A piece in the LA Times on the perception of risk. The levels of radiation from the Japanese nuclear plant disaster a distance from the plant are much lower than other radiation risks we don't think twice about and much lower than other forms of risk. I'm not a fan of nuclear power, but the reasons are not plant safety issues - overall death risks are much lower than burning fossil fuels and we do that all the time without thinking about it. (There are potentially very large risks associated with proliferation that we ignore .. that is one of my nightmares about widespread nuclear use). In general I'm not a fan - but only if you don't compensate by increasing fossil fuel burning. As a country we really haven't exploited conservation and efficiency.
Here are some dosage risks and a nice visualization of them (via Information is beautiful) - note that a logarithmic scale is used.
The lowest estimates for deaths from the particulate that comes from burning coal are several thousand deaths per year in the US - yet almost no one worries considers that a real risk. More perplexing is that we brush off over 3000 automobile deaths a month when very simple steps could easily cut that in half.
We are very bad at risk assessment. It may well be something we are wired with to deal with risks from a different time. Very curious...
In the meantime it is probably not a good thing to be a Japanese fisherman or farmer.
Comments