An interview with longtime anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott

03 May 2005

Helen Caldicott.

Photo: Greg Barrett.

In 1971, Helen Caldicott had an epiphany: all life on earth could end at any moment, simply because a few pig-headed people imagined they could "win" a nuclear war. A decade later, she had given up her promising medical career to devote her life to nothing short of saving the world.

Her urgent Australian twang became a sane voice in a world gone mad. In 1985, the Caldicott-inspired International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize. The organization beat out Caldicott herself, who had been nominated by Linus Pauling, the renowned chemist, anti-nuclear activist, and 1962 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

By the end of the Cold War, Caldicott had attempted a quiet retirement in Australia. But that didn't last. Today, with a renewed push to develop nuclear weapons in the U.S. and other countries and nuclear energy slithering back onto the table, the threat is as present as ever, as she writes in The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex.

With her latest endeavor, the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, Caldicott seeks to counter the media offensives of the nuclear industry. Meanwhile, she's working on a new book -- her sixth -- about the psychopathologies of nuclear decision makers.

Grist met with Caldicott in San Francisco, where she was planning a fund-raiser around the release of Helen's War, a sobering film about her initial efforts to get NPRI off the ground in the midst of post-9/11 groupthink.

There's a concerted effort right now to rehabilitate the image of nuclear power. Proponents argue that fossil fuels are more damaging to the environment, as well as being in short supply, and that nuclear is the [best option going forward]. What's going on here?

The people saying these things are not biologists, they're not geneticists, they're not physicians. In other words, they don't know what they're talking about. And that makes me very annoyed. First of all, every reactor produces about [20 to 30] tons of highly radioactive waste a year. The majority of it is very long-lived and will have to be isolated from the ecosphere for hundreds of thousands of years ... As it leaks into the environment, it will bio-concentrate by orders of magnitude at each step of the food chain: algae, crustaceans, little fish, big fish, us.

It takes a single mutation in a single gene in a single cell to kill you. [The most common plutonium isotope] has a half-life of 24,400 years. Every male in the Northern Hemisphere has a small load of plutonium in his gonads. What that means to future generations God only knows -- and we're not the only species with testicles. What we're doing is degrading evolution, and not many people understand that.

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Yet as society begins to recognize that we do have to get away from the petroleum economy, there's a lot of enthusiasm amongst environmentalists for hydrogen -- enthusiasm that's shared by the nuclear industry.

Well, of course, they'll do anything. I've been dealing with them for 30 years and they lie -- they frighten me. I can debate with generals about nuclear war and feel much more comfortable because they know that what I'm talking about is true. The nuclear industry just lies its way through the whole thing.

Nuclear power is no answer, says Caldicott.

They say nuclear power is the answer to global warming. Well ... the [Department of Energy] and the EPA [will tell you] that, at the moment, the process of uranium enrichment for fuel for nuclear power releases huge quantities of CO2. And that does not include releases from decommissioning of the reactor and transportation and long-term storage of the waste.

Meanwhile, the enrichment of uranium is responsible for [over 90 percent] of the CFC-114 gas released into the air in the U.S. Now, CFC is banned internationally under the Montreal Protocol because it destroys the ozone layer, one. Two, CFC gas is 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent as a global warmer and heat trapper than CO2. So the nuclear industry is lying. And advocates for nuclear power have fallen for the nuclear industry's lies. Not propaganda, but lies.

Of course we've got to stop burning oil and coal. Those grotesque vehicles that get 10 miles to the gallon should be banned! Americans have no idea about conservation. Europeans have the same standard of living as you and they use 50 percent less energy because they turn their lights off and they conserve. We are actively killing the earth by the way we live.

But some European countries derive more of their power from nuclear energy than the U.S.

Many countries in Europe are starting to realize that what they've done with nuclear power is ridiculous and immoral. Belgium, Germany, and Sweden have now passed laws to close down the reactors. So they're learning, but a little too late. Where are they going to put the waste?

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we're going in the other direction, talking about new nuclear plants and even new nuclear weapons. Why now?

Because the nuclear scientists in the labs keep pushing and pushing. They like building and testing their nuclear weapons. They get a lot of money for it, and they're addicted to it.

