Re: Power Plant Pollution Linked to 30,000 Premature Deaths

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@cpcug.org>]

> The media deal with death, destruction, and chaos period.  Not interested
in
constructive, creative activities, concepts, or precepts.  These things
would
put them out of business.  It's the only hat they have to wear:
Destruction.

Gang:

I don't quarrel with any of that.  The question is, what can WE do to
improve the situation?  It's a bit like the cold war, where we kept saying
that the Russians were bad guys, and so everything else was irrelevant.
Just as both sides are now saying in Palestine/Isreal.  So I accept that the
media will make fear and destruction out of any story they can.  We're not
going to change that.  So what should WE do?

Why hand them unbidden news releases, saying that scientific studies show
that 30,000 people are going to die from whatever?  If we really believe
that is so, and that people must be warned to avert mass destruction, then
do it.  But don't complain afterwards that the media shouldn't be playing
that up as a serious problem.  Aren't 30,000 deaths, from causes previously
considered benign, a serious problem?

And if we don't think the problem is real, then we shouldn't be writing it
up and issuing press releases claiming deaths.  The DOE, charged with
promoting nuclear technology and having no responsibility but advocacy (plus
the weapons program, which is another matter, irrelevant here), gratuitously
issued a press release announcing that a six-year, multimillion-dollar
scientific study, has shown that 23 people will be irradiated to death by
shielded radwaste casks on their way to disposal.   No, they didn't use the
phrase "irradiated to death."  They just said they would develop fatal
cancers.  Is that any better, or more accurate?  And yes, it referred to
weapons wastes, but is civilian radiation any more benign?

We can have only minimal impact on the behavior of the media.  But we've got
to accept responsibility for making studies that "demonstrate" that people
will die from trivial amounts of radiation.  If you believe that is true,
then back your conclusion with valid data and be prepared to defend it.  If
you don't think it's real, in the real-world sense, then don't say it.  The
argument that these deaths are real, in some abstract, hypothetical sense,
but we shouldn't worry about them because they're not going to actually
happen, is worse than the rhetoric we deplore in our politicians.

[I realize the figure may be more "real" for particulate pollution; I'm not
prepared to argue that question.  But some of the postings here try to have
it both ways.  ("It's real enough to defend the scientist, but phony enough
to criticize the media for reporting it.")  And similar statements have been
made for nuclear, and my comments refers to those.]

Ted Rockwell

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