Thursday, September 07, 2006
THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING OVER WARMING SCARES
On Tuesday the Scotsman had an article about a Professor complaining that Gordon Brown isn't acting worried about a global warming caused hurricane hitting Britain.
Only hurricane will wake Brown to climate - expert
The interesting part of this nonsense is that of 14 comments from the public only 3 take it seriously. Now granted this is not a statisticly balanced sample & granted I am one of the other 11 which makes it even less balanced but if 80% of respondents in a public debate are removing the urine over this particular scare it may have about run its course.
Next year the BBC will be back to telling us that climate change/global dimming is bringing on an ice age again & the solution is to end modern technology plus more taxes.
Only hurricane will wake Brown to climate - expert
The interesting part of this nonsense is that of 14 comments from the public only 3 take it seriously. Now granted this is not a statisticly balanced sample & granted I am one of the other 11 which makes it even less balanced but if 80% of respondents in a public debate are removing the urine over this particular scare it may have about run its course.
Next year the BBC will be back to telling us that climate change/global dimming is bringing on an ice age again & the solution is to end modern technology plus more taxes.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
BARBARIANS AT THE HUSTINGS
"Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don't understand civilization & wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing and who don't appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they have to do is enjoy what they can understand of it - luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What have they got a government for?.....
"And now, the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they're going to grab the controls"
from Space Viking by H Beam Piper c 1963*
This clearly applies to Tommy Sheriden of the Judean People's Liberation Front & to his opponents of the People's Liberation Front of Judea**. However it also applies to Greens & many respectable & mainstream politicians. The ones who believe, or claim to believe, that windmills & wishing will keep the lights on & insist that scientists will just have to invent "innovative new renewable" energy sources for them to judge. David Cameron, Ming Campbell, Michael Meecher (former environment Minister!) etc either are or (which would be worse) are deliberately acting like barbarians.
Note that I would not apply this term to people like Lenin & Trotsky who, at the very least, were not hitchhikers & were trying to build a civilization in very difficult circumstances (& tools that didn't work). It might not even apply to Stalin.
The current generation of "socialists" such as Sheriden, who, to quote the SSP's European election candidate believe "The SSP exist to destroy all the economic progress that has been made in the last 200 years because it was achieved by capitalism" (stated at an EU hustings meeting, albeit one run by environmentalists - I later, during audience questions described this as obscene)*** should remember that nobody had a greater appreciation of industrial civilization than early Marxists**** on whose metaphorical graves the eco-Marxists are trampling.
*Despite the title, designed for the audience available to early science fiction, this is a deeply thought out piece of politics that would not dishonour the writing of Machiavelli, who did write some fiction of the same kind (except without spaceships). Most of his other stuff is not greatly inferior.
**For non-Scots readers the charismatic Tommy Sheriden, leader of our populist socialist party committed, to a minimum wage of £8 per hour, has managed, though sexualshenaniganss to split his small party (his own section, without deliberate irony being called Solidarity) in the manner lampooned in the film Life of Brian.
*** As partially described in my Scotsman letter of 31/5/4
****Leninn said that communism would be achieved by "Soviet power & the electrification of the whole country" which,naivee though it may sound, is infinitely more sensible than the policy of closing electricity generators pursued by "Marxist, Liberal Democrat & Conservative" politicians.
"And now, the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they're going to grab the controls"
from Space Viking by H Beam Piper c 1963*
This clearly applies to Tommy Sheriden of the Judean People's Liberation Front & to his opponents of the People's Liberation Front of Judea**. However it also applies to Greens & many respectable & mainstream politicians. The ones who believe, or claim to believe, that windmills & wishing will keep the lights on & insist that scientists will just have to invent "innovative new renewable" energy sources for them to judge. David Cameron, Ming Campbell, Michael Meecher (former environment Minister!) etc either are or (which would be worse) are deliberately acting like barbarians.