The generals like their missiles too. One general basically said, "If you threaten our missiles and our early-warning systems, baby, that's threatening the family jewels." Got it? That's the reason they're still there. Missiles are an extension of their sexuality. There's a deep psychosexual pathology inherent in the brains of these men. "Missile erections," "deep penetrations" -- even the language they use is sexual. I've thought, in my more light-hearted times, that maybe they should all be given Viagra, and then they wouldn't need their missiles.

Although women have also led nuclear-equipped countries, and very aggressively.

Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir. But you're picking three women out of millions of men. Some women -- very few -- emulate male behavior. Condoleezza Rice is one. The magic number is 30 percent [according to a U.N. report]. Below 30 percent representation [in government], women tend to please the men and vote for missiles. Above 30 percent, they say, "No, you're not getting your missiles -- we're voting for milk for children." So women need to support each other in order to do what they know is correct behavior, and express their nurturing instincts. It's got nothing to do with politics.

Most of the nuclear-policy focus lately has been on the various dangerous, unpredictable regimes that are busily acquiring nuclear weapons. Why does yours continue to be on the United States?

The most dangerous regime in the world at the moment is this regime. The country with the largest number of weapons of mass destruction is America. Of the nearly 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, Russia and America own 95 percent. No one else can destroy all life on earth except Russia and America. The two rogue nations in the world are Russia and America, holding the world at nuclear ransom. Period.

We got to within 10 seconds of nuclear war in 1995 when Yeltsin made a mistake. On 9/11, America was on the second- or third-highest state of nuclear alert, ready to launch. Weapons are still on hair-trigger alert. They go off, Putin and Bush get minutes to decide whether or not to press their buttons, the nuclear "exchange" is over in an hour, and that's the end of most life on earth.

And to look at North Korea, who may have two or eight bombs, or none -- that's a form of displacement activity. If you put rats in a cage and threaten them with a lethal situation, they run around doing something irrelevant to that which threatens them. That's what people are doing by looking at North Korea and not looking at the main issue at hand, which is about to blow us all up. I mean, the whole thing's insane.

It's interesting that you have a lot of inroads with military people. And a lot of the people who have come out for nuclear disarmament in the last decade have military backgrounds. Why do you think that is?

Well, because they know how dangerous it is. They're scared.

And yet you'd think they are also in a position to do something about it.

Well, you know, they wait till they're retired. That's typical of these men. It's not that they have an epiphany -- they know all along. So, in a way, they're acting as evil people by allowing it to happen during their watch and only coming out when they retire. And I use that word "evil" in a fairly careful way. They are participating in plans to blow up the planet. I can't think of any other word that's more appropriate to describe that than "evil."

Yet today, in spite of this well-documented danger, the issue's not at the forefront of many people's awareness. There's a great deal of complacency.

Well, ignorance. I don't think anyone's shocking people into facing reality right now. I'm trying and it's not so easy because I don't get access to the media. It's hard to get on a lot of stupid shows and talk the truth. They don't want the truth. They want theater.

I founded NPRI as a way to get this access. So that I, and others, can get on to debate these awful right-wing characters from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and American Enterprise Institute. We need equal time, and that's difficult to come by. But it's starting to happen where we're developing a fair bit of credibility.

In mid-May, we're having a symposium called "Full Spectrum Dominance." It will be a retreat for 40 of the nation's top journalists with some pro-nuclear people, anti-, and people in the middle -- the top thinkers in the country. Many people say to me, "This is urgent -- we need media education because no one's writing about it." The media is determining the fate of the earth.

You met with Ronald Reagan when he was president -- in an interview with Amy Goodman you described an oddly touching scene of holding his hand to comfort him -- but you came away devastated by the feeling that there was nothing to be done. Have you tried to meet with George W. Bush?

No. I think Reagan had a heart; he was basically a nice fellow. I don't think this fellow has a lot of heart. And I also don't think he's very bright. Reagan was intelligent in an intuitive way. There was someone at home there you could actually connect with. I'd certainly see George Bush and try to talk to him, but I wouldn't want any of his neo-conservative people around him. I'd have to work pretty hard, I think, to get to his core.

