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'Pandora's Promise' june 23, 2013 | No. 762 June 28, 2013 | No. 764 Editorial Dear readers of the WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, Monitored this In this issue, we pull together critical commentary about the new ‘Pandora’s Promise’ pro-nuclear propaganda fi lm. John LaForge from Nukewatch contributes issue: two articles about inhuman radiation experiments. Charly Hultén writes about nuclear waste management problems in Sweden. We cover some developments ‘Pandora’s promise’ propaganda 1 in Japan − the UN Special Rapporteur’s report, decontamination and waste dis- posal issues, and legal claims and compensation payments. The Nuclear News Inhuman radiation experiments section includes items from Russia, the US, the UK and, globally, nuclear power’s John LaForge − Nukewatch 4 biggest ever one-year fall while solar PV and wind power expanded dramatically. Transuranics, mercury and banned Nuclear Monitor is taking a short break while people in the Northern Hemisphere fl uids discovered in Swedish enjoy summer holidays. The next issue will be distributed on August 2. nuclear waste repository Charly Hultén − WISE Sweden 6 Feel free to contact us if there are issues you would like to see covered in the Monitor. US warned Kodak, not us, about radio- active fallout Regards from the Nuclear Monitor editorial team John LaForge − Nukewatch 7 Email: [email protected] Fukushima fallout: updates from Japan ‘Pandora’s promise’ propaganda − UN special rapporteur’s report − Decontamination and waste disposal Pandora’s promise is a pro-nuclear fi lm written and directed by Ro- − Legal claims and compensation bert Stone, with a little help from billionaires Paul Allen and Richard payments Branson (www.pandoraspromise.com). − Fukushima fi lms 8 764.4319 Robert Stone says: “The fi lm They claim the scientifi c high-ground Nuclear News is anchored around the personal nar- even as they repeatedly bastardize − N u c l e a r p o w e r s u f f e r s b i g g e s t e v e r o n e - ratives of a growing number of leading science. year fall former anti-nuclear activists and pio- − Fines and fi re in the UK neering scientists.” The fi lm’s website One critic suggests giving the film a − USA: TVA fi ned for quality assurance also asserts that nuclear power is “now miss and Stone responds by portraying lapses 10 passionately embraced by many of the entire environment movement as those who once led the charge against authoritarian thought-police, saying it.” they “use their positions of influence to determine what can and cannot be In fact, not one of the fi lm’s cast said about our predicament, to claim was ever a “leading former anti-nu- uncompromising ownership of the clear activist”. Stone partnered with issue”. the right-wing, anti-environment Breakthrough Institute to produce the Stone writes glowingly about “people fi lm and the institute’s personnel fea- like me who care about the future” and ture prominently in the fi lm. are “open-minded enough to change their minds like I have done.” In other Robert Kennedy Jr. generously des- words, if you oppose nuclear power, cribes the fi lm as an “elaborate hoax”. you have a closed mind and you don’t It’s not elaborate. The fi lm-makers and care about the future. The film repea- their cast claim objectivity and balance tedly ignores or misrepresents serious which the fi lm clearly fails to deliver. criticisms of nuclear power. Key Nuclear Monitor 764 problems − such as nuclear power’s may reasonably wonder why it should population of Japan as a result of the negative economic learning curve, accept what they believe now that they accident: a dose that would cause and WMD proliferation − are all but are pro-nuclear. in the range of 1,000-3,000 cancer ignored. deaths. ... My hand got tired trying to jot down Claims that the script has been care- all the less-than-half truths put forth There are also scenes in the film that fully fact-checked are laughable. To by the talking heads in the film, which are downright offensive, such as sho- cite one example − of dozens − a con- could have benefited from some wing impoverished, barefoot children tributor says that Greenpeace claims fact-checking. ... One after another, wandering through slums with the one million deaths from Chernobyl. the film’s interviewees talk about how clear implication that nuclear power is A few minutes research gives the lie shocked they were to read the 2005 all that is needed to raise them out of to that claim − a Greenpeace-com- report of the Chernobyl Forum − a poverty. The biggest failing of the film, missioned scientific study estimates group under of U.N. agencies under however, is the lack of any discussion 93,000 cancer deaths from Chernobyl, the auspices of the International of what the real obstacles to an expan- possibly up to 160,000 deaths from all Atomic Energy Agency and the gover- sion of nuclear energy are and what other causes. nments