Note that I would not apply this term to people like Lenin & Trotsky who, at the very least, were not hitchhikers & were trying to build a civilization in very difficult circumstances (& tools that didn't work). It might not even apply to Stalin.
The current generation of "socialists" such as Sheriden, who, to quote the SSP's European election candidate believe "The SSP exist to destroy all the economic progress that has been made in the last 200 years because it was achieved by capitalism" (stated at an EU hustings meeting, albeit one run by environmentalists - I later, during audience questions described this as obscene)*** should remember that nobody had a greater appreciation of industrial civilization than early Marxists**** on whose metaphorical graves the eco-Marxists are trampling.
*Despite the title, designed for the audience available to early science fiction, this is a deeply thought out piece of politics that would not dishonour the writing of Machiavelli, who did write some fiction of the same kind (except without spaceships). Most of his other stuff is not greatly inferior.
**For non-Scots readers the charismatic Tommy Sheriden, leader of our populist socialist party committed, to a minimum wage of £8 per hour, has managed, though sexualshenaniganss to split his small party (his own section, without deliberate irony being called Solidarity) in the manner lampooned in the film Life of Brian.
*** As partially described in my Scotsman letter of 31/5/4
****Leninn said that communism would be achieved by "Soviet power & the electrification of the whole country" which,naivee though it may sound, is infinitely more sensible than the policy of closing electricity generators pursued by "Marxist, Liberal Democrat & Conservative" politicians.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
HUNTLEY SUICIDE BID
So Ian Huntley the murderer of the Soham girls has attempted suicide in jail.
If you believe in the death penalty (I do) then obviously he would be nane the waur o' a guid hanging.
However if you believe that executing people is a cruel & unusual punishment then surely to keep him alive when de doesn't want to while imprisoned for the rest of his life (minimum sentence is 40 years) is even more cruel. The normal purpose of prison is to rehabilitate but rehabilitation into society cannot be the purpose here.
We are doubtless going to have somebody from the anti-death penalty side coming on the box explaining that keeping him alive is more cruel that execution & that is why they support it. If I really believed such claims I would have to conclude that the people saying it were unutterably cruel. In fact I think they are just desperately looking for a defence to an indefensible policy. Apart from the cost (£23,000 a year for at least 40 years) what conceivable good does such torture do. Far better a clean kill than this.
I believe that the right to die ought to be a fundamental human right. What can be more fundamental to any life than the right to get out of it. That in backing up society's moral cowardice in not taking the responsibility of execution as the ultimate punishment we are now imposing pointless cruelty out of further moral cowardice.
"This morning at 1.19am Ian Huntley was found unconscious in his cell in the healthcare wing at HMP Wakefield. Resuscitation was attempted and an ambulance was called immediately. The ambulance took him to hospital.What exactly is the point of "saving" him?
"He is now being held in a state of heavy sedation whilst he receives treatment for what is believed to be an overdose."
Huntley was jailed for life in December 2003 for killing Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, ten-year-olds who attended a school in Soham, Cambridgeshire, where he worked as a caretaker
If you believe in the death penalty (I do) then obviously he would be nane the waur o' a guid hanging.
However if you believe that executing people is a cruel & unusual punishment then surely to keep him alive when de doesn't want to while imprisoned for the rest of his life (minimum sentence is 40 years) is even more cruel. The normal purpose of prison is to rehabilitate but rehabilitation into society cannot be the purpose here.
We are doubtless going to have somebody from the anti-death penalty side coming on the box explaining that keeping him alive is more cruel that execution & that is why they support it. If I really believed such claims I would have to conclude that the people saying it were unutterably cruel. In fact I think they are just desperately looking for a defence to an indefensible policy. Apart from the cost (£23,000 a year for at least 40 years) what conceivable good does such torture do. Far better a clean kill than this.
I believe that the right to die ought to be a fundamental human right. What can be more fundamental to any life than the right to get out of it. That in backing up society's moral cowardice in not taking the responsibility of execution as the ultimate punishment we are now imposing pointless cruelty out of further moral cowardice.