Do you think there's anybody else -- some other avenue into the administration?

No, I don't think there's anyone there at the moment who is really worth talking to. I think they're terribly blocked and terribly dangerous. They practice psychic numbing -- that's the medical terminology -- to block out what they're doing. They're doing evil and not looking at it. But I tell you what: I treated a lot of these fellows on their deathbeds, or when their children were dying, and when they're in that very emotionally vulnerable situation they recant. They look at themselves and look inside their souls and realize what they've done, and they're terribly sorry. But it's too late then.

In the film Helen's War, there's a sense that you've come out of retirement to go back into the fray. This has been your mission since 1971, and yet here we are, almost 35 years later --

I know, and it's worse. I often feel like I've wasted my life doing this work for no good reason, because I love medicine. I gave it up to do this work. People have been saying that I might have helped prevent a nuclear war in the 1980s, but who knows?

I was compelled to do it. I couldn't stop myself. But am I glad I did it? If we had gotten rid of the bombs I'd be very glad, and die fulfilled. I think, though, we've got a chance now to get the revolution going again -- to build it again and complete the work. All doctors have to be optimists.

Looking back, what stands out as your greatest success?

Of my whole life? The biggest thing I ever did was give birth to my three babies. That's why we're here, to reproduce -- biologically speaking. Next to that, I guess it was the end of the Cold War, but in truth, when that occurred, my husband had just left me. So I was deeply depressed and I hardly knew the Berlin Wall came down, which was sort of ironic.

You've done an incredible thing; you've completely dedicated your life to what you believe in. Not everyone can do that.

Why not? Not everyone wants to do it, but everyone can do it. It's a decision you make. I've seen so many people die unfulfilled. And those who've dedicated their lives to great causes of service to the environment and to the human race have died totally fulfilled.

I think people have to examine why they were conceived, why they were born. It's our responsibility in this particular generation, when life on earth -- probably the only life in the universe -- is so threatened.

Everyone can be extraordinarily effective, they just have to not be self-indulgent or narcissistic or greedy, and work for other people and other things. In that action lie the germs of true happiness. You'll never be happy trying to make yourself happy. It doesn't work.

So if someone reads this interview, and they get to the end of it, and now they have the knowledge --

Then they have to act. Read The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex -- there's enough information in that so you could debate Rumsfeld at any time and beat him on television. And at the back of that book there's a huge list of anti-nuclear groups all around the country and the world, and you can look up all the people making the weapons and where they live and how you can contact them. The CEOs of Lockheed Martin and Boeing and the like. It's got a huge list of things you can do and places you can go and actions you can take. Knowledge is ammunition, but you have to work out what you're going to do with your life to save the planet.

Gregory Dicum is the author of Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air. He writes a biweekly column for SFGate, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Mother Jones, and others.

Comments: (18 comments)

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Right On!

Helen Caldicott is one of the environmental heroes of the current times. To the extent that anyone should be doing so, she gets my vote for one of those who should be running the planet. I would only add not to forget or diminish the severe ecological harm caused by uranium mining.

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 2:44 PM on 03 May 2005

Alternatives

I agree that nuclear power isn't the best deal out there. But I have to wonder if we are doing the environment a disservice overall by choosing coal over nuclear power. I know, no one consciously makes that decision. But we all use power, and if we do everything we can to stop nuclear power, then coal WILL be used to take up the slack. It is our only other major source of baseline power.

Compare a nuclear power plant to a coal power plant. As Caldicott mentions, a nuclear power plant generates 20-30 tons of nuclear waste a year. This waste has to be controlled very carefully, and is generally stored locally in monitored pools. Losing even a pound of this material is a very big deal, and a lot of money and effort is spent every year to prevent that.

A coal plant, on the other hand, generates about 5 tons of uranium and 13 tons of thorium (a nuclear decay product of uranium) a year. Most of this is just dumped on the ground in unlined pits, and eventually makes its way into the water table. A small fraction of it is released directly into the air. Imagine the incredible stink there would be if a pound of nuclear fuel was vaporized and released into the atmosphere by a nuclear power plant accident. Now consider that a coal plant releases about 10 pounds of uranium directly into the air every year.

