How to talk about the ‘Nuclear Death Toll’
I was absolutely blown away a couple of days ago by a video made by one of my favourite animators and late night Youtube binge candidates, Kurzgesagt.
As can be seen from the preview below, it certainly doesn’t shy away from the more morbid and ominously neon-green visual stereotypes often made about the nuclear industry. And I love it.
A quick dash of context here. In a past life (aka up until a whole four years ago) I worked as an Accredited Health Physicist. In real speak this means I was a physicist that specialised in radiation and contamination and in keeping nuclear workers and the public safe. I worked in four different corners of the UK at some of the oldest nuclear power plants in the world and, to clarify, these plants were being shut down, or decommissioned. Working on these huge clean-up projects was my specialism, along with insisting on haircuts that do not perform well after a couple of hours in a gas mask.
I mention my background because something very very familiar to any AccHP (what is a nuclear job without an associated acronym) is deaths caused by nuclear. In fact our entire safety policies and measurement methodologies are designed around it. As shocking as it sounds we can relate every piece of work that we permit and design to its associated increase in the probability of causing a death — if people would be interested to understand this a little more let me know in the comments.
It is no surprise then that a video entitled ‘How Many People Did Nuclear Energy Kill? Nuclear Death Toll’ particularly grabbed my attention. As I already had a good idea of what the answer should be, I was interested to see what Kurzgesagt had to say:
Here is why I love it;
- It’s beautiful, obviously
- It doesn’t skirt around the grim reality of people dying
- Radiation is presented as “scary”, which it is. To deny that is nonsense
- It presents a few different numbers on nuclear deaths but concludes with the pessimistic ones — I like this because it shifts the focus to the big picture
- It is a masterclass in allowing the facts to speak in a balanced, visual way
It is well known within the nuclear industry that there is a communication problem, and that the more people kick and scream “nuclear is safe” the more everybody responds with “yeah, right”. It is also very hard to avoid falling into a tit for tat argument over the downsides of different energy sources. So how to approach the discussion?
Well, hats off to Kurzgesagt. I think they do a fantastic job of presenting numbers and statistics in a manner that is easily digestible whilst in no way dismissive to those who feel what is, frankly, a very natural fear towards nuclear power and its potential dangers. Whilst giving context, they keep it high level, steering away from murky and controversial details. And oh-my-god the visuals.
Personally I am fully on board with the conclusion as well, fossil fuels are the real killer, and decommissioning nuclear early to replace with coal plants is to me complete insanity. I’ll leave it at that.
Nuclear industry take note. And perhaps hire some animators.
[Excitedly blasted out by Vicky, miraculously passed without criticism from Annette. We work together to choose the best content and elevate each other’s work. More on us and our approach here]
