Never On Sunday

Once again, America’s news services do her a disservice. In the wake of the record-breaking earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the thousands of deaths entailed—two thousand corpses washed ashore, to date, and who knows how many uncounted—a large majority of the news out of Japan is about the frailty of nuclear power, an the possibility, however remote, that damaged nuclear plants will produce a “Japanese Chernobyl.” Even NPR, generally possessed of a sober sense of perspective, has had on a series of experts to explain how little danger the plants actually present, and another series to explain how devastating the economic and political impact will be.

Immense, is the consensus. Nuclear power is still scary to the general public, and with good reason—though the good reasons aren’t necessarily the reasons the public fears. Anti-nuclear activists are enjoying another day in the sun, arguing that Japan’s troubles prove we don’t dare turn to nuclear power for our apparently insatiable energy needs. Often such activists—unsurprisingly, well-funded by industries rooted in coal, oil, and natural gas—urge a greater reliance on fossil fuels to avoid nuclear troubles.

Which has me wondering: granting that nuclear power can never be perfectly safe, and that radiation leaks present a perpetual danger, how do the health risks from nuclear accidents match up against the health risks of fossil fuels? Okay, so coal mines will never produce an angry Godzilla stomping through Tokyo…but then, neither will another Three Mile Island. The main danger of nuclear power is poisoning: a small risk of dramatic exposure and a quick, very nasty death and a much higher risk of cancer. And fossil fuels are pretty poisonous, too; just ask West Virginians poisoned by poorly-regulated runoff, or parents whose kids already exhibit poisoning effects from the BP oil spill, or residents of “fracking” towns where byproducts of natural gas refineries have so infiltrated the water table that tap water can catch fire. Without meaning to pooh-pooh the dangers of nuclear fuel, we could use a lot more hard data on the subject before running around shouting that we need to get back to coal and oil. Right now! Without considering the matter very carefully! Before all our nuclear plants explode! Which they will! Soon!

That would be informative news on nuclear power, all the moreso because reliable information is hard to come by. (You can Google all the claims you like at the click of a mouse, but the sources are generally pretty questionable.) And news on actual Japanese people would be more informative news on the earthquake and tsunami. Worrying loudly, without much analysis, on nuclear meltdowns, isn’t informative news at all.