A more terrifying example of human frailties took place in April 1986. A serious accident at the nuclear reactor plant in Chernobyl, U.S.S.R., killed some 30 persons, endangered untold thousands, and forced the evacuation of 135,000 Soviet citizens. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Many scientists say the long-term health effects of the radiation absorbed by Soviets and Europeans after the nuclear accident will remain unknown for years. . . . [They] expect increased cases of leukemia and lung, breast and thyroid cancers.”

But winds can be fickle. For example, during the Chernobyl disaster, they shifted, causing Poland, the Baltic countries, and Scandinavia​—not to speak of the Soviet Union itself—​to be more severely polluted with radioactive air than other parts of Europe.