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The risk business: Acceptance of nuclear power
Journal o f Environmental Psychology (1985) 5, 109-116
BOOK R E V I E W S
THE RISK BUSINESS: ACCEPTANCE NUCLEAR POWER
OF
G. G R E E N H A L G H Down P a r k House, Crawley Down, Sussex R H I O 4 H Q Environmental Groups in Politics The Resource Management Series. By Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder: George Allen and Unwin, 1980, 208 pp. £15.00. The Risk Analysis Controversy: Proceedings of a Summer Study on Decision Processes and Institutional Aspects of Risk, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, 22-26 June 1981. Edited by Howard C. Kunreuther and Eryl V. Ley. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1982, 236 pp. $23.20. Planning for Rare Events: Nuclear Accident Preparedness and Management. IIASA Proceedings series, Volume 14: Proceedings of an International Workshop, January 1980. Edited by John W. Lanthrop. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981, 268 pp. £16.75. Too Hot to Handle? Social and Policy Issues in the Management of Radioactive Wastes. Edited by Charles A. Walker, Leroy C. Gould and Edward J. Woodhouse. Yale: Yale University Press, 1983, 209 pp. £16.00. Philip Lowe lectures in countryside planning at University College, London and has written extensively in the fields o f environmental politics, rural planning and the history o f ecology. Jane Goyder has been involved in research at University College, London into postwar conservation issues and policies, has studied the various countryside pressure groups, and has taught planning at Thames Polytechnic. Howard C. Kunreuther is at the Department o f Decision Sciences, Wharton School, University o f Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A. Eryl V. Ley is at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria. Charles A. Walker is Raymond John Wean Professor and Chairman o f the Department of Chemical Engineering at Yale University. Leroy C. Gould is Professor o f Criminology at Florida State University. Edward J. Woodhouse is a political scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Geoffrey Greenhalgh joined the newly formed Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in 1948, and has been associated with nuclear power development since that time. He has served as Scientific Attachb at the British Embassy in Stockholm, and as the UKAEA representative to Euratom. In 1964 he was appointed as the first Director of the British Nuclear Forum. He left the British Nuclear Forum in 1977 and is now an independent consultant on nuclear affairs.
In their different ways these four books, throw some light on the growing obsession with risk--nuclear risk in particular--in our present society, and the related question of how decisions can be made on the complex technological issues 0272-4944/85/010109 + 08 $03.00/0
© 1985 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited
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involved in the siting, construction, and operation of nuclear power installations, and their acceptance by the public. • It is generally recognized that opposition to nuclear power is associated with a concern for the protection of the environment, yet, for this reviewer, it is apparent on the experience of operating stations that uranium can be represented as a less polluting energy source than coal, and safer than hydroelectricity. This gives rise to the paradox that those who m i g h t be expected to welcome a cleaner energy source are most active in opposing it. To help in understanding this situation any information on the structure and organization of the environmental groups is to be welcomed. Environmental Groups in Politics gives a comprehensive survey of the growth, organization, and activity of the environmental lobby in the U.K. Since 1895, when the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society was formed, the movement has grown to the extent that Lowe and Goyder estimate two and a half million p e o p l e - - a b o u t 10% of the adult p o p u l a t i o n - - a r e now members of an environmental group. These groups range from over 1250 local amenity societies, to the 77 national groups, whose membership, organization, and interaction with local government, Parliament, the civil service and the media is studied in this book. In this respect the title is somewhat misleading, since despite the involvement of a greater number of people than any political party or trade union, the environmental movement has so far failed to emerge as a political force in the U.K. The authors conclude that: 'In the main, environmental groups have less influence with government than the major economic interest groups. They have fewer political resources and lack powerful sanctions' (p. 179). Why? This is in marked contrast to the rise of the 'Greens' as a political force in West Germany. It would have been interesting