Desmogblog: Are Liberals Science Deniers? Now’s A Good Time to Find Out
A centerpoint of this “nuclear counterargument” was that the left used fears of reactor meltdowns and the escape of radiation to unjustifiably scare the public. And if that’s true, then this is certainly the ideal moment for such misuse of science to occur again. So the question is, will it?
It’s almost like a natural experiment in the politicization of science.
You’re never going to eliminate denialism from either side of the political spectrum, but unlike global warming (the GOP members of the Energy and Commerce Committee just unanimously rejected an amendment acknowledging global warming is even occurring), we have the president already backing nuclear power.
As for the citizenry, I think it will break down the same way — some will throw whatever argument they can find into the breach, because they’ve already made up their minds and facts don’t matter, but most of the others will assess the situation rationally. I agree with Chris here — I think there will be measurably less denialism on the left. In case you couldn’t tell already, I’m not squeamish about nuclear power (up to the point where some tea-partier decides that it should not be regulated by the government because regulation is bad.)
I can’t say I agree with this. On the left, there tend to be a lot of anti-vax people. There’s probably a good number on both sides: they choose to pick different areas to focus their efforts.
I have not gotten the impression that anti-vaxxers break down along party lines to anywhere near the same extent as for global warming. And they don’t appear to be active/have support in congress.
I grew up with pro-nuclear power liberals all around me. Hell, my New Deal parents even took me to see the Indian Point reactor shortly after it went online, and I remember being disappointed they wouldn’t let us get closer than the observation area. I wanted to see inside. It’s just as well I didn’t get my wish.
When I went to college, the main nuclear doubters I knew were physics doctoral students at MIT because they felt that reactor design was too fragmented. Each reactor was designed from scratch, so it was hard to apply lessons from one reactor to another. When trouble struck at Three Mile Island they said they told us this would happen. I think they were liberals, but I had to respect their opinions in that they did know more about the subject than I.
I think the fear of nuclear reactors flows from two sources.
The first is that radiation is spooky. You can’t see it or sense it, and we know it can be dangerous. The problem is that we don’t know just how dangerous. When steam engines were blowing up all over the place, people knew just how big a boiler explosion it took to destroy a city block, so it was easy to estimate how dangerous steam power was. Given the history of steam power, it is probably just as well we have something of a data vacuum here.
The second is that nuclear power is associated with corporate and government secrecy, so this gives people on both the left and right something to worry about. They may say that nuclear power is safe, but companies and the government were being discredited left and right. Who is telling the truth? The old AEC was gangbusters about nuclear power, but they covered up an awful lot of stuff, and the companies building the plants were surprisingly sloppy.
The multiple designs issue is a good point; the navy used that lesson after TMI to point out that the reactors used in a series of ships or boats was the same, so information/lessons could be shared and applied.
One thing I’m seeing around the web is instances of people assuming (and proclaiming) that anyone not admitting to anything short of catastrophe is lying. So there are pockets of denialism out there.
Most of the anti-vaxxers I’ve run into are definite lefties – the granola, crunchers who are neo-luddite, into organic food, etc. Most of them are the same ones I know who are opposed to nuclear power. (FWIW, I was pretty active in the green party when I lived in CA, and these were pretty common topics/platforms, although I personally disagreed with them.) The others are the extreme anti-government right-wingers who are paranoid about the government pumping nasty chemicals into people’s bodies.
Thanks for talking about this. I have thought the same thing when reading the variety of mostly academic blogs I follow who when it comes to global warming, vaccination, and evolution stand strongly on the side of evidence. But now after the incident in Japan they make really careless comments like whether we should reconsider nuclear power or whether it is as safe as people say it is. I have to wonder why they can move so quickly to emotions and irrational fear rather than waiting for scientific judgment instead. Or I also have to wonder why we wouldn’t consider driving personal automobiles or living in a bay as stronger threats that should be discussed or feared or questioned. I think people realize personal automobiles are incredibly dangerous and yet necessary. And there are some dangers with nuclear power, but somehow how important they could be as an energy solution somehow does not get rationally discussed.