Monday, September 04, 2006
IRELAND BECOMING WEALTHIER THAN THE USA
This table of GDP per head from the CIA World Fact Book should be of interest:
So do we have something to learn from them? Obviously not if you notice the amount of coverage Ireland doesn't get in our media.
The whole table is worth reading (the first 5 are micro states with oil or financial institutions. The point I am making is that Ireland, a country that 17 years ago had a per capita income 2/3s of ours was in 2005 onlt 2% behind the USA, which means it is probably marginally ahead this year. Granted such figures should not be treated as exact - the fact that Ireland's taxes are so low encourages multinational's accountants to add as much of their value as possible there, on the other hand the fact that the dollar is the world's currency certainly gives the US an edge. However the trend is indisputable.
6 United States $ 41,800 2005 est.
7 Ireland $ 41,000 2005 est.
15 Hong Kong $ 32,900 2005 est.
.......
25 United Kingdom $ 30,300 2005 est.
So do we have something to learn from them? Obviously not if you notice the amount of coverage Ireland doesn't get in our media.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
SHOWCASE TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS FOR SCOTLAND I
This is something I have been pottering with. Many of them are ideas I have mentioned here before. Most of them could be adapted elsewhere. There are 30 in all.
Zero or negative cost
1) Instead of paying for the Red Road flats to be demolished give them to their occupants, on condition they
sign up to a good factoring agreement. Any unoccupied flats or where the occupants choose to be rehoused rather
tha ownership to be offered free to neighbours or sold at auction. These flats used to be Europe's highest
& are still impressive. It would be interesting to see if private owners & private enterprise can run them
more succesfully than the Council or GHA. Require the same ofer to be made for any other blocks of flats
which GHA wish to demolish.
2) Paint a big orange line along the pavement between Glasgow Central & Queen St stations with the distance in
metres written so that strangers know the way.
3) Immediately allow First the right to run a hovercraft across the Forth to Edinburgh - skip planning controls,
environmental impact statements, inspections, long lunches discussing it etc etc. 16
Under £100,000 (administratiion costs only)
4) Run a public competition for proposals to showcase technology projects costing under £1 million.
5) Invite tenders for the building of an arcology (a town enclosed as a single building) of 10,000 homes
somewhere in the Highlands or Borders with a low population. Such an arcology not to be subject to any planning
permission but must carry long term building insurance.
6) Pass a motion in Holyrood stating that we have a national goal that Scots should be at the cutting edge of
scientific achievement & Scotland should, proportionately to our size, contribute to space development at
least as much as any nation even Singapore.
Zero or negative cost
1) Instead of paying for the Red Road flats to be demolished give them to their occupants, on condition they
sign up to a good factoring agreement. Any unoccupied flats or where the occupants choose to be rehoused rather
tha ownership to be offered free to neighbours or sold at auction. These flats used to be Europe's highest
& are still impressive. It would be interesting to see if private owners & private enterprise can run them
more succesfully than the Council or GHA. Require the same ofer to be made for any other blocks of flats
which GHA wish to demolish.
2) Paint a big orange line along the pavement between Glasgow Central & Queen St stations with the distance in
metres written so that strangers know the way.
3) Immediately allow First the right to run a hovercraft across the Forth to Edinburgh - skip planning controls,
environmental impact statements, inspections, long lunches discussing it etc etc. 16
Under £100,000 (administratiion costs only)
4) Run a public competition for proposals to showcase technology projects costing under £1 million.
5) Invite tenders for the building of an arcology (a town enclosed as a single building) of 10,000 homes
somewhere in the Highlands or Borders with a low population. Such an arcology not to be subject to any planning
permission but must carry long term building insurance.
6) Pass a motion in Holyrood stating that we have a national goal that Scots should be at the cutting edge of
scientific achievement & Scotland should, proportionately to our size, contribute to space development at
least as much as any nation even Singapore.
