are no-go areas because of all the stuff we
dropped there that did not explode.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Most of the landmines in Cambodia were put there by the Khmer Rouge, not the
Americans.

When I was in Cambodia, I saw the results of what landmines did, they're
fucking horrific. They aren't designed to kill someone, but to only blow their
foot off and maim them.

I believe that they're one of the most barbaric weapons of war. It's a damn
shame that the USA, China, and Russia won't ratify the Ottawa Convention.

~~~
WalterBright
Landmines could be built to decay into inertness after a period of time, say a
year. I don't understand why this isn't done.

~~~
lostlogin
It would increase sales too. Seems that would heighten interest. How would the
mine know when to start degrading through? Having that happen during storage
would be unfortunate.

~~~
krylon
> Having that happen during storage would be unfortunate.

Actually, I think a lot of people would consider that a significant
improvement.

~~~
lostlogin
Me too, good point. However I understand that some explosives degrade in such
a way that they get more unstable rather than less, so the problems may
remain.

~~~
Tempest1981
Reminded me of the Takata airbag recall. From this article:

"A propellant made with ammonium nitrate would swell and shrink with
temperature changes, and eventually the tablet would break down into powder.
Water and humidity would speed the process. Powder burns more quickly than a
tablet, so an air bag whose propellant had crumbled would be likely to deploy
too aggressively."

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-06-02/sixty-
mill...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-06-02/sixty-million-car-
bombs-inside-takata-s-air-bag-crisis)

------
ChuckMcM
Sobering thought to think that 65 square miles will take 300 years (minimum)
to clean of threats and contamination. I would quibble with the
characterization of dead people and animals as "contamination" as there are
have been people and animals dying in great numbers over the millenia in
various spots, but the concentrations of arsenic and lead are different.

Given what I've seen of strip mines from the air, I wonder how long it would
take to process 100' of material from 65 square miles (~17,000 hectare)
through a refining process. Could you just decide that what ever plant and
animal life and structures would be forfeit and just dig it out, process it,
and put it back? How long once everything had been processed might you expect
it to take for the forest to regrow, certainly within 100 years you'd have a
solid regrowth. So can you pull 150 to 200 years off the restoration time ?

~~~
trose
I imagine the explosive material complicates things immensely. I'm not an
expert on strip mines but it seems like they just dig up and grind everything
indiscriminately and process it later. This would obviously be a bad strategy
when explosives are involved.

~~~
nitrogen
There are machines designed to clear minefields. Maybe build something like
that but a bit bigger to do the digging, and operate it from a distance?

~~~
justin66
The big difference is that artillery shells are a lot more powerful than land
mines, and some of those shells have mustard gas. Using a machine of some sort
is a good idea but I bet it wouldn't work the same as the minefield sweeper at
all.

~~~
lostlogin
There are also the mines that were placed to destroy trenches. Truly colossal
quantities of explosives that were placed at the end of tunnels. Not all were
exploded.

~~~
Someone
AFAIK, no mines were used at Verdun. Also, the ones used at the Somme all
exploded
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_on_the_first_day_of_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_on_the_first_day_of_the_Somme#List_of_the_mines))

I guess you are thinking of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messines_\(1917\)#List_of_the_mines).
One of them exploded in 1955, a few others may yet explode or may be fairly
harmless by now.

------
minipci1321
See also the previous discussion (more pictures in the article):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9609091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9609091)

EDIT: the guy who took all these pictures merits a credit and has a website
all by himself:
[http://oliviersainthilaire.com/?page_id=38](http://oliviersainthilaire.com/?page_id=38)

------
sabarn01
During World War I an estimated one tonne of explosives was fired for every
square metre of territory on the Western front

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest)

~~~
alejohausner
I saw that number too. But it's crazy wrong. A square mile has 2.5 million
m^2, and I don't think the combatant nations produced 2.5 million tons of
explosives altogether during the whole war. About 7 million tons (!!!) were
dropped from the air during the Vietnam war. One ton per m^2 works out to 1.2
billion tons over the Zone Rouge that the article talks about. That just can't
be right.

~~~
Houshalter
>I don't think the combatant nations produced 2.5 million tons of explosives
altogether during the whole war. About 7 million tons (!!!) were dropped from
the air during the Vietnam war.

