Our hysterical fear of the nuclear option

The aversion to radiation harms the fight against climate change, says robert matthews

Just after 11am on this day in 1945, the southern Japanese city of Nagasaki was destroyed by the second, and last, atomic weapon so far used in anger (right). An estimated 140,000 people were killed. Combined with the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier, the two atomic bombs caused the deaths of at least 340,000.

In the early 1950s, doctors monitoring the survivors were bracing themselves for a second wave of horrific consequences. The good news is that it never came to pass. The bad news is that the presumption of danger associated with radiation has never taken this fact on board.

At the time, radiation experts expected that genetic damage to the survivors would lead to generations of malformed and handicapped babies. Even before the first such cases emerged, the International Commission on Radiological Protection