And we breathe this stuff. A recent study found that two coal power plants in Massachusetts alone kill 124 people every year. Across the US, approximately 30,000 people a year die prematurely due to particulate emissions, primarily from coal fired power plants.

Compare their safety records as well. A quick search of the net provided about a dozen coal dust explosions, coal power plant worker deaths, and coal train fatalities. Now look at the worst nuclear power plant accident in US history, where two safety systems failed simultaneously and then operators turned off a third. The fatality count at three mile island - zero.

There are a lot of problems with nuclear power. Where to put the waste is a big one. But we don't have the choice of not using any power - indeed, many of the solutions proposed by environmentalists (like hydrogen and CO2 sequestration) require massive new sources of power. Nuclear is not a great solution, but it is far, far better than coal.

--bill von

by billvon at 3:58 PM on 03 May 2005

Support "Clean" Energy And Dump The Rest

I don't think any enviro who opposes nukes supports coal. As environmentalists, we should be supporting solar, wind (where it doesn't harm birds), tidal, and other relatively harmless sources of energy, while strongly opposing the really environmentally destructive sources, such as coal, oil, and nuclear.

More importantly, we have to greatly lower our energy usage. The vast majority of things that energy is used for, starting with BUSINESS USAGE, is not at all necessary. Realistically electricity itself is not a necessity, because it's a human invention that didn't exist 150 years ago.

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 8:24 PM on 03 May 2005

Living In The Past

Caldicott does not have a reasonable plan for providing Americans with adequate electricity in a global warming world. Her science-as-God approach should know that our electricity demand cannot be met with wind and solar alone. As an angel of science she should know that base load electricity will be provided in the U.S. by a combination of nuclear and coal (hopefully clean coal). Of course, she has invested a career in being antinuclear so we should not expect her to side with sound science on this issue.

Her weapons stuff is interesting. She wants to put the genie back in the bottle. Good luck with that. Her sexual rantings about missiles and generals was quite titilating. Grist might have to get a rating pretty soon if this type of sexuality is splashed about its pages.

Caldicott should come into the 21st Century. Nuclear power plants can safely provide us with emission free electricity. The spent fuel can be reprocessed and reused as a renewable fuel. The warheads she complains about can be converted to MOX fuel and utilized in nuclear power plants to produce smog-free and greenhouse gas-free electricity.

Environment Man

by Environmentman at 6:26 AM on 04 May 2005

Weapons are evil, but are all reactors that bad?

I am in complete agreement that those who resist the dismantling of nuclear weapons are truly evil, and that the United States is by far the worst offender. I am concerned that Ms. Caldicott's strong condemnation of weapons will get buried under objections to her rejection of nuclear power.

In last October's American Scientist, Eric Loewen wrote an article about a new (well, under used) style of reactor based on liquid lead as a coolant. He claims it addresses almost all the criticisms of existing nuclear plants, to wit: The coolant is not under pressure, and so is safer to operate; it operates at a higher temperature and thus produces waste that is dangerouse for much shorter times (300 years vs 10,000 years); its wastes are isotopes that are not usable for nuclear weapons; It can use as fuel existing nuclear plant wastes, converting the waste from long term dangerous to short term dangerous; and finally that it can produce large amounts of hydrogen.

Now 300 years is still a long time, but obviously this design, if accurately portrayed, is a much better choice than existing water-cooled nuclear plants. Can Ms. Caldicott's group offer specific criticism of this plan? I certainly don't want any more nuclear plants of the type we have now, but I don't know how to counter an argument that plant designs are better now and we should give it another shot (as opposed to burning coal.)

Pete Jacobsen

Our National Healthcare Plan: Don't Get Sick!

by PeteJacobsen at 12:48 PM on 04 May 2005

Dumping 'dirty' power

>I don't think any enviro who opposes nukes supports coal.

Agreed, but that's in effect what we are doing. It's like opposing the democratic party - it has the effect of bolstering the republicans.

>Realistically electricity itself is not a
> necessity, because it's a human invention that
> didn't exist 150 years ago.

True. But disinfected water and antibiotics are also human inventions, things we'd be pretty unhappy without. If our approach as environmentalists is "live your lives cold, miserable and unhappy!" I don't think we'll have much success.