I'm having trouble finding a reference, but I don't find 2.5 million tons
unbelievable. The comparison to Vietnam is silly because that was a much
smaller and different war, and aircraft have limited weight capacity.

It's said that some artillery bombardments in WWI were called drum fire
because it sounded like a drum roll. During Verdun there was so much artillery
that it's said you couldn't distinguish the individual explosions, it was just
a load continuous roar that went on for many hours. Perhaps that battlefield
is where the statistic comes from.

They were going through tens of thousands of shells a day and were quickly
running out after a few weeks in. Many factories were converted or built to
produce explosives. Dozens of trains were built to transport them to the front
lines where they were fired continuously for 4 years. The scale and duration
of the war was just insane.

~~~
nkurz
_I don 't find 2.5 million tons unbelievable._

I think you are misreading the OP. 2.5 million tons is the amount that would
be required to cover a single square mile at 1 ton per square meter. Since the
Zone Rouge is many square miles, it would require 1.2 billion tons of
explosive for the 1 ton per square meter figure to be correct.

"I don't think the combatant nations produced 2.5 million tons of explosives
altogether during the whole war" should be read as "While 2.5 million tons for
the entire war might be plausible, 500 times that amount for a single front is
clearly an error". My guess would be that someone along the way confused
"acre" or "hectare" with "square meter".

~~~
dalke
A solid number on the amount of explosives use in the First World War has
proven hard to find.

[http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/nitrate](http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/nitrate)
says:

> Great Britain, for example, stepped up production of powder and explosives
> from 50,000 tons in 1914 to over 1,860,000 tons in 1917

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17011607](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17011607)
has a graph of the British and German explosives production during the war
years. It looks like about 625,000 tons, with 285,000 by Great Britain.

I have better feelings about
[http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/68/2/171](http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/68/2/171)
("Lord Justice of Appeal John Fletcher Moulton and explosives production in
World War I: ‘the mathematical mind triumphant’"). Figure 3 shows Great
Britain manufactured about 340,000 tons of high explosives, and 400,000 tons
of propellant. (Rough eyeball numbers.) But that gives only about 350,000 tons
for the year 1917, compared to the 1,860,000 tons earlier.

Table A7, p122 of
[https://books.google.com/books?id=2YqjfHLyyj8C&pg=PA121&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=2YqjfHLyyj8C&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=explosives+production+tons+%22First+World+War%22&source=bl&ots=BShbYbVNZL&sig=9AWCKhXRQE3IRZHcucurw8BrV6k&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-
vv7GkprOAhUBWSwKHaBhALg4ChDoAQhHMAY#v=onepage&q&f=false) lists partial wartime
production as 409,000 tons of explosives for Great Britain, and 350,000 tons
for Germany, or 759,000 tons total.

Table 9 p87 of
[https://books.google.com/books?id=q_G_Qnag_TcC&pg=PA64&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=q_G_Qnag_TcC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=explosives+production+tons+%22First+World+War%22&source=bl&ots=XC-
MH50aD7&sig=Kb_fyV-AtE-3LZphjDdzSJ1FNgY&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-
vv7GkprOAhUBWSwKHaBhALg4ChDoAQhNMAc#v=onepage&q&f=false) says Great Britain
produced 409,000 tons of powder and explosives.

I can believe 2.5M tons produced by all sides during the war. Barely.

I can't believe that would all be on a single square mile. That would be
equivalent, after all, to a 2.5MT nuke, or a Little Boy/Hiroshima-sized bomb
equivalent every day for 3-4 months.

