Nuclear Whoppers

A recent NY Times oped resurrects yet again a number of logical fallacies about radiation risk and Fukushima.

Probably the most frequently recurring theme is the idea that people should not be evacuated during a nuclear disaster. This has been heavily repeated by various nuclear industry insiders, usually from the US. The likely reason for these efforts to downplay Fukushima have little to do with Japan and more to do with the US. The US has an aging reactor fleet that is now mired in heavily populated urban areas. Evacuation around these plants is impossible. When evacuation is impossible the only solution that pleases the nuclear industry is to end evacuations. In order to do this they must discredit the evacuations at Fukushima.

Just last week the IAEA urged Japan to cease efforts to return some people to their homes in the evacuation zone. The reason being that the radiation levels are still to high and unsafe for people to return and will be that way for a very long time. The IAEA is urging that these people be relocated. This is coming from the agency whose main purpose is to promote nuclear power. David Ropeik’s insistence that we not even evacuate people in a nuclear disaster is quite reckless and goes against the established understanding of radiation risk.

SimplyInfo.org member Peter Melzer goes over the reality of radiation exposure that Ropeik claims to be just “radiophobia”

A similar denialist oped was published in the Wall Street Journal in 2012, we took on the fabrications and disinformation in that one here.

image credit leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

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