There are two significant dates on the environmental calendar this week: April 22 and 26. Anyone who's been following the media will be familiar at least with the latter of these dates. The 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is, justly, receiving a lot of coverage. However, for those not involved in NGOs or without specialist interests in the environment, maybe the first date is harder to pinpoint. It is World Earth Day, one of the increasing number of "international" days in aid of various "worthy causes".

Chernobyl fallout
This year's anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster comes in the midst of the debate surrounding the future of nuclear power. In the search for alternative power sources to take the place of the world's quickly depleting oil reserves, nuclear power is receiving some good PR and being rebranded as a clean option, even by an increasing number of environmentalists.

At an EU summit in March, the majority of leaders were in favour of a revival of nuclear power. Only Germany and Austria overtly rejected the nuclear option. The EU energy commissioner Andreas Piebalgs said Europe should follow the example of Finland, where the first new nuclear plant in Europe since Chernobyl is being built. But attitudes toward nuclear power remain split.

No one can deny the terrible and lasting effects of the Chernobyl disaster. The Guardian sent a photographer to document the survivors and their families. The result were images of people, many of them young, living with tumours and cancers and deformities; a harsh reminder of what can happen when nuclear goes wrong.

However, the extent of the long-term effects of radiation is causing contention. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) last September which claims that radiation from Chernobyl will be responsible for the deaths of a total of 4000 people overall has attracted criticism for "downplaying" the death toll. A report out this April by the Green group in the UK parliament, led by independent radiation scientists, claims that the actual number of people likely to die as a result of the Chernobyl radiation is 15 times the amount stated in the IAEA/WHO report. It puts the figure at about 60 000, saying that cancer deaths had been underestimated as had the fact that over half of the fallout was in countries other than Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.

Another study just out by The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) attempts to estimate the cancer burden in Europe as a whole from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. The study uses risk prediction models developed from studies of other populations exposed to radiation in other settings, particularly the studies of survivors of the atomic bomb in Japan. It predicts that by 2065, about 16 000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25 000 cases of other cancers may be due to radiation from the accident and that about 16 000 deaths from these cancers may occur. About two-thirds of thyroid cancer cases and at least one half of the other cancers are expected to occur in Belarus, Ukraine, and the most contaminated territories of the Russian Federation, the report states. It goes on to say that, while these figures reflect human suffering and death, they nevertheless represent only a very small fraction of the total number of cancers seen since the accident and expected in the future in Europe. Dr Boyle, director of the IARC, said that, "to put in perspective, tobacco smoking will cause several thousand times more cancers in the same population." However, the report admits that the uncertainty associated with these predictions is large. Taking this into consideration, in fact the number of thyroid cancer cases caused by the radiation is predicted between 3400 and 72 000, cases of other cancers, between 11 000 and 59 000, and deaths from cancer between 6700 and 38 000. So, the picture remains unclear.

Accusations have been levelled particularly at the IAEA/WHO report for functioning as a "political communications tool" to raise nuclear power's profile and downplay its old, dirty image. Whether or not this is the case, the legacy of Chernobyl lives on, but so too does the future of depleted and exhausted fossil fuel resources.

Just another day?
A plethora of "international" and "world" days have sprung over the past few years: World No Tobacco Day (stoically ignored by the majority of my colleagues), the all-encompassing World Tolerance Day, World Health Day, World Population Day - there is even World Television Day. Maybe it all stems from when disgruntled Dads, feeling undervalued, campaigned to add Father's Day to the calendar, alongside Mother's Day. Or, more likely, someone in the greeting cards business noticed a whole new domain of untapped opportunity. The fact that an "international day" is required to remind us about this planet that we inhabit is probably not a good sign. The fact that many people outside certain circles are not actually even aware of the existence of this day is less encouraging still.  Of course, the motivation behind such days is admirable and certainly preferable to World Deforestation Day or International Kill the Whales Day. But surely Mother Earth would appreciate a loving and meaningful relationship all year round more than a token card on a day prescribed  for caring.

Is this a symptom of an increasingly individualistic society? As the emphasis in Western societies moves away from the family and the community onto the individual, expressions of caring become formalised commodities. So too, attitudes towards not just people, but the environment and other "causes". In the case of the environment, this is compounded by the fact that as societies become more "developed", they become more removed from nature, its processes and cycles. On a basic level, someone living in the city will be less aware of the cycles of the seasons than someone in the country. But societies as a whole become literally more removed as waste and our rubbish are magicked away, removing the from view the consequences of our actions. Or supposedly anyway. It takes examples of failures in this removal system, such as Sofia's refuse crises, to bring home the impact we make on our environment.

These special days fit into our culture, providing the opportunity to purchase the right badge or wristband to show that we care, but are they really anything more than opportunities for celebrities to demonstrate how caring and environmentally-conscious they are by imparting to us their earth day message, or for us to ease our consciences by putting a few stotinki in a box?

Intrinsically, they must be a good thing, if they manage to make people a little more aware, even just for a while, about their environment, and in our society where our attention spans are just long enough to deal with the 30-second, flash-cut advert, maybe it is too much to expect anyone to make a sustained effort - besides, tomorrow is another Day.