[PTTG]

In Radium, the negative effects of radiation were first ignored, then suppressed for decades. The atomic era began in the 1920s, as atomic heaters were manufactured and distributed to homes around the world. Where our history used neon, this one used radioluminescent paints.

This opened the door to more sophisticated uses of radiation, from food preservation (including the occasional household Radium Cabinet) to nuclear power. This second kind took the form of small "atomic stirlings" used in cars and homes.

Obviously this was big business -- the Atomic Revolution made billionares by the mid '30s. Though there was already serious evidence that everything from the bottle-warmer beside a crib to the very dust in the city streets was producing some level of dangerous radiation, it was 1: economically unsound to upset the applecart over the matter and 2: practically seditious to even speak of things that would disrupt the economy of the free world so seriously as reversing the gains made in the AR.

It didn't help that Nazis saw atomic advances as unwanted foreign influence on their world. In fact, the Nazi party's obsession with genetic purity lead them to instruct members of the party avoid to atomic devices entirely, which much of the rest of the party took as an invitation to trash them.

As the Soviets and the Allies liberated Europe, the idea that only Nazis oppose Atomics was firmly rooted the zeitgeist. This was only reinforced by the use of the nuclear bomb (corporate partners insisted that the bomb be referred to as "nuclear" rather than "atomic" in order to avoid a public relations issue) to win the war. There were six bombs used; two on Japan, one on Germany a while before, and three used against the USSR. One of these was a "warning shot" in the Baltic, the second on soviet forces outside Warsaw, and the third against a retaliatory strike by the soviets shortly thereafter. The USSR fell into disarray, and the Communist Bloc collapsed practically before it had begun.

And so, the public generally accepted the power of the atom for decades. It was only in the 1980s that it finally became impossible to cover up the quite literal fallout growing in magnitude around the world. It took decades more to actually turn public opinion against Atomic tools and materials; even in 2015, a solid 30% of the population believed there was no harm in a little alpha, beta, or gamma in one's daily life. This has resulted in communities being forced to depend on themselves for protection from radiation, and to attempt to replace it.

In the present (2015) day, some communities are attempting to clean up their act, while others ignore the omnipresent radiation as much as they can, and blame the negative effects on bad luck or cigarettes. The lack of regulation means that more and more of the planet is being hit by radioactive leaks and other nuclear pollution, making vast areas unsuitable to human life (think like Lake Karachay, the Kyshtym Radioactive Trace, or the Cherenobyl exclusion zone, except most states in the USA have at least one such site and probably more). Even the cleanest town survives, deep down, because of radiation produced somewhere else, though some are trying to put a stop to it.

On the bright side, this world has nearly no excess CO2.