Greenjacked: environmental action derailed

Geoff Russell has an e-book out, titled, GreenJacked!: The derailing of environmental action on climate change. I'd tweet him (@csiroperfidy), but then he'd just respond he'd prefer I put a review on Amazon. I don't write book reviews, and this one would be rather sycophantic - which I also tend not to write.

image from Wade Allison's Energy Prices, the Climate and the Nuclear Bubble

A very brief review for those who know me well.

I bought the e-book, which itself is like getting blood from a stone.

And the review for those who know me and give me books: I read this one - right until the end.

If you are open to a reasoned argument for why fear of radiation exists, why it is grossly exaggerated, and not virulently opposed to learning some of the many things you do that are far more likely to cause your cancer than radiation, Russell's little book is an accessible entry into the subject.

As a carnivore, I'll suggest you get Joe Jackson's Everything Gives you Cancer going through your head before Russell informs you of some things worse than the radiation levels around, for instance, Fukushima. One example; "wurst is the worst."

Get Greenjacked

Not willing to shed ~$4 for an e-book?

I understand completely.

The environmental case for nuclear power is a new post at the Oxford University Press's OUPblog, by Michael H. Fox.

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident caused 31 immediate deaths, 19 delayed deaths in emergency workers and 15 children who died from thyroid cancer. The best scientific estimates are that 4,000 more people may ultimately die from cancer. The tsunami that caused the nuclear accident in Fukushima in 2011 killed nearly 19,000 people and destroyed or damaged over a million buildings. No one has died from the nuclear accident, and it is likely that very few ever will. Even with these accidents, nuclear power has a far safer record than coal.
I am an environmentalist but most environmental groups are opposed to nuclear power. I challenge environmentalists to look at the environmental cost of depending on coal and measure that against the actual risks from nuclear power. Even in the worst accident — Chernobyl — the effects were localized, but the atmospheric effects of burning coal are worldwide. If environmentalists continue to oppose nuclear power, coal will still be providing most of the world’s electricity 50 years from now and the earth will be on a path to catastrophic warming.

If the message seems similar to Greenjacked's, there's a reason: Fox's Why we need nuclear power: the environmental case is one of two books Russell cites as standing out for further reading at the end of his book (see - I really did read right to the end!)

Wade Allison's Radiation and Reason: The impact of science on a culture of fear is also cited by Russell (not as one of the two, but ...), and if you'd prefer to get your dose of radiation information from a video, a new talk from Allison is newly posted to YouTube.

Prefer just audio?
On the similar theme, Rod Adams recently posted an interview with Ed Calabrese - which I found a fascinating perspective on the history of levels of radiation set by regulatory bodies (particularly the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).

The topic may be growing in part due to the explorations of the U.S. EPA on raising "radiation levels considered to be a threat to the public across the regulatory spectrum." James Conca wrote about this in Forbes a month ago - it's worth a read, particularly if you like to get your news from traditional sources.