Friday, September 01, 2006
SMOKING BAN SPEECH AT SLD CONFERENCE
SPEECH TO LIB DEM CONF 2/10/04
On motion to ban smoking in public places
Section (a) of this motion calls on us to support it only if the case is clearly proven. It isn't. A BMJ statistical analysis found only slight statistical significance when 48 studies were combined. Looked at separately only seven showed significant excesses of lung cancer meaning 41 did not.Further the combined risk was merely 24 percent, also called a "relative risk" of 1.24. Such tiny relative risks are considered meaningless, given the myriad pitfalls in epidemiological studies. "As a general rule of thumb" says the editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine Marcia Angell, "we are looking for a relative risk of 3 or more" before even accepting a paper for publication.According to the National Cancer Institute "Relative risks of less than 2 are considered small & are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or the effect of some other not evident." The main exception to that rule comes when the study is extremely large, but such was not the case with the BMJ analysis. The studies showing excess disease comprised only 1,388 people in total. By contrast a recent study implicating obesity as a cause of early death contained more than three hundred & twenty THOUSAND subjects.
So where does this leave us? Do we know passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. No. But we do know that either it does not, or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasureable. Does this mean that passive smoking poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers arn't murdering other people, they're not still engaged in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chances of sickness & premature death? Definitely not. But it does mean that we cannot legitimately limit people's freedom on the basis of this alleged risk to others. Over the next few years Ireland & New York will be able to produce substantial statistical populations & they may prove the banner's case. Or they may disprove it. Or & this is my bet, modern air extraction systems, which can remove 96% of smoke, may be proven effective. We shall see.
Some years ago, to the obvious embarassment of the leadership, the federal party voted to examine lightening the criminal burden on cannabis users. I remember a TV news programme immediately after in which a Mr Michael Howard said we were wrong because nobody should ever, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever even think about thinking about any sort of reform. With it's well known commitment to balance the BBC then interviewed his shadow, Mr Jack Straw who said his opinion was a little more hardline than that.(pause for laughter - none came - this is a tough audience) He has clearly changed his mind.I was very proud of our party that day. It seemed to me that we were acting in the best traditions of classic Liberalism. Having been the first to call for some decriminalisation of cannabis, despite some dubious medical claims, I would be sorry to see us leading the way towards the effective criminalisation of tobacco.Thus I urge you to reject this motion.
..............................
(they passed it by a large majority - we will see)(I would like to acknowledge that the section "A BMJ ......... Definitely not" was listed almost verbatim from http://www.sepp.org/reality/pseudosci.htmla site I reccomend to anybody who believes themselves a free thinker on environmental subjects)________________________________________________
This is also reprinted from my November 2004 archive to be made more accessible. Since then, of course, the ban has been brought in. Less is now said about passive smoking as a proven major health risk & more about the "right" of non-smokers not to be in the vicinity of smokers, without having to stand outside, or indeed in a pub that chooses to go non-smoking.
Success in this venture is entirely measured in terms of enforcement rather than in whether the promised 1,000 lives a year are being saved. There has been no mention of investigations, if any, into whether there has been a great reduction in passive smoking deaths in New York or Ireland.
To be fair to the SLD it is worth pointing out that though I was the only person who spoke directly against the ban but that a number of others spoke for a partial ban on, I suspect, a tactical basis.
On motion to ban smoking in public places
Section (a) of this motion calls on us to support it only if the case is clearly proven. It isn't. A BMJ statistical analysis found only slight statistical significance when 48 studies were combined. Looked at separately only seven showed significant excesses of lung cancer meaning 41 did not.Further the combined risk was merely 24 percent, also called a "relative risk" of 1.24. Such tiny relative risks are considered meaningless, given the myriad pitfalls in epidemiological studies. "As a general rule of thumb" says the editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine Marcia Angell, "we are looking for a relative risk of 3 or more" before even accepting a paper for publication.According to the National Cancer Institute "Relative risks of less than 2 are considered small & are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or the effect of some other not evident." The main exception to that rule comes when the study is extremely large, but such was not the case with the BMJ analysis. The studies showing excess disease comprised only 1,388 people in total. By contrast a recent study implicating obesity as a cause of early death contained more than three hundred & twenty THOUSAND subjects.