------
komali2
Jesus christ, that dude was standing next to three shells that were as big as
him. They were really launching artillery that large? What kind of power did
those shells have? How'd they launch them? I always thought of the artillery
bombardments as similar to modern mortars.

~~~
azernik
Looks like a Big Bertha shell [1]. Those larger shells were fired by special-
purpose guns built in very small numbers (only 12 Berthas were ever built),
used to break sieges or against particularly strong front-line fortifications
- for example, Big Bertha was first used in action against the Liege
fortifications during the drive through Belgium.

An even taller (but lighter) shell was fired by the Long Max [2] converted
battleship guns.

The majority of the bombardment was carried out by 75-85mm guns, like for
example [3]. Their shells were about half the caliber, and a quarter the mass,
of modern 155mm howitzer ammunition, but still twice the mass of modern light
infantry mortar shells.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_\(howitzer\))

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_cm_SK_L/45_%22Max%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_cm_SK_L/45_%22Max%22)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_18-pounder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_18-pounder)

------
cyberferret
Powerful story - I've heard the tales of how some of the worst battlefields of
the WWI and WWII are spooky because of the complete absence of bird song. I
always assumed the sheer bad karma of so many deaths in a small space would
make the place a 'no go' zone for wildlife, but I never considered the sheer
amount of toxins in the environment that would be a deterrent too.

Very close to where I live here in Australia is a beautiful cliffside area
that is frequented by locals and tourists alike to watch the sunset over the
sea. At the foot of the cliffs is an old WWII dumping ground that is
absolutely littered with asbestos waste. The local council won't move it
because it is (a) too expensive and (b) actually safer to leave it in situ
because the sea water keeps it damp and prevent asbestos dust from spreading.
I wonder at the other toxins.

Lot of local kids still go down at low tide and forage - you are guaranteed to
find bullet casings etc., and a friend of mine once found an actual Colt .45
down there once (totally rusted and useless, and he handed it in to the
police).

~~~
Camillo
> I always assumed the sheer bad karma of so many deaths in a small space
> would make the place a 'no go' zone for wildlife, but I never considered the
> sheer amount of toxins in the environment that would be a deterrent too.

Is that the actual thought process of an adult in 2016 Australia? You hear "no
wildlife" and your first thought is not environmental damage but "bad karma"?

~~~
cyberferret
Do yourself a favour and visit Auschwitz someday. Stand in front of the ovens
and see if you can summon up the jocularity to do a stand up comedy routine,
then get back to me with your all seeing knowledge of 'karma'...

EDIT: Do you also derive moral superiority by going around critiquing millions
of people who still 'irrationally' believe in 2016 that some higher entity
created the earth in 7 days?

~~~
goatsi
That is because of the knowledge we have of the holocaust though. Try bringing
someone from Asia who hasn't had the history education or seen any of the
books/media and I doubt they would feel anything.

------
betaby
Let wildlife claim that territory.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/wildlife...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/wildlife-
thriving-around-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-despite-radiation)

~~~
Houshalter
In some parts the ground is so contaminated that most plant species won't
grow. The animals that live in the area get heavy metal poisoning because it
bioaccumulates. Chernobyl is different because many plants can withstand
radiation, and the levels are low enough to support animals.

E.g. this picture: [http://static.messynessychic.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/...](http://static.messynessychic.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/oliviersainthilaire_le_poison_inconnu-161-930x620.jpg)

------
fixermark
How do these issues (threat of death from unexploded ordnance and chemical
poisoning of the soil) compare to the damage done by the atomic bombs?

The remaining fissionable material in the bombs was 139 pounds of U-235
(Little Boy) and 12 pounds of Pu-239 (Fat Man). Essentially atomized and
spread into the upper atmosphere, where it spread throughout the global
environment and may have caused a hard-to-measure uptick in cancer, but the
actual demolished territory is rebuilt and thriving today.

Horrifying to think that in the long-term view, the conventional ordnance of
the European theater was a bigger threat to human life and ecosystem stability
than the atomic bombs.

~~~
sevenless
There have been about 2,000 nuclear explosions in world history, plus dozens
of meltdowns, innumerable leaks, etc.

How about the lives that _weren 't_ lost as a result of

(1) nuclear deterrence preventing wars between great powers

(2) nuclear power competing with coal and preventing deaths from air
pollution/coal mining/global warming

though?

> human life and ecosystem stability

You're going to have to pick one of those.

~~~
lostlogin
Humans are always more scared of things they can't see. Things like toxic gas
and the mythology that built up in mining communities, cursed area/tombs
killing people (possibly there are good reasons to avoid these places like
biological disease presence). Religion and gods and and allthat carry on - you
can't see them but they can hurt you. Radiation, particularly ionising, is
somewhere in that collection of hard to understand things. Being able to
detect a danger with your own senses is very reassuring.

------
feklar
Anybody know the status of the thousands of tons of chemical weapons the
allies dumped in the ocean after WWII? Curious if those munitions are still
dangerous

~~~
marvin
Even chemical weapons dumps after WWI are still dangerous today:

[http://helcom.fi/baltic-sea-trends/hazardous-
substances/sea-...](http://helcom.fi/baltic-sea-trends/hazardous-
substances/sea-dumped-chemical-munitions)

------
jackzampolin
Aftermath is an excelent book on the subject if you are interested in more.
Sections on WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War 1.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55545.Aftermath](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55545.Aftermath)

------
tn13
Uninhabitable is not an appropriate term. Uninhabitable means unsuitable for
living. Regions with very high levels of radiation, extreme cold, extreme heat
are often the reasons why some place is uninhabitable.

