Re: Meeting public demand

["Thomas E. Potter" <pottert@erols.com>]

Kai Kaletsch's observation is the kind that would seem to undermine the

importance of many factors conventional wisdom would have us believe

limit the acceptability of nuclear technology--particularly nuclear

power technology.  When these factors are examined thoroughly and

systematically, their importance is much diminished.  It's not about

inadequate public involvement. The aircraft industry is being allowed to

fix its tail with little in the way of public involvement.  It's not

about voluntary versus involuntary.  We impose risks willy nilly with

little thought and we endure a wide range of risks essentially

involuntarily.  And, notwithstanding Bill Lipton's Theory of Everything,

it's not about trust.   If it was about trust, the oil and coal

companies would have been out of business decades ago.



Howard Margolis of the University of Chicago has studied this matter

comprehensively, and has documented his work in <Dealing with Risk>,

subtitled <Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental

Issues>.    It was published in 1996 by the University of Chicago

Press.  According to Margolis, it is not very much about what we worry

most about, but it is very much about need for the technology and how

that need is perceived by the public and framed with risks in public

discourse.



Our unquestioning acceptance of many of the commonly accepted but

mistaken ideas underlying much of the discussion in this thread leads us

to do imprudent things.  Bill Lipton reads about a little cesium in a

deer, and, responding instinctively to his hypersensitivity to public

opinion, casts all caution aside and lunges at the opportunity to name

the event the latest in his woefully long list of self-inflicted gunshot

wounds to the nuclear foot.  This is the exact opposite of the the

dispassionate, measured, and thoughtful analysis that such situations

deserve.



Thomas Potter

____________________________

Kai Kaletsch posted the following:

Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:36:46 -0600

From: Kai Kaletsch <info@eic.nu>

Subject: Re: Meeting public demand



Why is it that on interest rate policy Congress (public) seeks input

from

bankers, but on energy policy or stem cell research Congress seeks

advice

from priests, actors and super models?



The first issue is seen as a technical issue, while the others are seen

as

value issues. In a democracy, the public has the right to defer

technical

issues to technical experts. (When was the last time someone called for

a

plebiscite on interest rates?). Energy policy should be a technical

issue.

Most of us share the same values. (Not all of us - some people think

nuclear

is evil and that's all.) We want energy at a reasonable price with

minimal

environmental impact (

http://www.dilbertzone.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20020220.html

).



It is important to point out factual errors (e.g. glowing deer, 8000

radiation dead at Chernobyl) and ask further questions when the

information

is incomplete (21 pCi per gram or 21 pCi per deer?). This will not turn

the

public into PhDs, but will make the public aware that there are people

who

have studied this kind of stuff.



Kai



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