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Ruth -
Excellent thoughts! I hope you're right about the clamor subsiding ... but
in our society, the media frenzy attendant to such an event will probably keep
that from happening. Nobody wants to see themselves on "60 Minutes", "20/20" or
"48 Hours" ... so until LNT is "officially" refuted (and at least a
significant portion of the public has "bought in") I don't see a silver lining
to the cloud.
As I pointed out in an earlier e-mail, the conclusions you draw in your
"bottom line" are primarily due to 50+ years of mis-information (or no
information) regarding radiation risks, and our apparent inability to educate
the public (beginning in the schools) regarding the "real" risks, or lack
thereof. We've just about lost two (2) full generations, and when we lose the
third, the "radiophobia cult" will be so well established that we'll be hard
pressed to exorcise it.
How did the Charleston meeting go?
My $0.02 worth ...
Jim Hardeman
Jim_Hardeman@dnr.state.ga.us
>>> <RuthWeiner@AOL.COM> 9/20/2002 8:29:20 >>> While driving through the night from Raleigh, NC the Charleston SC (don't ask) I got to thinking about realistic and unrealistic perceptions,and it struck me that the mist unrealistic risk perception that modern Americans have is the risk of driiving or riding in a car. I drove from 8PM until about 1 AM, by myself, in a rental car, on interstate highways, at 70 mph, passing trucks, being passed by cars and trucks going much faster than the 70 mph speed limit, and did I really think I would be injured or die?: Of course not, but here is a demonstrable risk that people take all the tme. Moreover, while I can mitigate the risk by wearing a seat bel, obeying the speed limit, etc, I cannot mitigate the risk of a drunk driver hitting me head-on while driving the wrong way on the freeway (yes, we just had another of those in New Mexico: four peole wiped out. In N.M. this is not infrequent.). Now by any observation of the frequency of fatality and injury, driving in a car carries a whole lot larger risk than being exposed to radon, living near a nuke plant, being in the fallout of an accident involving spent fuel transportation, or even a "dirty bomb." If just the thought of risk causes panic, why don't people panic when they are driving? Why wasn't there wholesale panic when the speed limit was raised? There are far better statistics on the relation between speed and traffic deaths and injuries than between low-level radiation exposure, or radon exposure, and cancer. I think (and I'm ready for the brickbats, folks) that "radiophobia" and the associated fears include a fair amount of self-delusion, whether deliberate or inadvertent. I am sure Jim Hardeman is right -- there would be clamor, at least initially, to clean up every atom, etc., though I think the clamor would subside. After all, the residents of Pripyat wanted to move back. Also, it's easy and convenient to blame the government or some nebulous corporate entity, and to think that "the government" is paying for the cleanup and forget that the source of "the government's" money is the same taxpayer who is paying car insurance. I also believe that the anti-nuclear movement deliberately perpetuates and exacerbates radiophobia. Finally, it's fun and easy to be a victim if it doesn't hurt. I have attended many, many public hearings on nuclear matters, and there is always wailing and gnashing of teeth about someone's friend or relative who had cancer, but I have never seen any anti-nuke or anti-nuke sympathizer at these hearings who can actually claim that he or she has beeen harmed by low-levels of ionizing radiation. Go to a public hearing on drunk driving, and there are plenty of personal experiences on display. Bottomline? 1. Radiophobia is based largely on the LNT, for which there is no evidence. 2. There is a common perception, or belief, that exposure to small amounts of ionizing radiation is lot more risky than accumulated evidence shows it to be. 3. This is a misperception, and there is no other honest way to say it. Ruth RuthF. Weiner, Ph. D. ruthweiner@aol.com ************************************************************************ You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/ |