Let's look at it from a practical perspective. If we could get US electrical consumption reduced by 20%, we'd be doing an outstanding job, and could close a lot of power plants. If you are an anti-nuke above all else, that means closing all the nuclear power plants and leaving every single coal fired power plant open. You wouldn't have reduced uranium released into the environment by one bit, since coal plants are responsible for all that. We'd be in no better shape. We'd still have 30,000 people a year die from coal particulate emissions.

Now, closing all coal fired and all nuclear power plants would be great. That means reducing our energy needs by 70%. Could you do that? Use 70% less electricity than you're using now, drive 70% less? That's a nearly impossible target to meet. Given that we have to settle for less, at least in the forseeable future, we do the environment much more good by shutting down coal plants than by shutting down nuclear plants.

--bill von

by billvon at 12:49 PM on 04 May 2005
[ Parent ]

Responses To Pro Nukers

"Caldicott does not have a reasonable plan for providing Americans with adequate electricity in a global warming world." You make the false assumption that we need electricity, as opposed to it being a luxury, which it is. "Adequate" for what? Maintaining the wealth and power of those who have it? Allowing lazy humans to live unnaturally while destroying the planet?

"Caldicott should come into the 21st Century. Nuclear power plants can safely provide us with emission free electricity." YOU should come into the 21st century, where humans have destroyed 90% of the natural forests and grasslands, around half the wetlands, have polluted every bit of land, air, and water, and are causing the sixth great extinction, the first to be caused by a species. Demand and consumption of things like electricity is one of the main causes of these problems. Your solutions will do nothing to fix the severe ecological harm caused by uranium mining, which I notice that most commenters don't mention.

Opposing nukes is NOT "in effect" supporting coal, unless that's what the person or group is actually doing. That's the point of view of those stuck in the dominant paradigm, just like the people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a third party candidate because they were so afraid of Bush. The effect of opposing both nukes and coal could easily be to start a movement toward renewables, but this is very unlikely to happen with the attitude that we must choose from the lesser of two evils. Again, we should support relatively clean energy sources, not nukes or coal, but the main thing is we must greatly reduce our consumption.

"If our approach as environmentalists is 'live your lives cold, miserable and unhappy!' I don't think we'll have much success." Is that how you view traditional indigenous people? What an insult to them, and how uninformed of you! No, that's not my approach. Humans do need to greatly lower both our consumption (including ceasing consumption of things that cause significant ecological harm by consuming them) and population, which are the root causes of all environmental problems, but I've never said that everyone must stop using electricity completely or immediately. However, if you set your goals too low, you won't accomplish anything meaningful even if you're successful. Our goals in this regard should be to rid the planet of all nukes AND coal powered plants.

"If you are an anti-nuke above all else..." I never even implied that I'm anti-nuke above all else. I'm pro-wilderness and -wildlife above all else. However, there is no such thing as a safe amount of radioactivity, so that any amount added to the background levels is harmful. Mining coal or uranium adds radioactivity to our environment, so it's all very harmful, not to mention the direct harm of digging into the Earth, which I, as taught by traditional indigenous people, oppose on moral gounds.

Finally, no one has even mentioned the fact that plutonium is THE MOST TOXIC substance known, period. If you support nukes, you add more of this unnatural crap to the planet.

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 1:55 PM on 04 May 2005

Nuclear is bad. Coal is just worse.

>"If our approach as environmentalists is 'live
> your lives cold, miserable and unhappy!' I
> don't think we'll have much success." Is that
> how you view traditional indigenous people?

Not at all. The indigenous people I've met (primarily in sub-Saharan Africa) were among the happiest people I have met. I'm talking about americans, who use more energy than anyone else on the planet. An approach that they must forego 70% of their energy usage (laundry detergents, vehicles, antibiotics, fresh food etc) will simply not work very well. Much better to plan how to get more done with less energy, and how to generate that energy more cleanly.

>However, if you set your goals too low, you
> won't accomplish anything meaningful even if
> you're successful. Our goals in this regard
> should be to rid the planet of all nukes AND
> coal powered plants.