So where does this leave us? Do we know passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. No. But we do know that either it does not, or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasureable. Does this mean that passive smoking poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers arn't murdering other people, they're not still engaged in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chances of sickness & premature death? Definitely not. But it does mean that we cannot legitimately limit people's freedom on the basis of this alleged risk to others. Over the next few years Ireland & New York will be able to produce substantial statistical populations & they may prove the banner's case. Or they may disprove it. Or & this is my bet, modern air extraction systems, which can remove 96% of smoke, may be proven effective. We shall see.
Some years ago, to the obvious embarassment of the leadership, the federal party voted to examine lightening the criminal burden on cannabis users. I remember a TV news programme immediately after in which a Mr Michael Howard said we were wrong because nobody should ever, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever even think about thinking about any sort of reform. With it's well known commitment to balance the BBC then interviewed his shadow, Mr Jack Straw who said his opinion was a little more hardline than that.(pause for laughter - none came - this is a tough audience) He has clearly changed his mind.I was very proud of our party that day. It seemed to me that we were acting in the best traditions of classic Liberalism. Having been the first to call for some decriminalisation of cannabis, despite some dubious medical claims, I would be sorry to see us leading the way towards the effective criminalisation of tobacco.Thus I urge you to reject this motion.
..............................
(they passed it by a large majority - we will see)(I would like to acknowledge that the section "A BMJ ......... Definitely not" was listed almost verbatim from http://www.sepp.org/reality/pseudosci.htmla site I reccomend to anybody who believes themselves a free thinker on environmental subjects)________________________________________________
This is also reprinted from my November 2004 archive to be made more accessible. Since then, of course, the ban has been brought in. Less is now said about passive smoking as a proven major health risk & more about the "right" of non-smokers not to be in the vicinity of smokers, without having to stand outside, or indeed in a pub that chooses to go non-smoking.
Success in this venture is entirely measured in terms of enforcement rather than in whether the promised 1,000 lives a year are being saved. There has been no mention of investigations, if any, into whether there has been a great reduction in passive smoking deaths in New York or Ireland.
To be fair to the SLD it is worth pointing out that though I was the only person who spoke directly against the ban but that a number of others spoke for a partial ban on, I suspect, a tactical basis.
MY PRO-NUCLEAR SPEECH from 2001
SPEECH TO LIB-DEM CONFERENCE 27/10/1 NEIL CRAIG
I wish to speak specifically against the amendment to this motion. Unlike the motion itself which gives reasons for its case, the amendment simply states as a matter of doctrine that nuclear energy must be disposed of. Since this means the loss of 40% of Scotland's electricity within 10 or, with a certain amount of juggling, 15 years I think we are owed a solid justification. Since the main motion hopes for an increase from 11 to 21% of our wind, water & solar capacity this still leaves an overall reduction of 30% on our current capacity. Assuming that over the next 10 years the economy will grow at 2.5% we will have a shortfall of nearly 60% of current capacity. The only option other than rationing is a massive programme of building coal, gas & oil generators & which would obviously involve tearing up the Koyoto Treaty. For the Scottish Liberal Democrats to vote for such a policy would be, & would be seen to be, grossly irresponsible. The example of California should be a warning. There the richest part of the richest society in the world is suffering regular power blackouts because for the last 20 years political considerations have prevented the building of generating capacity.
At the slight risk of being burned at the stake as a heretic I now intend to speak in favour of nuclear power.It has been calculated by Professor Cohen of Pittsburgh that, even if there were no other source, uranium particles recovered from seawater could keep our present nuclear power industry going for 5 billion years, whereas the sun is expected to explode in five & a half. It must therefore be considered as pretty sustainable. In general terms nuclear energy is competitive with coal & significantly cheaper than oil or gas. The French are currently generating 77% of their power atomically. They are also profitably selling power to all their neighbours, including us.