if this difference had been explored. Does it, for example, depend on the difference in the political structure, with proportional representation and a federal constitution in G e r m a n y giving greater opportunities for minority parties; or is there a more fundamental reason in that the environmental movement in the U.K. is essentially of the middle class. The authors quote Crosland's charge that environmentalists are affluent people who 'want to kick the ladder down behind them. They are militant about threats to rural peace and wildlife and well loved beauty spots; but little concerned with the far more desperate problem of the urban environment in which 80 per cent of our citizens live' (Crosland, 1971). Environmentalism is, however, 'only one indicator of the wider social movement', and although recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of adherants, the social attitudes it reflects are not new. In discussing the development of the environmental movement Lowe and Goyder note that this was not smooth process but that periods of sudden growth of new environmental groups occurred towards the end of periods of sustained economic expansion as 'more and more people turned to count the mounting external costs of unbridled economic growth and sought to reassert non-material values' (p. 25). The rise of environmental concern was then 'an integral part of the late Victorian intellectual reaction to many of the tenets of economic liberalism ... the Victorians' earlier self-confidence was sapped by the
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Great Depression of the 1880s ... Britain's increasingly disappointing industrial performance in the final decades of the century was matched by a growing equivocalness towards industrialism itself... (which led to) ... a value system which disdained trade and industry, which stressed the civilised enjoyment, rather than the accumulation of wealth, and which preferred social stability to enterprise' (p. 19). These views are today echoed by the new environmental groups, which can be seen as the heirs of the Victorian guild socialists, and a statement from the Green Alliance is quoted with the comment that it could well have been expressed in 1899 instead of 1979. But how far are these idealistic views representative of the environmental movement as a whole? The lack of any cohesive political force, already noted, raises the question of whether so m a n y diverse groups embracing a wide range of concerns can be lumped together and represented as a single movement. It may then be significant that Cotgrove makes a distinction between the 'new environmentalists' and the 'nature conservationists'. He suggests that the radical environmentalists want a different kind of society and use the environment as a lever to try to bring about the kind of changes they want ... 'what distinguishes members of the new environmental groups is not their heightened environmental awareness at all, but their alternative value system. Nature conservationists are equally concerned for the environment but they differ on questions of social values' (Cotgrove, 1982). Lowe and Goyder implicitly accept this distinction with their comment that 'Many established environmental groups ... do not directly confront dominant societal goals and it is unlikely that their members would show such marked antipathy towards industrial values' (p. 27). It would indeed be surprising if m a n y of the million or more members of the National Trust, typically 'middle-aged and middle-class, a country lover with a strong interest in gardens and an appreciation of fine houses' (p. 140) would support the wilder views of the more radical sections of the environmental movement. It then seems probable that the numbers of these fundamentalists who constitute the hard core of the nuclear power opposition may not amount to more than a few per cent of the population in the U.K. Cotgrove goes on to identify the 'new environmentalists' as 'younger, better educated, left in politics, and more likely to be employed in the non-market sector'. Some support for this view can be found in the chapter which Lowe and Goyder devote to the Friends of the Earth, noting the emphasis on young people, radicalism and idealism; the notions of participatory democracy and forms of direct political protest. M a n y initial staff members and supporters had been involved in student politics, and 'it is from a similar following of young well educated, middleclass discontents that F.o.E. still draws the majority of its support' (p. 127). Unlike the nature conservation groups which regard their members primarily as a source of income, the F.o.E. uses its followers as a political resource. 'It deliberately facilitates people to become agents of change .... Political activism is encouraged .... The belief has persisted that a large public is awaiting a spur to action: indeed F.o.E. would like to be a mass movement' (. 132).