Again, you are proposing reducing our energy usage by 70%. How do you propose to do this? How would you alter your own life to meet this goal? It is a good goal for the US at large, but it is unreasonable for anything but the very far future. For us and our children, we need to make the best choices for both the near and the far future.

>However, there is no such thing as a safe
> amount of radioactivity, so that any amount
> added to the background levels is harmful.

Not true at all. Low levels of radiation are actually beneficial. Indeed, people exposed to no radiation at all suffer from diseases like vitamin D deficiency, and there is evidence that low level radiation stimulates our cell's natural anti-mutagenic system, a system critical to repair damage to our cells caused by reactive oxygen species in our bodies.

This should not come as a suprise to anyone. We evolved on a planet that has a low level of background radiation from the uranium in the dirt, the ionizing radiation from the sun and the high energy radiation from deep space. Our bodies are designed to work best in such an environment. It is, of course, important not to increase it too much, but the statement that "no amount of radiation is safe" is not true. A certain level of radiation is not just safe, it's how our bodies are designed to work.

>Finally, no one has even mentioned the fact
> that plutonium is THE MOST TOXIC substance
> known, period. If you support nukes, you add
> more of this unnatural crap to the planet.

Of course. But we are better off looking at a pound of plutonium from 10 miles away, buried in a cask, than breathing in a pound of uranium released by a coal power plant.

There is no doubt that nuclear power is not the best form of power out there. Every form of power, from solar to wind to natural gas to coal to nuclear, has drawbacks. But nuclear is far, far preferable to coal. The 30,000 people whose lives were cut short this year by coal plants would likely agree. It is hard to compose a philosophical objection that trumps that many lives lost.

--bill von

by billvon at 11:26 AM on 05 May 2005

plutonium toxicity

All isotopes and compounds of plutonium are toxic and radioactive. While plutonium is sometimes described in media reports as "the most toxic substance known to man", there is general agreement among experts in the field that this is incorrect. As of 2003, there has yet to be a single human death officially attributed to plutonium exposure. Naturally-occurring radium is about 200 times more radiotoxic than plutonium, and some organic toxins like botulism toxin are still more toxic. Botulism toxin, in particular, has a lethal dose in the hundreds of pg per kg, far less than the quantity of plutonium that poses a significant cancer risk. In addition, beta and gamma emitters (including the C-14 and K-40 in nearly all food) can cause cancer on casual contact, which alpha emitters cannot.
Orally, plutonium is less toxic than several common substances, including caffeine, acetaminophen, some vitamins, pseudoephedrine, and any number of plants and fungi. It is perhaps somewhat more toxic than pure ethanol, but less so than tobacco and many illegal drugs (some such as LSD and marijuana are negligibly toxic). Considering the pure chemical toxicity it probably ranks with lead and other heavy metals.
That said, there is no doubt that plutonium may be extremely dangerous when handled incorrectly.

Jdhlax: Just because Ralph Nader says it's so doesn't make it fact. Given a choice between eating plutonium and hemlock, which would you pick?

by da silva at 3:48 PM on 05 May 2005

Reduce Energy Consumption & No Nukes!

Bill:

"I'm talking about americans, who use more energy than anyone else on the planet." In other words, Americans are gluttonous pigs who need to greatly reduce their consumption. Environmentalists should not support destroying the Earth with mining in order to support this disgusting lifestyle.

"[Y]ou are proposing reducing our energy usage by 70%. How do you propose to do this? How would you alter your own life to meet this goal?" First, cover all roofs with solar panels. Eliminate wasteful use of electricity, such as streetlights (guess what, it's supposed to be dark at night, and stars are much more pleasant than streetlights!) and office buildings that leave lights on. (These are just examples, there are many more ways that electricity usage should be cut.) Make replacement of incandescent lights with more energy efficient ones mandatory. Finally, set maximum levels of electricity use for all buildings.

As for myself, I use very little electricity. This computer doubles as a work computer, I watch almost no television, and I only use a small light in the room I occupy. I have a friend who lived totally without electricity for many years here in the Bay Area. (She finally ran an extension cord up to her home in order to use her computer to do environmental work at home; she's a workaholic.) Remember, this is a luxury, not a necessity, and the sources of it are very environmentally destructive.