The basic arguments used against following their example are the risk caused by accidents, waste disposal & leakage of low level radiation. They are all wrong. The worst accident was at Chernobyl in 1986 caused by the Soviet notorious neglect of safety. As a result 10/20,000 deaths were predicted. Despite the most minute tracking of variations in cancer rates the total currently stands at 45. By comparison in another Soviet accident, in 1989, 570 people on a train died in a gas pipeline explosion. The total of deaths in the following 15 years is 2, in Japan. Bearing in mind that we are talking about creating nearly 20% of all humanity's energy for that period this is a safety record not even approached by any other industry in human history. At the same time to mine coal we tolerate the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually worldwide from black lung & an unquantified but large number from emphysema when we burn it. Waste disposal is truly a non-problem. Reactor waste is very nasty stuff but there is no technical difficulty in turning it into glass producing an entire cubic metre per reactor year. This can be stored in a very deep hole where it will be safe for millions of years. This is not even a problem for our remote descendants since a highly radioactive material is, by definition, one with a relatively short half-life. After 10 years reactor waste radioactivity is reduced a thousandfold. After 500 it is less radioactive than the ore originally mined. This is also why decommissioning reactors is normally unnecessary. Just lock the door & leave it. Recent research on radiation has shown it is not the threat we thought. Classically estimates of the danger of low level radiation have been based on the theory that there was a linear progression from say 5000milliSieverts (a level which will kill 50% of people within a month) to zero with no safe limit in between. Purely because it was a very conservative assumption it was proper to use it when we had no better model. We do now. Following the failure of Chernobyl to satisfy the theoretical predictions statistical examinations have been made of victims of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs, people who worked with radium & most importantly hundreds of thousands of tests of radon in homes. The results have consistently shown that at low levels, below 150 milliSvs radiation has no bad effect. Indeed the radon tests have actually shown a negative correlation between radioactivity & cancer. This is not as strange as it seems. Many things are dangerous in large dose but beneficial in small. 1 aspirin may cure you but 1000 will kill. By comparison you & I will normally have a dose of 2mSvs a year, nuclear workers & uranium miners get 2.5 & airline pilots, because they work at high altitude, get about 6.
In conclusion it is clear that the only thing we have to fear from nuclear electricity is fear itself. This is not a good reason to prepare ourselves for blackouts. The human race has an unlimited future if we will only reach out for it.Anyone who wants to check what I have said should surf www.world-nuclear.org or www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ nuclear
--------------------------------------------
This is the speech I made some years ago to the Lib Dems against an Executive amendment dismissing any use of nuclear power. It went over fairly well - the 5 billion year line got a laugh - & despitr Jim Wallace, then leader, saying in his main speech that he didn't see how any Liberal could support nuclear & Ross Finnie being drafted in at the end to do a speech ignoring any technical questions & asking us not to "embarass" the leadership 1/3rd of the members voted my way.
In the intervening years the closure of Torness has been put back a the early 2020s but the facts remain unaltered. Tony Blair, who at the time called nuclear an "unattractive option" may now be considered a follower of me.
This speesch was also in my original page - now part of the November 2004 archive - but I ahve reposted it here to make it more accessible.
I wish to speak specifically against the amendment to this motion. Unlike the motion itself which gives reasons for its case, the amendment simply states as a matter of doctrine that nuclear energy must be disposed of. Since this means the loss of 40% of Scotland's electricity within 10 or, with a certain amount of juggling, 15 years I think we are owed a solid justification. Since the main motion hopes for an increase from 11 to 21% of our wind, water & solar capacity this still leaves an overall reduction of 30% on our current capacity. Assuming that over the next 10 years the economy will grow at 2.5% we will have a shortfall of nearly 60% of current capacity. The only option other than rationing is a massive programme of building coal, gas & oil generators & which would obviously involve tearing up the Koyoto Treaty. For the Scottish Liberal Democrats to vote for such a policy would be, & would be seen to be, grossly irresponsible. The example of California should be a warning. There the richest part of the richest society in the world is suffering regular power blackouts because for the last 20 years political considerations have prevented the building of generating capacity.
