Skip to main content

Radiation and Fear Itself

fear_1_lg As you can see in the post below, the brief scare about radiation over the weekend has quickly faded and there are still no signs of increased levels.

The Environmental Protection Agency has put up a Frequently Asked Questions page to explain how increased radiation levels are detected in the United States. I knew some of this but not all of it. Well worth a visit.

---

From NPR this morning, a discussion between Dr. Robert DuPont, who teaches clinical psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and specializes in the study and treatment of fear, including the fear of nuclear energy:

DuPont: God, you've got people in California taking potassium iodide to prevent cancers from the radiation from this plant. What is that? And I think the answer is in biology. Fear dominates our attention. Whatever the tsunami was, whatever the earthquake was, that's over. Sure, it could happen again. But the nuclear reactor? Who knows.

That’s a little harsh – lack of good information played a part - but it leads into a productive conversation between DuPont and NPR’s Renee Montagne about fear of nuclear energy.

Montagne: Now, what makes people's reaction to nuclear energy so different than other energy sources - for instance, you know, drilling for oil or coal mining - when they have also some quite tragic, you know, loss of life and danger in the industry?

DuPont: They do, but it's familiar and it doesn't have the connection to Hiroshima that we have with nuclear power, and it's also familiar. We're used to thinking about industrial accidents.

The whole thing is worth a read. I’d hate to think that anyone suffered an irrational fear of nuclear energy, which is really rooted in a fear of radiation, but there you are.

---

But maybe it’s too easy to point to fear – either of nuclear energy or radiation – as determinative the response to Fukushima Daiichi. In the local event, a fear mongering media must take a large role. Or is even that true?

Only 44 percent of those who took part in the CBS telephone survey said they were more fearful of a possible nuclear accident in the U.S., even as Japan struggles to put the lid on their own potential catastrophe at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

And that means:

Fifty-three percent of those polled said they were no more fearful of a similar catastrophe in the U.S. than they were prior to the ongoing issues at Fukushima.

Well, that still means that 44% are afraid of an accident here. CBS doesn’t appear to have polled it, but that must be a big uptick from the number prior to the Japan earthquake and a number that will doubtless decrease as time passes. For the moment, though, it suggests that efforts to name and dispel the fear are important.

That’s what EPA and NPR are doing and, of course, what NEI is doing, too. If this is polled again in a month or so, we’ll have a better way to judge fear whipped up by alarmist coverage and fear that sustains itself.

Not sure where this came from – I’ve seen old books on acting that showed your how to express different emotions. Pictures like this abound in them.

Comments

CrisisMaven said…
Your readers might be interested in the pertinent question of how to treat their radioactively contaminated drinking water:
http://crisismaven.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/dangers-properties-possible-uses-and-methods-of-purification-of-radioactively-contaminated-drinking-water-e-g-in-japan/

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should