There is no safe level of exposure to ionising radiation (i.e., radioactivity). According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, who's a physician and expert in these matters, "[i]t only takes one radioactive atom, one cell and one gene to initiate a cancer." Every scientist and physician I've ever heard on the subject says this. The only possible beneficial effect of low levels of radioactivity is that of evolution, which scientists theorize MIGHT be caused in part by low levels of radioactivity. However, this natural, background radioactivity also injures and kills people if the level is too high. People who don't spend enough time in the sun can suffer from lack of vitamin D, but this is not caused by a lack of radioactivity. I know nothing of the studies that show that low levels of radioactivity stimulate our cell's natural anti-mutagenic system, but this sounds very suspiciously like a nuclear industry funded study, which would therefore not be credible.

Da silva:

"Just because Ralph Nader says it's so doesn't make it fact." That's true, but just because you say it's true doesn't make it true either, and Ralph Nader has a lot more credibility with me than someone who claims that plutonium is not that toxic. Beside, I didn't get this from Nader, even though he has been by far the best candidate in the last two presidential elections. This is a well known fact that has been repeated by scientists. It only takes one milligram of plutonium to kill an adult human.

You also deceitfully conflate naturally occurring toxins with plutonium, almost all of which is produced by humans. Naturally occurring bacteria and chemicals are part of the planet. Plutonium need not be produced, and is only part of the planet because people put it here.

Finally, while it's true that alpha emitters cannot penetrate skin, they can be inhaled and will cause harm once that happens.

Jeff Hoffman

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 7:15 PM on 05 May 2005

nothing deceitful about it

I didn't conflate anything. You said plutonium is the most toxic substance known. That simply isn't true. It isn't even the most toxic artificial substance known.

For what it's worth, I like Ralph too, but he and anyone else who goes around re-stating this "well known fact" is doing us all a disservice.

There are plenty of good reasons to be leery of nuclear power. But you can make the case without resorting to un-truths.

by da silva at 8:56 PM on 05 May 2005

the big picture

jdhlax proposes several ways to reduce power usage, including:

>First, cover all roofs with solar panels.

Good idea, but that's not reducing power usage in the short term, it's increasing it. The glass, silicon and aluminum needed to produce a solar panel takes a lot of energy to create. Where does it come from?

>Eliminate wasteful use of electricity, such as streetlights. . . .

OK. Let's say you get a tremendous amount of political capital, sufficient to remove all streetlights (and then weather the storm when fatalities at night go up.) Even after that massive effort, you have reduced power usage by only 8% - you can't even close half of all nuclear power plants in the US.

Or let's say you pass a law that says all homes in the US have to be solar powered. We will ignore for the moment where you get the energy to produce the panels. Now you have reduced power by 16% - you STILL can't close all the nuclear power plants in the country, and you have to leave coal power plants running full blast.

When you talk about reducing energy usage by 70%, you're not talking about turning lights off at night. You are talking about doing without aluminum, trash collection, recycling, sewers, water, glass, rubber, textile mills, fertilizer, food transportation, hospitals, schools, telephones, the internet etc. There's no free lunch. We have to get rid of the basics too, because that's where that energy is going - to make aluminum, and pump water, and make clothing.

Nor should we try to eliminate those things. The reason we can buy solar panels is that we have a strong economy, so people can buy them, and we have spare energy, so factories can make them. Take away any one of those things and environmentalism will cease to exist; it is basically a rich person's pursuit.

Does that mean we shouldn't try? Not at all! But even if we do an outstanding job (say, we can reduce power usage by 20%) we have to choose between the lesser of two evils, coal or nuclear. And coal is worse than nuclear.

>There is no safe level of exposure to ionising
> radiation (i.e., radioactivity). According to
> Dr. Helen Caldicott . . .

Helen Caldicott is an anti-nuclear activist. My wife, who is a physician but is neither employed by the nuclear industry or by the anti-nukes, thinks that there are safe levels of ionizing radiation. She has even had training in how much is safe and how much is unsafe. I have several friends who are intact now because radiation was used to help fix them.

>However, this natural, background radioactivity
> also injures and kills people if the level is
> too high.

