It wasn’t long ago, I met a Belarus woman. She told me about the terrible after nuclear accident on April 1986 she said many people she knows, many children, got the cancer and died after a cancer.
I suddenly cool down. I have just published a book where I quote the assessments concluded that death from accident was shocked. According to World’s Great OrganizationIn two decades after the accident, fewer than 50 people were killed for radiation exposure, almost all of them saved workers. (I noticed that some estimate is higher.)
The difference between different claims has gained a familiar dilemma. As a reporter consisting of nuclear power and debate its role in climate change – and as a California following San Onofre and Diabla Canyon I navigated in the extreme risk and the charybdis of its excess risk.
If we prevent the risks of nuclear power, we risk polluting the environment and harm public health. If we raise them, we will not forget an important tool for getting ourselves in fossil fuels. If it’s my part of the nuclear dangers, the anti-nuclear part of me is a chump, maybe even an industry shill. If I emphasize the disasters, the pro-nuclear part will consider me an alullist, accuse me of being afraid. In addition to which activists can say, of course, is the possibility of misleading readers about high-stake issues.
My dilemma also wins another question. When do we need to believe in authorities, and when should we trust them? In case of nuclear power, this question has an interesting history. The anti-nuclear movement of ’70s grows from a deep suspicion of authority and institutions. The power of nuclear is highlighted by a “nuclear priesthood” of scientists and government bureaucrats, found as an opaque and enjoyable. Protesters carry signs with messages such as “hell no, we don’t glow” and “better active now than radioactive tomorrow.” Being anti-nuclear with “question authority” without winged ethos of time.
Now, many have changed. In recent years, scientists have told us we need to disarbarkanccize our energy system, and left landing circles, scientists and experts have become good men because many voices becomes strong anti-science). Institutions such as International Energy Agency and the Meeting Panel of Climate Change says nuclear power can be an important role in that decarbonized system. the OFFICIAL judge of deaths from nuclear accidents is small, and in the meantime Suffering is getting worse in climate change always clear. For these factors, many environmentalists and progressives, including me, which is more supported by nuclear power.
Although I was always uncomfortable knowing what I took the word to experts for their conclusions. If we do not ask the authorities, we are trustworthy sheep; If we do not trust them, we have become a homeless conspiracy theorists.
Although these quandaries are more attractive for a journalist consisting of nuclear power, it is universal in our modern world. If deciding whether or our children to wear a mask, or what it is to do the threat of climate change, or how concerned the “bad chemicals” of our cooke seeking guge at risks. Unable to be experts in each field, we should decide who trusts.
Recently, things become more complicated. As President Trump shows federal agencies and cuts from the National Institutes of Health and University, as their decrease in institutions are influenced by a scope of a fear of a fear of further fundraising.
I learned a few lessons to help navigate the problems we face. Don’t think of solitude risks; put them in context. Remove two expert surgery and anecdotal evidence with a grain of salt. Resisting to heal yourself with any specific tribe or team. Be honest, with yourself and others, about your own biases and predisposition.
Even in today’s Chaotic and Degraded Information Ecosystem, we can find people who share our values who know more about a given subject than we do. Listen to those who share your concerns and who often discuss them using solid data and rational.
After these standards I carry the conclusion that nuclear power has hazards and challenges but, if there is a viable source of powerful carbon.
Yet we also need to know that our knowledge cannot be perfect. Our understanding of the world is always changing, as in the world itself. I accept that the occupancy of position between chump and alarm in a part of modern conditions. And I keep trying less than any direction.
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, a Orange County-based journalist, is the author of “Atomic Dreams: New nuclear evangelists and fights for the future of energy. “
