In his previous Guardian article Monbiot reassures himself about the Fukushima accident claiming that nobody had “yet received a lethal dose of radiation”, “as far as we know”. The on-site workers seem to think they have and are reportedly preparing themselves for death, but then they haven’t seen Monbiot’s article. Here, Monbiot continues his “deeply-troubling discovery” that nuclear power is safe. Why would that be troubling- I find the potential deaths of millions, or even thousands, a lot more troubling. Monbiot finds his “discovery”that such fears are unfounded troubling because it shows that some scientists are challenging the “consensus” established by bodies he cites as being authoritative, all of which happen to be closely connected to the UN.
Those of us who know the position of such bodies will therefore find nothing new in this Monbiot article other than his claim that deformities and genetic mutations, known to result from exposure to nuclear radiation, occurring within an area centering around Chernobyl in the aftermath of Chernobyl cannot be proved to have been caused by Chernobyl. Here he shows himself to be a student of the sceptical, Scottish philosopher, David Hume, who claimed that causality could never be verified. In the absence of any other explanation most of us would regard Chernobyl as, at least, the main suspect and Monbiot is unable to even suggest one.
As with the case of the IPCC Monbiot is overoptimistic in his claim of a consensus around the views of the UN bodies. I haven’t matched Monbiot’s exploit of reading the full report of the National Academy of Science but their own summary claims of nuclear radiation that “no level should be considered “safe.”” This, of course, contradicts all the claims of the UN bodies, and all who defer to them, that there are safe levels. But Monbiot finds support in their position based on his claim that it is not the same as the position of Helen Caldicott. He doesn’t really say what her position is although it looks like they are as one regarding “no safe levels”. That would be enough anyway to convince people that this technology is highly dangerous, dangerous enough to make Fukushima a planetary health hazard.
But the authorities say there are safe levels and that is good enough for the anti-establishment,radical Monbiot. In fact, its good enough for him to morph into an attack dog on their behalf. That there can be a scientific officialdom subordinate to corporate or elite interests and the the standing of those bodies is a function of their subordinatron to those interests is beyond Monbiot. In this,unfortunately, he is not untypical of the left who have a naive faith in scientific, medical or academic bodies, in professional society in general, of which, more often than not, they are issue.
The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all
George Monbiot
5th April, 2011
Over the last fortnight I’ve made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged, and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.
In These New Times 