When five terronsts were executed in Spain for murdering policemen, the selfappointed guardians of morality and compassion stood up as one man in selective indignation; selective, because it did not extend to the USSR, where thousands are being done to death, not for murdering pelicemen, but for suspected dissent from their government, and without the luxury of even a rigged trial. The valiant fighters against racism redouble their campaign against South Africa, by now just about the least racist country on that continent; and the defenders of human rights find fault with Israel, a democracy writh its back to the wall, but none with the criminals of the PLO, nor even with Saudi Arabia, which still retains the time-honored institution of slavery. "No b!oodbath in southeast Asia!" rejoice these apostles of compassion, overlooking a million or two Cambodians deliberately driven into death by starvation. So elated are these selective moralists in their righteousness that they do not mind being joined by other fervent supporters of democracy and human rights; for example, the East German Fascists of the Fourth Reich.
As in ideology, so in energy. Nuclear power, we are now told, is a moral question. that men like Paul Ehrlich, the very Reverend Sloan Coffin, and Ralph Nader have in common is not merely an abysmal ignorance of health physics, but above all an inspiring devotion to the principles of selective morality.
They are horrified by a miniscule amount of nuclear wastes, which will be put back into the earth where they came from; shielded, deep down and at carefully selected locations, instead of the random and sometimes dangerous places where Mother Nature puts her radioactive elements. The selective moralists are silent on the alternative, which spews out waste in millions of tons of ash, 10% of it into the atmosphere and your lungs.
They are outraged by the threat of major accidents - not the explosions of gas tanks that kill people all the time, nor the oil storage tanks that could easily kill tens of thousands ¾ but by the threat of a nuclear accident that could, under a wildly improbable set of circumstances, increase the probability of death by cancer (delayed by up to 45 years) in a limited area. If such victims were to get a mammoth dose of radioactivity, as big as the one absorbed by many in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their probability of eventually dying of cancer would increase from 17.2% to 19.9%.
The additional 2.7% would apply to some people in a highly improbable accident that has never happened. But the 17.2% apply to you and me here and now: It is the present average probability of death by cancer in the US. Why is it so high? In part, because of air pollution by fossil burning power plants. If nuclear power were to be prohibited now, as the selective moralists demand, the effect would be an additional 1,600 deaths per year; by cancer, heart and lung diseases, and accidents in mining and transportation.
In effect, if not by intent, the anti-nuclear selective moralists have become the equivalent of a Cancer Lobby.
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Vol. 3, No. 4
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 3 Issue/No.: Vol. 3, No. 4 Date: December 01, 1975 11:16 AM Title: Selective Morality
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