Re: [cdn-nucl-l] Risk = hazard + outrage

[Bill Garland <garlandw@mcmaster.ca>]

Doesn't seem to apply to what issue?

At 01:28 AM 17/03/2007, Rad Sci Health wrote:

This seems to be a philosophical discussion, which doesn’t seem to apply to the issue.

We can consider “risk” a function of “outrage” when the “victim” sets him/herself on fire. 

Otherwise risk is still a (complex, not simple) function of hazard and probability.  To the extent that “outrage” is important to “acceptance,” it is certainly NOT a function of “empowerment.”  The nuclear industry has largely destroyed itself by insisting on such a disconnect from reality. 

First, people do not control very many things in their lives that are a MUCH GREATER actual risks, and they aren’t “outraged” by most of them.  They just get on with their lives and business as usual.  (Long list of examples left to the student.)

As Jerry said, we have to tell the truth about nuclear hazards.  The nuclear failure is founded on false fear of radiation, which the nuclear “experts” have supported for about 50 years.  It generated vast amounts of cash, from gullible politicians, and utility ratepayers, for $100s of Billions (>$ 1 Trillion?) government fraud and corporate opportunism.  (A list of hundreds of examples left to the “experts.”)

Second, the premise that we could and should enable more “control” by “the public” has produced an industry which is an extremely weak corporate player, which is twisted on a string by its bureaucratic masters, from the AEC on – AND it is highly rewarded when more “public input” pushes ever more unjustified layers and costs of “safety” and “process” in trying to “satisfy the insatiable” of allowing “public empowerment.” 

The nuclear enterprise invites, and allows, the MOST direct public access and influence than any industry (with real hazards) which constantly ratchets up nuclear power costs (think tritium).   Do you ever see any info on what’s going on in that chemical reactor in a warehouse on the other side of the chain-link fence in a (usually poor) neighborhood?  Do you expect some full-time onsite regulator to tell you what’s happening day-to-day; and a formal engineering safety analysis and approval for every change in the chemical formula being processed?)

In addition, we’ve known:

1. For >100 years that (not so) small amounts of radiation are beneficial for adverse medical conditions.  We have seen biological responses, with increases from low doses that produce reduced cancer rates for 90+ years.  The FDA acted to suppress that information in the mid-30s (getting a botanist to write the first “BEIR Report” as an NAS document) as FDA routinely did with competing non-drug therapies.  This had to be initiated again after the war, about 1948-49, because Manhattan Project work had again shown the beneficial effects of low doses (including, e.g., ingestion of uranium salts).  The FDA and NCI had the “lead” in suppressing this evidence, and substantially controlled AEC-funded research; and the management of funding enabled the control of appointments to the NCRP/ICRP/BEIR reports, agency Advisory Boards, radiation protection authorities, etc.  There were many science studies that disproved the LNT.  But this is NOT a matter of SCIENCE!  It is a matter of the formal, credible, process, which was controlled by the NCRP/ICRP/BRER-BEIR and their well-funded and appointed minions.

2. We can’t disburse enough radioactivity in sufficiently concentrated form to kill many people, even from “worst case” nuclear power plant events.  TMI – melt the core, with containment leak.  Nothing.  Even with Chernobyl, with a nuclear excursion blowing a reactor apart while it is in the air inside a “warehouse” building that sent a major fraction of the core (with a massive increase in the inventory of short-lived fission products) killed few if any people off-site, other than the possibility of a number of long-term thyroid cancer cases.  (But we kill more than that by operating a typical coal plant normally.)

We need to get it right.  We have to start telling the truth about the (non-)“hazards” of operating nuclear power plants.  As with other industries, we have to inform the public.  This is NOT a “Public Information” campaign and “letters to the editor.”  It is FIRST, documenting and confirming the evidence by significant science and engineering efforts to quantify the misinformation (and disinformation) in the “nuclear safety analysis” computer “models” that are being used today.  Then we have to inform the people in the industry who are just as uninformed as the general public (many actually believe that the codes are just “conservative” without quantifying the orders of magnitude of error incorporated in the nonsense produced by bureaucratic uninformed computer jocks at Sandia and its sister agents complying with parameters provided by regulatory process-servers.  Then we have to focus on incorporating this information in standards to implement general knowledge and results.  And, like other industries, we have to develop our own professional scientific and engineering capabilities, instead of working with a ring through our nose by unfettered bureaucrats that we are dependent on to control all the research funds. 

Regards, Jim
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on 3/16/07 8:31 AM, Bill Garland at garlandw@mcmaster.ca wrote:

Yep.  But the question is 'How?".  From whence comes the outrage?  What I get from reading some of his stuff, other writers and from my own personal experiences is that one big factor, but not the only one, is lack of empowerment - the mushroom syndrome.  People need to feel that they are in control of their destiny to some degree.  I, for one, hate to be told what to do.  So I think the tact should be to help people make decisions by providing suggestions for a thought process and for the facts.  It is a subtle task and should be done at the receivers pace, else trust is lost.  As they say, it is difficult to drink from a fire hose.

Bill

At 10:23 PM 15/03/2007, Jerry Cuttler wrote:

Bill,

This is very interesting.  I read and printed many of the papers and articles on Sandman's website.

His formula is:  Risk = Hazard + Outrage

Risk has become an emotional issue.

This is why it is so important for us to get real about nuclear hazard.  When we are unreal, we feed the outrage.

Jerry

----- Original Message -----

From: Bill Garland < mailto:garlandw@mcmaster.ca >

To: cdn-nucl-l@mailman1.cis.McMaster.CA

Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 10:42 AM

Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] Risk = fear + outrage

Here is an interesting web page: http://www.psandman.com/articles/shield.htm.

It is about Peter Sandman, a risk guru in the US; discusses public perception.  Worth noting.

Bill

Bill Garland, Executive Director of UNENE and Professor, Dept. of Engineering Physics, Bldg. NRB 117, McMaster University,  Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8S 4L7, Tel: (905)525-9140 x24925 Fax: (905)528-4339 Email: garlandw@mcmaster.ca

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Bill Garland, Executive Director of UNENE and Professor, Dept. of Engineering Physics, Bldg. NRB 117, McMaster University,  Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8S 4L7, Tel: (905)525-9140 x24925 Fax: (905)528-4339 Email: garlandw@mcmaster.ca

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Bill Garland, Executive Director of UNENE and Professor, Dept. of Engineering Physics, Bldg. NRB 117, McMaster University,  Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8S 4L7, Tel: (905)525-9140 x24925 Fax: (905)528-4339 Email: garlandw@mcmaster.ca
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