WHY DOES IT MATTER?

If you are getting tired of my harping on the median of 72 premature deaths prevented annually when a 1,000 MW nuclear plant replaces a coal-fired one, I have a brand-new aspect of my preoccupation: it's not all that many. The American Council of Science and Health has just published a survey of other preventable (annual US) premature deaths which dwarf my figure: cigarette smoking 635,000; alcohol abuse 100,000; abuse of other addictive substances 35,000; inadequate control of elevated blood pressure 125,000; inappropriate medical care 75,000; failure to detect and treat treatable cancer 75,000; reckless driving 30,000; promiscuous sexual practices 12,500; lack of working smoke detectors 2,500.

So why do a mere 140 premature deaths per year matter when Shoreham and Seabrook are delayed? Especially when most of them are elderly and may not have long to live anyway?

Three reasons: First, some of us diehards, right-wingers, fossils and rednecks persist in the belief that even a single human life mat-ters. Second, because nobody, not even Tom Brokaw or the Hon. Edward Markey, campaigns hysterically against detecting treatable cancer. And third, because every one of the almost 1,000,000 preventable deaths above could have been prevented by the owner of the life that was squandered; but the Jordans and the Cuomos help to kill others with their brainwash and politics.