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Re: One pound of Plutonium
At 09:17 AM 3/23/98 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Although this proves the statement regarding plutonium is the most
>deadly substance known to man or 1 pound killing everyone on earth.
>Do you really think telling people that it is ONLY going to kill
>800,000 is going to make people feel any better?
>
>People in the general public (non-science trained) react to topics
>such as those regarding radiation and things nuclear emotionally
>and not logically (otherwise the pr battles would be easy to win)
>and unfortunately, journalists feed off that emotional response.
>So by telling people this, we would be "scientifically" correct
>(LNT debate ignored at the moment as you requested) but we would
>still be losing in the public image arena. So where is the benefit
>in doing these calculations?
>
>Mike Baker
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Michael C. Baker, Ph.D. Safeguards Science and Technology
> Nonproliferation and International
> Security Division
>email: mcbaker@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory
>Phone: (505) 667-7334 P.O. Box 1663, Mail Stop E540
>Fax: (505) 665-4433 Los Alamos, NM 87545 (USA)
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
The answer is yes. Not only for our understanding and conviction but also
to identify and to avoid the most significant obstacles when communicating
safety and risks issues to general society, where they live. More than
fifty years was lapsed in the reactor programme and still nuclear scientists
have not yet the capacity to dialogue and to avoid the temptation of using
technical jargons. Safety Culture indicators in human performance
information are prerequisite in the educational programme of the new
generation in our area.
In this I include the present topic
J. J. Rozental <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>
Israel