Professor Ann Henderson-Sellers, Director, Environment, at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has told an international conference about ethical policy development for greenhouse and nuclear power generation issues issues which are coming to the fore because of an international "addiction" to energy.
Speaking to an international Eco Rad conference in Aix-en-Provence in France, Professor Henderson-Sellers likened the worlds need for energy to an addiction that would mirror textbook responses in psychology texts. The seven stages for this are tolerance; withdrawal response; relief on reinstatement; compulsion; narrowing of behavioural repertoire; salience; and reinstatement after abstinence.
"The first, most obvious and most widely neglected link between greenhouse and nuclear hazards is that both arise as a result of societal demand for energy," Professor Henderson-Sellers told the conference. "Other similarities between greenhouse and nuclear hazards include unfamiliar terminology and units, government regulation, and mass media coverage obscured by both these former attributes.
"Whether or not the Kyoto Protocol is finally ratified there is increasing pressure on all developed nations to quantify and act to reduce or offset their greenhouse gas emissions. For Japan, where power generation from fossil fuels is already very efficient and there is relatively little available land on which to plant forests to become carbon sinks, this international treaty must increase the attractiveness of nuclear power."
"Nuclear hazards are no longer perceived as bombs or the threat of a planet wide nuclear winter", she said. "These days most public policy issues relating to nuclear hazards pertain to the environmental and human impacts of nuclear generator accidents or nuclear waste transference and storage."
"The scientific basis for nuclear waste shipment and storage and for radioecological clean-ups are well understood, and the global greenhouse is founded on over one hundred years of atmospheric physics. Neither hazard draws on very recent scientific discoveries, instead depending upon well-described and well-known science that is taught in schools and shown on TV documentaries and news items. We all understand what underpins these issues," she said.
"Despite these facts, both nuclear waste clean-ups and global warming are perceived to be beset by uncertainties. We would like to better understand what causes this feeling of uncertainty. One possibility is guilt! We all know what causes nuclear and greenhouse hazards but we dont want to give it up. Our addiction to energy is worldwide and growing.
"Our need for energy can be likened to a global addiction," she said.
"We see all seven stages of clinical addiction in our relationship around the world with energy."
At first there is tolerancewhich is seen in a reduced effect being derived from the same dose. Next there is a withdrawal response producing anxiety and disagreeable feelings when energy is unavailable.
All addicts know the relief on re-instatement achieved when the drug (energy) is again available. The fifth stage is narrowing of behavioural repertoires which can also lead to stereotypical drug dependent actions.
Following this is salience in which increased priority is given to energy even though its negative effects are well known. This is how we are behaving today on greenhouse. Finally there is the re-instatement response where a rapid return to energy dependence is seen after the abstinence.
"Another very important characteristic of these hazard sets is the long time periods they span," said Professor Henderson-Sellers.
"Both radiotoxicology and greenhouse warming are perceived to persist for hundreds of years, and of being of more importance to our grandchildren and their progeny than to us. Interestingly, people are keen to avoid nuclear hazards far in the future but much less willing to take action now to avoid greenhouse hazards for their grandchildren."