Exactly. There is too much radiation and there is too little. Bricks have a higher than background level of radiation, as do most basements and most granite. Most coal does too. Smoke detectors and CRT's emit radiation as part of their operation. But none of these things are hazardous, because the level is not too high.

Now, take coal fired power plants. They DO emit high levels of radiation. They emit pounds of thorium and uranium every year directly into the air, and we end up breathing it in. They are responsible for 30,000 deaths a year from the stuff they emit from their stacks.

Now look at nuclear power plants. No fatalities of the general public due to commercial nuclear power plant accidents. No emission of radiation. Sure, we have the waste to deal with, but we do deal with it - we don't just pump it into the air. It's not perfect, but it's much better than coal.

--bill von

by billvon at 9:53 AM on 10 May 2005
[ Parent ]

Nuclear energy problems

Nuclear is tricky and dirty but it has been safely handled by the US Navy and France (which sells excess power to Spain and Portugal)on a large scale over half a century. Negatives involved with fossil fuel consumption and their impending exhaustion will have a significant impact on life as we know it now. The industrial world has been building its civilization around availability of cheap oil/gas/coal for over a century. Substitute renewable sources are so far removed in degree from replacing fossil fuels that it probably will take a major, world-wide technological project to develop all renewables, costing trillions of dollars to replace old sources before collapse of civilization as we know it. Such a project would require international cooperation and wealth expenditure of a magnitude never before seen on earth and would make the old Space Race seem like a Kindergarten project. Without this, the hunter/gatherer lifestyle will be the one to be emulated.

senhen

by senhen at 11:26 AM on 24 May 2005

No Nukes Is Good Nukes Helen Caldicott

Helen Caldicott was just interviewed on 'The 7.30 Report' Australian 'ABC TV'.
The interview is going to stir up a lot of interest as she has never been recognised by 'ordianary' Australians as of any significant interest simply cause they are generally fairly narrow and there has been no MEDIA interest in her. The Australian Federal government has recently floated the idea that nuclear is good and as we have huge reserves of uranium in the ground we should therefore be pro nuclear, blah blah green house blah etc. So hello Helen where now, what next???

by blueyshay at 3:40 AM on 03 Jul 2006

radiation risk

Hi. I've just started my own blog about radioactivity (http:\www.isoscelesrules.com), and I've been looking at some of the blogs that are already out there. A lot of them are lost in detailed nit-picky arguments that depend on assumptions, and the great thing about assumptions is that you can make up your own.
I'm helping out at the Low Level Radiation Campaign where they've been tackling the impact of radioactive fallout and confronting assumptions that were black-boxed even before the structure of DNA was discovered. Organizations like the International Commission on Radiological Protection are making recommendations that don't even reference Chernobyl, the greatest ever opportunity (so far!) to check out the health effects of a reactor accident.
Have a look at my blog or at www.llrc.org -- they'll give you another view to throw into the debate about how dangerous nuclear power is (to say nothing of nuclear weapons and DU)
Love from
Anna

by annaneale at 12:46 AM on 03 Oct 2006

Solar power

If you really want to use solar power, all you have to do is launch an orion type ship with mining and fabrication facilities. After you launch, start producing solar cells in orbit, then beam the power down to the planet in microwaves. You could even have the ship go closer to mercury and set up the solar satellites there where they will intercept more of the sun's energy and have it beamed back from there. Another thing to note is once we launch one orion well have enough info structure in space to build any other ships we need there and just launch the crew into space with hydrogen powered rockets.

PRO SPACE

by VaemerRiit at 2:06 PM on 26 Feb 2007

On a Side Note...

Check this out, its a Nuclear Phobia Survey: Nuclear Phobia Survey

PRO SPACE

by VaemerRiit at 2:17 PM on 26 Feb 2007

nu

Nuclear waste has problems, but these can be carefully tackled. There is an enormous myth and misproportion about the possible effects of Plutonium or radio active waste.

Lumping together nuclear weapons and nuclear power as "nukes" is terribly dishonest. Would you lump your mom and a murderer together ? Both use knives, one for cooking the meal and the other for killing people.

Please listen to a real scientist for a change about the possible effects of radioactivity.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html

by vakibs at 8:55 AM on 24 Apr 2008

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