These lands are scarred by the war but are surely inhabitable if those
countries had higher population density. All the government has to do is
perhaps spend couple of billion dollars picking up all the shells, bombs and
mines.

------
lostlogin
Reading on with that link is so depressing. Describing 22 year olds getting
married (who are old enough to be paid to go and get maimed or die) as "not
yet a mature adult... You were young, dumb and full of one bad idea after
another". The tips and tricks nature of an article describing basic life
skills to people with guns is rather sobering.

------
aaron695
> high levels of arsenic that nothing can grow there

Bullshit.

It's a interesting story but this article is repeated blog spam.

The comments here are much more informative.

------
finid
While we're talking mostly about past wars and their past and ongoing effects,
let's not forget that we've created and still perfecting weapons that are
several times more damaging than any of those used in those wars.

And we're always looking for opportunities to use them. Remember Donald
Rumsfled's "Shock and Awe"?

~~~
lostlogin
I don't think that episode has done anything to reign in what is seen as
acceptable. Those doing the deeds are treated as heros and those ordering
attacks are rewarded with money and medals.

------
jxramos
So what would it take for us to get some metal detecting robots and some
advanced imagery to map out these fields of death? That sounds like a
fantastic side project that would help a ton of people. I'd contribute if
someone knows of something in the works.

~~~
jxramos
actually, didn't consider these things still had chemical munitions in them,
crazy! [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-26663643](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26663643)

------
richardseshie
I heard of APOPO, a nonprofit organization focused on training rats to smell
and identify landmines, [https://www.apopo.org](https://www.apopo.org). Maybe
we (they) could get involved in some way.

------
BDGC
The book "Aftermath: The Remnants of War" by Donovan Webster explores how the
wars of the last century have impacted the surrounding areas. He also gives
great perspectives on the clean up effort/process. Highly recommend.

------
anonymousDan
Call me a pessimist but this is one of the main reasons I'm really
disappointed about Brexit, whatever the EU's drawbacks.

~~~
empath75
Yeah, just watching the news, it's becoming more and more apparent that people
are so far removed from the horrors of WWI and WWII that they don't understand
why we created the international institutions we did.

The UN, WTO, EU, etc, are ineffective, bureaucratic messes, but no matter how
bad they are, they're a better way of solving international disputes than the
historical alternatives.

Western nationalists like to talk about how the cultures of the middle east
are inherently violent, but seem to forget that the history of europe was a
centuries-long bloodbath that eventually engulfed the entire world in horror
and put us nearly on the brink of the extinction of all human life.

It's those alliances and international organizations that allowed us to step
backwards from it. Solving our problems in courtrooms and at negotiating
tables rather than on the battlefield.

~~~
googletazer
These international institutions are not visibly working for the vast majority
of the electorate though. The British working class finally voted for their
interests and of course they've been vilified from the top for it. All these
institutions have allowed for is centralization of power under one
ruler/representative instead of dozen smaller ones.

~~~
tormeh
You don't understand how the EU works. There is a parliament and a central
bureaucracy, yes, but 80% of it is just leaders of national governments
sitting in a surveillance-proof room hashing out deals. There are legitimate
complaints against how the EU is structured, but this is not one of them.

------
pvaldes
Reseed masively, keep people out of the borders and let the trees do its job.
Roots can crush a lot of that bomb shells or keep pressed forever the trigger
of land mines for us. We can afford to lose some poplars here and there.

------
foota
Also see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge)
which the author has clearly read.

------
blackRust
> At places like Verdun [...] 150 shells hit every square meter of the
> battlefield

------
nstj
tl;dr

> Though the Zone Rouge started at some 460 square miles in size, cleanup
> efforts reduced it to around 65 square miles.

------
brooklyndude
Boys just love to blow shit up. Pretty insane if you ask me.

