Comment on Big Nuclear’s Big Mistake - Linear No-Threshold
turdas@suppo.fi 3 days agoThat’s not the message here at all. The message is that this overly cautious policy contributes to the public’s poor understanding of the risks of radiation, which in turn causes harm e.g. in the form of overreactions when things go wrong (see the section from 20:50 onwards). For example, with the benefit of hindsight, evacuating Fukushima likely did much more harm than good, and the actual health effects of Chernobyl are to this date widely grossly overestimated.
Honestly OP this is such a weird message to be pushing. Are you heavily invested in nuclear or something?
What is so weird about pro-nuclear messaging on a green energy forum? Dispelling myths about nuclear is just as important as dispelling myths about renewables. And while I am not monetarily invested in nuclear, I policy-wise I am heavily invested – like anyone who cares about sustainability should be.
Dogyote@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
It’s the downstream effects of your message that I’m worried about. We shouldn’t get sloppy with nuclear material. Suggesting that a little radiation exposure isn’t bad or a little water contamination isn’t bad, while perhaps technically correct, can lead to sloppiness and eroding standards. People should be afraid of radiation so they respect it.
turdas@suppo.fi 3 days ago
No one is suggesting to get sloppy with nuclear material or advocating for some bizarre Fallout-style radium cola society. What I am advocating for is a world where people know that getting a chest X-ray or eating a mushroom in Eastern Europe does not increase their risk of cancer from radiation exposure.
For example, maybe you’ve forgotten, but the radiation psychosis when Fukushima happened was insane. We had loads of people in Europe, which is just about as far away from Fukushima as you can get, poring over those ocean radiation heatmaps for years – when in reality Fukushima released so little radiation that not even the people in Fukushima were at any real risk. This is a direct consequence of unscientific, alarmist policies and messaging poisoning public perception.
People should not be made afraid of radiation, because them “respecting it” gives them absolutely no benefit. There isn’t really nothing anyone can do in their daily lives to meaningfully avoid it regardless of how aware they are of it.
This is why it is an organizational responsibility of society to create an environment where people can live their lives without ever thinking about radiation hazards – which is what we have successfully done. Scaremongering contributes nothing to that except give people mental health issues and cause them to vote for insane policies that shut down clean, carbon-free nuclear plants in order to replace them with coal and LNG (which, ironically, contribute more to radiation hazards than nuclear does).