nuclear-news

George Monbiot does not understand the public health effects of nuclear radiation

workers have received high doses and it’s anyone’s guess how many thousands (or millions) of people have received very small doses. Monbiot seems not to understand that the weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no safe dose of radiation.For a tiny, unlucky percentage of the many people who have received small radiation doses as a result of Fukushima, that radiation exposure will prove to be fatal.

George Monbiot’s nuclear mistakes | Green Left Weekly, Jim Green, 26 March 11, Prominent British columnist George Monbiot announced in the British Guardian on March 21 that he now supports nuclear power………….Monbiot is understating the radiological impacts of Fukushima and ignoring the other impacts. So far, no one has received a radiation dose sufficient to cause the symptoms of acute radiation poisoning.But workers have received high doses and it’s anyone’s guess how many thousands (or millions) of people have received very small doses.Monbiot seems not to understand that the weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no safe dose of radiation.

For a tiny, unlucky percentage of the many people who have received small radiation doses as a result of Fukushima, that radiation exposure will prove to be fatal. Thus Monbiot’s claim that “no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation” does not stand up to scrutiny.

To estimate the death toll from Fukushima, it will be necessary to estimate the total human radiation exposure as a result of the accidents. We can be confident that the death toll from Fukushima will be far smaller than Chernobyl. Beyond that generalisation, it’s best not to speculate until there is a credible estimate of total human exposure.

Monbiot ignores the impacts of Fukushima other than direct radiation exposure. These include restrictions on the consumption of food, water and milk; the expense and trauma of relocating 200,000 people; the very serious impacts of the nuclear crisis on the emergency response to the earthquake and tsunami; and big hits to the tourism industry and to agricultural industries.

He also trivialises the impacts of nuclear power more generally. In terms of radiation releases and exposures, long-term exposure from uranium tailings dumps is estimated to be a much more significant source of exposure than routine reactor operations or reactor accidents.

Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants have been another big source of radioactive pollution.

It’s no small irony that nuclear power’s worldwide reputation has taken a huge battering from one accident, while the vastly greater radiological impacts from routine operations receive virtually no public attention.

Monbiot notes that routine discharges of ionising radiation from coal-fired power plants are higher than those from nuclear reactors. But emissions of ionising radiation across the nuclear fuel cycle are — not surprisingly — greater than those from fossil fuels….
George Monbiot’s nuclear mistakes | Green Left Weekly

March 28, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, spinbuster