Re: Request for suggestion

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>
An: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Datum: Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2000 16:09
Betreff: Request for suggestion


> My approach to countering it has been to point out that coal
>burning, our principal source of electricity generation, is estimated to
>kill 10,000 or more Americans every year with its air pollution, whereas
>nuclear power is estimated to kill less than 10 (including accidents and
>buried radioactive waste treated probabilistically, and accepting
>linear-no threshold theory). There is extensive scientific documentation
>supporting both of these estimates, 10,000 vs 10, and I believe they are
>generally accepted in the scientific community and by governmental
>agencies in U.S. and internationally. To me, this is a rational method for
>countering the public's misconception.
>
> However, I have recently been heavily attacked on RADSAFE for
>using this approach. In my responses to these attacks, I have asked for an
>alternative approach to countering the public's misconception about the
>dangers of nuclear power. However no suggestions that I can recognize as
>such have been offered. I am therefore left sorely in need of an
>alternative approach. Can someone please help me on this?


In case you would regard my contribution to the discussion as an attack, I
would regret this deeply. I have always been fascinated by your approach to
the so-called Radon-problem and am happy to have met you several years ago
in Vienna, where you presented your findings for the Austrian Society for
Radiation Protection.

I am not a fanatic advocator of nuclear power, but I am used to use facts
when making up my mind. As long as people are not willing to severely reduce
their demand for electricity, there is clearly no alternative, as well there
is none, when regarding the problems with carbon dioxide and the greenhouse
effect. The demand for energy and electricity is rising and it is legitimate
that the developing countries want their share of wealth, which is directly
coupled to energy.

On the other side, you have all these groups in the industrialized
countries, which tell you, that you could save energy, you can reduce the
need for electricity. They seem not to be able to convince people to
voluntarily cut down their energy consumption (otherwise there would not be
a constant rise of demand!) I myself do not have an electric can-opener, not
an electric letter-opener, I put off the lights when leaving a room, I cut
my bread and sausage with a knife. Therefore these groups have to threaten
the population by telling them, how dangerous it is to produce electricity
and the terrible impact it has on the environment. Nobody will care for the
big reservoirs, which accumulate heavy metals in their sediments, which ruin
parts of the environment for fish, nobody cares for the air pollution by
burning coal and oil, because this is a very well known method for
production of electricity since many decades (a century), nobody is scared
by floods from breaking dams - though they have happened, causing many
thousands of casualities. This is a part of everyday news in the mass media.
But what is really exceptional and frightening is nuclear energy. Nuclear
energy is associated with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - not a very
pleasant thought indeed. It is associated with the global contamination of
the fifties and sixties and the ever increasing potential of destruction,
demonstrated by nuclear bomb tests.

You cannot frighten anybody with real everyday risks like traffic accidents
or smoking. You have to put forward irrational dangers like a nuclear
accident, which can only be excluded to 99.9999999999%, but not completely.
This is what these groups aim to.

How to counter them?

You know about the relative risks of car-traffic, air-traffic, earth-quakes,
meteorite impact, hepatitis, HIV, cardiovascular diseases, stroke etc. Did
you communicate them and used them as an argument - you sure did that. Any
success? No, of course not. Do you really think that the risk of air
pollution will turn anybody from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear? No matter what
the numbers are, it might be noticed, but it will not be accepted to put the
risks into perspective.

Have you ever tried to compare the deaths of the Vietnam war or the Korean
war, not to talk about World War II to the potential deaths from nuclear
power using the LNT-hypothetis? Don't do this!!!!! "You cannot compare this.
This is something totally different, we are all willing to defend the
democracy (in Vietnam????) with our lives, but nuclear energy is not
necessary". This applies as well to all people who die because of silly
wars - I posted recently about it.

Nuclear energy is a political issue (and an economic one) and not a
scientific one. Using scientific arguments is nice for scientists, but
nobody in the public will listen to them. The public does not listen to
statistics - of course it does not understand them. So why bothering them
with it?

Nuclear energy will only win, when it is economically advantegeous. Then the
electricity companies will do everything to promote it. They have the PR
managers and the links to the mass media, we do not have them.

I know that this is very negative and discouraging, but I think it is facts.

Franz


BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Schoenhofer;Franz
FN:Franz Schoenhofer
ORG:Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Department of Radiation Protection
TEL;WORK;VOICE:+43-1-71100-4458
TEL;HOME;VOICE:+43-1-495 53 08
TEL;CELL;VOICE:+43-699-116 813 19
TEL;WORK;FAX:+43-1-7122331
TEL;HOME;FAX:+43-1-495 53 08
ADR;WORK:;;Radetzkystr. 2;A-1031 Vienna;;;Austria
LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Radetzkystr. 2=0D=0AA-1031 Vienna=0D=0AAustria
ADR;HOME:;;Habicherg. 31/7;A-1160 Vienna;;;Austria
LABEL;HOME;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Habicherg. 31/7=0D=0AA-1160 Vienna=0D=0AAustria
EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:franz.schoenhofer@chello.at
REV:20001215T225743Z
END:VCARD