Hello guys,<p>I live in the region (West Flanders, Belgium) so here are some local stories.<p>* 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.<p>* 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.<p>* Lots of farms have a heap of old bombs on the terrain. Once a year or so DOVO comes and picks them up.<p>* 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.<p>* 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'.<p>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.
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: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8576292.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspon...</a>.<p>It's strange to realise that there are still many people yet to be born who will die as casualties of WW1 and WW2.
I feel I should do the obligatory Dan Carlin link here:
<a href="http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepri...</a><p>Long, harrowing and left me hankering for more. He covers Verdun in the later episodes.
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).<p>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.<p>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...
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.<p>We will use all the means at our disposal to clean up and undo the damage we have done to our home.<p>Swarms of autonomous robots, and possibly nanites will replenish the soil, water and air. We will restore coastlines and replant forests.<p>Wiser, and ashamed of our primitive past, we will rebuild a pristine paradise fitting of a spacefaring civilization.
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.<p>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?<p>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.
Now imagine the state of the battlefields of Vietnam and surrounding countries.<p>There are places in Cambodia that are no-go areas because of all the stuff we dropped there that did not explode.
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.<p>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 ?
See also the previous discussion (more pictures in the article):<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9609091" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9609091</a><p>EDIT: the guy who took all these pictures merits a credit and has a website all by himself: <a href="http://oliviersainthilaire.com/?page_id=38" rel="nofollow">http://oliviersainthilaire.com/?page_id=38</a>
During World War I an estimated one tonne of explosives was fired for every square metre of territory on the Western front<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest</a>
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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).
Let wildlife claim that territory.<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/wildlife-thriving-around-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-despite-radiation" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/wildlife...</a>
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?<p>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.<p>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.
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
Aftermath is an excelent book on the subject if you are interested in more. Sections on WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War 1.<p><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55545.Aftermath" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55545.Aftermath</a>
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.<p>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.
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.
> high levels of arsenic that nothing can grow there<p>Bullshit.<p>It's a interesting story but this article is repeated blog spam.<p>The comments here are much more informative.
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.<p>And we're always looking for opportunities to use them. Remember Donald Rumsfled's "Shock and Awe"?
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.
I heard of APOPO, a nonprofit organization focused on training rats to smell and identify landmines, <a href="https://www.apopo.org" rel="nofollow">https://www.apopo.org</a>. Maybe we (they) could get involved in some way.
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.
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.
Also see: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge</a> which the author has clearly read.