of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine would need to be done to overcome − and discover that “the health effects them. In fact, nuclear power’s worst Gushing praise for Stone’s propaganda of Chernobyl were nothing like what enemy may not be the anti-nuclear can easily be found on the internet was expected.” The film shows pages movement, as the film suggests, but so here we pull together some critical from that report with certain reassuring rather nuclear power advocates whose commentary. sentences underlined. rose-colored view of the technology helped create the attitude of com- Physicist Dr Ed Lyman, senior But there is no mention of the fact that placency that made accidents like scientist with the Union of Con- the Chernobyl Forum only estimated Fukushima possible. Nuclear power cerned Scientists, writes: the number of cancer deaths expec- will only be successful through the By oversimplifying the issues, ted among the most highly exposed vision of realists who acknowledge its trivializing opposing viewpoints and populations in Ukraine, Belarus and problems and work hard to fix them − mocking those who express them, and Russia and not the many thousands not fawning ideologues like filmmaker selectively presenting information in a more predicted by published studies Robert Stone and the stars of “Pando- misleading way, [Pandora’s Promise] to occur in other parts of Europe that ra’s Promise.” serves more to obfuscate than to illu- received high levels of fallout. Nor is minate. As such, it adds little of value there mention of the actual health con- − Ed Lyman, 12 June 2013, ‘Movie to the substantive debate about the sequences from Chernobyl, including Review: Put “Pandora’s Promise” Back merits of various energy sources in a the more than 6,000 thyroid cancers in the Box’ carbon-constrained world. that had occurred by 2005 in individu- http://allthingsnuclear.org/movie-re- als who were children or adolescents view-put-pandoras-promise-back-in- “Pandora’s Promise,” taking a page at the time of the accident. And the film the-box from late-night infomercials, seeks is silent on the results of more recent to persuade via the testimonials of a published studies that report evidence Nuclear power supporter Seve- number of self-proclaimed environ- of excesses in other cancers, as well rin Borenstein writes: mentalists who used to be opposed to as cardiovascular diseases, are begin- I was surprised at the very narrow bite nuclear power but have now changed ning to emerge (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ of the nuclear power issue that the their minds, including Stewart Brand, pmc/articles/PMC3107017). movie takes. It is basically a movie Michael Shellenberger, Gwyneth about nuclear power’s past safety Cravens, Mark Lynas and Richard Insult is then added to injury when record and waste management. On Rhodes. The documentary tries to Lynas then accuses the anti-nuclear that score it is fairly convincing. ... make its case primarily by impressing movement of “cherry-picking of scien- What left me less than completely the audience with the significance of tific data” to support their claims. Yet persuaded on safety is the fact that the personal journeys of these nuclear the film had just engaged in some there are far more thoughtful critics power converts, not by presenting the pretty deceptive cherry-picking of its and reasoned concerns about nuclear underlying arguments in a coherent way. own. Lynas then goes on to assert that power safety, including access of the Fukushima accident will probably terrorists to plants and to fuels. This is This strategy puts great emphasis on never kill anyone from radiation, also particularly true if we are talking about the credibility of these spokespeople. ignoring studies estimating cancer building plants in countries with less Yet some of them sabotage their own death tolls ranging from several hund- stable governments, as the movie sug- credibility. When Lynas says that in red to several thousand. The Japanese gests we should. The movie says only his previous life as an anti-nuclear newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which a bit about nuclear proliferation among environmentalist he didn’t know that obtained a copy of a draft report by the national governments and essentially there was such a thing as natural United Nations Scientific Committee nothing about terrorism. ... background radiation, or Michael Shel- on the Effects of Atomic Radiation lenberger admitted to once taking on (UNSCEAR), revealed that the report My disappointment with the film is faith the claim that Chernobyl caused estimated a collective whole-body that beyond safety, it has little to say. a million casualties, the audience dose of 3.2 million person-rem to the There are two fleeting references to 2 Nuclear Monitor 764 cost that suggest vaguely that it is cost cant debate about the pros and cons of competitive.
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