At the slight risk of being burned at the stake as a heretic I now intend to speak in favour of nuclear power.It has been calculated by Professor Cohen of Pittsburgh that, even if there were no other source, uranium particles recovered from seawater could keep our present nuclear power industry going for 5 billion years, whereas the sun is expected to explode in five & a half. It must therefore be considered as pretty sustainable. In general terms nuclear energy is competitive with coal & significantly cheaper than oil or gas. The French are currently generating 77% of their power atomically. They are also profitably selling power to all their neighbours, including us.
The basic arguments used against following their example are the risk caused by accidents, waste disposal & leakage of low level radiation. They are all wrong. The worst accident was at Chernobyl in 1986 caused by the Soviet notorious neglect of safety. As a result 10/20,000 deaths were predicted. Despite the most minute tracking of variations in cancer rates the total currently stands at 45. By comparison in another Soviet accident, in 1989, 570 people on a train died in a gas pipeline explosion. The total of deaths in the following 15 years is 2, in Japan. Bearing in mind that we are talking about creating nearly 20% of all humanity's energy for that period this is a safety record not even approached by any other industry in human history. At the same time to mine coal we tolerate the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually worldwide from black lung & an unquantified but large number from emphysema when we burn it. Waste disposal is truly a non-problem. Reactor waste is very nasty stuff but there is no technical difficulty in turning it into glass producing an entire cubic metre per reactor year. This can be stored in a very deep hole where it will be safe for millions of years. This is not even a problem for our remote descendants since a highly radioactive material is, by definition, one with a relatively short half-life. After 10 years reactor waste radioactivity is reduced a thousandfold. After 500 it is less radioactive than the ore originally mined. This is also why decommissioning reactors is normally unnecessary. Just lock the door & leave it. Recent research on radiation has shown it is not the threat we thought. Classically estimates of the danger of low level radiation have been based on the theory that there was a linear progression from say 5000milliSieverts (a level which will kill 50% of people within a month) to zero with no safe limit in between. Purely because it was a very conservative assumption it was proper to use it when we had no better model. We do now. Following the failure of Chernobyl to satisfy the theoretical predictions statistical examinations have been made of victims of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs, people who worked with radium & most importantly hundreds of thousands of tests of radon in homes. The results have consistently shown that at low levels, below 150 milliSvs radiation has no bad effect. Indeed the radon tests have actually shown a negative correlation between radioactivity & cancer. This is not as strange as it seems. Many things are dangerous in large dose but beneficial in small. 1 aspirin may cure you but 1000 will kill. By comparison you & I will normally have a dose of 2mSvs a year, nuclear workers & uranium miners get 2.5 & airline pilots, because they work at high altitude, get about 6.
In conclusion it is clear that the only thing we have to fear from nuclear electricity is fear itself. This is not a good reason to prepare ourselves for blackouts. The human race has an unlimited future if we will only reach out for it.Anyone who wants to check what I have said should surf www.world-nuclear.org or www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ nuclear
--------------------------------------------
This is the speech I made some years ago to the Lib Dems against an Executive amendment dismissing any use of nuclear power. It went over fairly well - the 5 billion year line got a laugh - & despitr Jim Wallace, then leader, saying in his main speech that he didn't see how any Liberal could support nuclear & Ross Finnie being drafted in at the end to do a speech ignoring any technical questions & asking us not to "embarass" the leadership 1/3rd of the members voted my way.
In the intervening years the closure of Torness has been put back a the early 2020s but the facts remain unaltered. Tony Blair, who at the time called nuclear an "unattractive option" may now be considered a follower of me.
This speesch was also in my original page - now part of the November 2004 archive - but I ahve reposted it here to make it more accessible.
Labels: Hormesis
