Reply #21: The statement refers to IONIZING radiation. [View All]

[athena]

It's ironic that people who clearly know little about physics go around putting other people down for not knowing much physics.

When a photon or particle hits one of the atoms in your body, if it can transfer enough energy to break bonds (i.e., to ionize the atoms), then it can cause cancer. When you increase the amount of ionizing radiation in your environment, then, by definition, you are increasing your chances of getting cancer. The increase, of course, may be small enough that its effects are unmeasurable.

That being said, the levels of radiation in the U.S. and Europe that are caused by the Fukushima incident are so tiny that all the hysteria on this board is embarrassing. The people who are truly at risk are in Japan, and our thoughts should be with them. But most people are so self-centered that they are more worried about a miniscule increase in radiation levels in their environment than about people being exposed to dangerous levels in Japan.

What bothers me most about the response to this accident is the polarization. We have people who claim the world is ending, and people who claim there is nothing to worry about and that we should build more fission reactors. My view is in between: it's silly to panic about radiation levels in the U.S. or Europe due to Fukushima, but the risk we take in filling our environment with fission reactors is too high, especially in light of the financial incentives that cause nuclear plants to resist additional safety measures.