Re: more st lucie workers expsoed

["Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com>]

At 05:06 PM 10/20/2002 -0400, RuthWeiner@AOL.COM wrote:

> I
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> > http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/trib_local_news/article/0,1651,TCP_1107_1482702,00
> >
> >
> > .html 
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> Can someone explain to me why external occupational exposure to 20 to 25
>
> mrem and internal occupational exposure to 1 to 2 mrem are news? 


Yes, Ruth,


It's easy.


The lay population is very afraid of nucular (sic) accidents because

there is the image of the huge destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the

image of the atmospheric testing in the 40s and 50s, the image of

Chernobyl ingrained in our minds.


A colleague of mine described trying to explain to a non-scientific

person why the new, sharper digital television set showed backgrounds out

of focus--because the foreground is now sharper. The explainee couldn't

get it, but rather preferred to blame the new set.


If we can't explain depth of field to people, how can we explain nuclear

engineering? It's hard to get people to understand basic units of

measurement beyond feet, inches, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit. 



I have worked fairly hard (yes, I could work harder and understand more)

to understand what I've learned from everyone on this list. 


I think the one feeling which this type of investigation engenders in the

non-scientific mind is "if they can't even get this right, how can

we trust them if something really bad happens." We have management

oversight problems in many areas. For example Enron, Worldcom, why not

have these problems in nuclear power? The D-B non-event showed

substantial managerial failures...as did the Challenger. 


The one question that I have is that the usual rule is "follow the

money" to find out why people have the agendas they do. I'm not sure

this is true of the anti-nuclear community...or at least a good portion

of it. As I've stated before, I do think that a portion of the

anti-nuclear people are virtuous ideologues who believe that this stuff

is bad for the world.


What happens is that the science is too complex and the source of the

science is sometimes not to be trusted.


I do not know the exact quote from Einstein, but one of my anti-nuclear

folksinger friends has a line in one of his songs, "If Einstein says

he's scared/I'm scared." So if you're an anti-nuclear person you

hear that and take solace from it that your belief is shared by one of

the greatest scientific minds...or may come from it.


One other point. The reportage of these event can be made to sound

exciting even with the numbers included because people don't understand.

For example, if someone stuck their fingers across a D-cell flashlight

battery, one could say "Worker exposed to 1.5V which is more than

s/he should have been exposed to." Now we all know that we can't

even feel the 1.5V on our skin--although a 9V battery on our tongue is

rather exciting.


Radiation metrics should always be put in perspective and the article in

question did do it, and then went on to report that it was an event none

the less.


One has to fill pages with something. Let's continue to fuel the fears of

the populace.


Cheers,


Richard

Richard L. Hess                              richard@richardhess.com
Glendale, CA USA                           http://www.richardhess.com/
Web page: folk and church music, photography, and
                 broadcast engineering