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Why are we so afraid of nuclear power?
By David Ropeik
Germanyˇ¦s ambivalence about nuclear energy, common in many developed countries,
has been on display again recently, following German Chancellor Angela Merkelˇ¦s
decision to extend the operating life of the countryˇ¦s 17 nuclear plants for an
average of 12 years beyond their currently scheduled closure dates. Merkel says
this will help Germany develop the ˇ§most efficient and environmentally friendly
energy supply worldwide.ˇ¨ Opposition leaders say that the government is ˇ§selling
safety for money.ˇ¨
Both sides argue about the facts, but underlying that debate is an argument
about how those facts feel. How risk is perceived ˇX whether the risk is nuclear
power or genetically modified food or any potential threat ˇX is never a purely
rational, fact-based process.
Decades of research have found that risk perception is an affective combination
of facts and fears, intellect and instinct, reason and gut reaction. It is an
inescapably subjective process ˇX one that has helped us to survive, but that
sometimes gets us into more trouble, because we often worry too much about
relatively smaller risks, or not enough about bigger ones, and make choices that
feel right, but that actually create new risks.
So, as Germany grapples with the issue of nuclear power, there are important
lessons to be learned, not only about nuclear power per se, but also about how
we perceive risk in the first place, because understanding that subjective
system is the first step toward avoiding its pitfalls.
Consider the two aspects of the risk of nuclear radiation: the facts and the
feelings.
For 65 years, researchers have followed nearly 90,000 hibakusha, the name in
Japan for atomic bomb survivors who were within 3km of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki explosions in 1945. Scientists compared them to a non-exposed Japanese
population to calculate the effects of the radiation to which they had been
exposed. The current estimate is that just 572 hibakusha ˇX a little more than
0.5 percent ˇX have died, or will die, from various forms of radiation-induced
cancer.
Research by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (www.rerf.or.jp) found
that the fetuses of hibakusha women who were pregnant at the time of the
explosions were born with horrible defects. However, the RERF found little other
serious long-term damage ˇX even genetic damage ˇX from exposure to those
extraordinarily high levels of radiation.
Relying on the Japanese research, the WHO estimates that over the entire
lifetime of the population of several hundred thousand people exposed to
ionizing radiation from Chernobyl, as many as 4,000 might die prematurely from
cancer caused by the leaked radiation. That is tragic, of course, but, like the
number of cancer deaths among survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is a
smaller number than many people assume.
So, if ionizing radiation is a relatively weak carcinogen, why is nuclear power
so scary? Research into how people perceive and respond to risk has identified
several psychological characteristics that make nuclear radiation particularly
frightening:
ˇE It is undetectable by our senses, which makes us feel powerless to protect
ourselves, and lack of control makes any risk scarier.
ˇE Radiation causes cancer, a particularly painful outcome, and the more pain and
suffering something causes, the more afraid of it we are likely to be.
ˇE Radiation from nuclear power is human-made, and human-made risks evoke more
fear than natural threats.
ˇE Nuclear power plants can have accidents (many still believe that they can
explode like bombs), and people are intrinsically more afraid of risks
associated with a single large-scale ˇ§catastrophicˇ¨ event than they are of risks
that cause greater harm spread over space and time.
ˇE Many people donˇ¦t trust the nuclear industry, or government nuclear
regulators, and the less we trust, the more we fear.
Despite all these fears, public attitudes toward nuclear power are shifting. The
psychology of risk perception explains that too:
ˇE We are more aware of the benefits of CO2-free emissions, and when the benefits
of a choice seem larger, the associated risks seem smaller.
ˇE The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was fresher in European minds in 2000, when
Germany voted to eliminate all nuclear power by 2021, than it is now, a decade
later, and the less immediately aware of a risk we are, the less fear it
induces.
These psychological factors have nothing to do with the facts about the actual
risk of nuclear radiation. However, as is often the case with risk perception,
emotional filters, more than the facts, determine how afraid we are, or arenˇ¦t.
Whether this is rational or irrational, right or wrong, is irrelevant. It is,
inescapably, how it is. But we must recognize that our response to risk can pose
a danger all by itself. Our fear of nuclear power has led to energy economics
that favor coal and oil for electricity, at great cost to human and
environmental health. Particulate pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of
thousands of Europeans every year, and CO2 emissions fuel a potentially
calamitous shift in global climate.
No amount of education or good communication can get around this. Subjective
risk perception is hard-wired into our architecture and chemistry. What
governments can do is to learn what psychological research has established: Our
perceptions, as real as they are and as much as they must be respected in a
democracy, can create their own perils.
With that understanding, government risk assessment can account not only for the
facts, but also for how we feel about them and how we behave. That way, we can
reduce conflict over nuclear power and other risk issues, and foster wiser and
more productive policies for public and environmental health.
David Ropeik is an instructor at Harvard University.
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