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It is then tempting to classify the F.o.E. as a 'sect', as opposed to a 'caste', in the sense in which these terms are used in the interesting paper on a Cultural Theory of Risk by Thompson and Wildavsky which is included in The Risk Analysis Controversy, the proceedings of the I1ASA* June 1981 study meeting. This meeting was designed as a forum to explore the role of risk analysis techniques in resolving conflicts: the participants, from different countries and different disciplines are all active practitioners in the risk business. The 14 papers, printed together with a verbatim discussion, covered specific risk assessment problems, institutional aspects of risk, and decision processes. They give a number o f interesting insights into this complex and controversial subject. In picking out only two of the papers for comment, this review does not do full justice to the book. In evaluating risk in a cultural context Thompson and Wildavsky identify two distinct cultural biases in Western secular society: castes and sects, one hierarchial, the other egalitarian. 'A sect erects a wall of virtue between itself and the nasty outside world from which it wishes to set itself apart. [This leads to a] holistic style of risk management--a total system model in which causal links can be (and are) traced until the blame for every particular misfortune can be laid at some particular door . . . . No "background" risk is acceptable, all harm has to be accounted for ... the idea that some risk is inevitable, and that particular deaths are its statistically inevitable outcome, are rejected. [Castes on the other hand] internally differentiated (and therefore hierarchical) favour (risk) management by specialized and professionally staffed agencies' (p. 157). This theme is developed at greater length in Risk and Culture by Douglas and Wildavsky 1982t. In their IIASA paper Thompson and Wildavsky also distinguish between real (physical world) risks, which can be the subject o f risk assessment, and social (the physically non-existent) risks of harm to social structures. Indeed in social systems, including the industrial countries, where threatenable social structures exist, social risks are among the most serious of the risks that have to be managed. This difference between 'real' and 'irrational' risk was explored in greater depth by Brian Wynne in Institutional Mythologies and Dual Societies in the Management of Risk at the same meeting. Wynne argues that the absolute boundary between science and politics, or fact and value, should not be taken for granted. He criticises the myth of a natural consensus' which assumes a single objective truth can be arrived at by scientific debate, and the assumption that if this process fails, one group or other can be exposed as incompetent or malign by the ultimate test of legal cross-examination using the 'unsurpassed precision of the legal framework' to determine where the truth lies. In his criticism of an excessive reliance on scientific rationality Wynne appears to be harking back to the guild socialists o f 60 years ago when A. J. Penty complained of 'the prejudice of the modern intellectual against all reasoning which is not based upon material facts'. Penty (1917). Using this argument Wynne suggests that accidents can then, falsely, be presented as 'sporadic individual lapses from normal standards of objectivity and rationality', and as such 'essentially eradicable'. This misleads to the assumption that the causes and responsibilities of an accident, and lessons for the *International Institute of Applied SystemsAnalysis. ~"Reviewedby Timothy O'Riordan, Journalof EnvironmentalPsychology, 3, 345-354.
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future can always be established; that there is a clear-cut problem with a clear-cut solution, and that occasional lapses can be limited as in the case of TMI by 'the fervant pursuit of better psychological control of operator reaction to boredom, stress, and operating room instruments, and better recruitment and training'. Wynne suggests that concentrating on these remedial measures may distract attention from a more fundamental source of accidents: the limited scope of prevailing knowledge and the inability of a technological organization to be sure of making a proper distinction between significant and trivial events. The question of nuclear accidents was thoroughly explored at another IIASA international workshop of January 1980 on Planning for Rare Events: Nuclear Accident Preparedness and Management. This meeting was inevitably influenced by the events at Three Mile Island in the previous year, and three papers on this were presented by the three main actors in the d r a m a - - t h e owner, General Public Utilities Corporation; the NRC;* and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A second group of papers covered emergency planning in six countries (U.S.A., U.K., F.R.G., The Netherlands, U.S.S.R., and France.) A set of papers on some technical aspects of emergency planning and the assessment of the effects of a nuclear accident included contributions from U.S.S.R., Hungary and Japan. There was also a clear presentation of the main results of the German nuclear power plant risk study. A further section of three papers considered the broader issues and the special problems arising from the rarity of nuclear accidents. As at all workshop meetings, discussion between the participants is an important part of the proceedings. In this case the discussion was not, as for the Risk Analysis meeting reproduced verbatim, but was edited and organised into a cohesive sequence under 12 separate topics. This requires a much greater effort, and some degree of interpretation on the part of the Editor, which may colour the views presented, but this is well justified by the readable and logical development of ideas which results. A verbatim account may flatter the participants whose off-the-cuff remarks are recorded in print, but it is very tedious to read, and weighted in favour of those who talk the most rather than those who have something interesting to say. As the title of the workshop emphasized, a special problem of (serious) nuclear accidents is that they are rare. This requires planning to minimize a substantial risk to society without much guidance from the experience of actual accidents. While the plant operator must maintain preparedness for an event that is extremely unlikely to occur while he is on duty. A difficulty of high consequence/low probability events is in accepting that the risk is a product of these two factors. Attention tends to be focused on one or the other, which confuses the public and regulators alike. If nuclear power is so safe why are emergency plans required? As Harold Green put it: 'AEC/NRC, having boxed itself into the myth that the probability of a serious accident was so vanishingly low that it need not trouble any rational person, could not easily treat such an accident as sufficiently credible to warrant highly visible emergency plans without loss of face or credibility' (p. 160).
*Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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But for another contributor, Joanne Linnerooth, it is possible to view emergency planning as a promotional strategy to win public confidence. 'Perhaps promotors of nuclear power are now concentrating on emergency planning because they recognise that the public is concerned with the consequences of accidents and is not satisfied by assurances that accidents rarely occur. Perhaps these promotors are saying "Let's now focus on the consequences and let's convince the public that the consequence of accidents will be taken care of because we have emergency plans"' (p. 35). In the end, for the general public, it should be a matter of confidence and trust in organizations and officials. Green argues that despite the possibility that meaningful emergency plans may paradoxically heighten the impression that nuclear power is too dangerous to be acceptable, public acceptance can be won by 'relentless truth-telling' ... 'the fact that a technology is extraordinarily hazardous does not mean that the risks cannot be drastically reduced through appropriate design, operation, and maintenance or that the risks are unacceptable. The crucial question is the extent of public confidence in the officials... (p. 163). This however is unlikely to satisfy the 'sects'. The F.o.E. at the Sizewell Inquiry, are seeking, with their pretension to be an independent safety authority, to undermine public confidence in the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Apart from nuclear accidents, the other major public concern is on the management and disposal of radioactive waste. This is the subject of Too Hot to Handle which despite its trendy title is a fair and sensible account o f the technical and policy issues involved. Apart from the three editors who contribute a chapter each, and one jointly, other chapters come from Jan Stolwijk, Stanley Neary and John Herbert, and Slovic and Fischhoff. After an introductory chapter setting waste management in the context of the nuclear power programme and the energy future of the U.S.A., (Gould) there are good accounts of the science and technology, (Walker) and the potential health hazards o f nuclear power operations (Stolwikj). Public attitudes toward radioactive wastes (Neary and Herbert) are followed by a Slovic/ Fischhoff chapter 'How safe is safe enough?' The politics o f waste management (Woodhouse) reviews the American scene, and the book ends with a discussion of value issues by the three editors. Perhaps the most disturbing chapter o f the book is that on public attitudes toward radioactive waste by Stanley Neary and John Herbert which comes to the conclusion that government decisions on radioactive waste policy should not be delayed in the false expectation that an informed public consensus can be achieved. The reasoning and basis for this conclusion might be equally well applied to nuclear power in general. In the first place the public has little knowledge o f nuclear wastes and their disposal. A multiple choice question survey found that the average respondant score was only slightly better than could have been obtained from random guessing. This is not surprising when it is found that the little information the public has is obtained from newspapers, television, and news magazines, with network television news as the most trusted source. In a study from June 1972 to December 1977 of 266 stories related to nuclear power carried by the three major television networks, it was found that the average air time was only 77.3 s.
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'A hypothetical viewer equipped with three television sets who watched all the network news every night would have received only 62 minutes of information per year about nuclear power' (p. 105). Several studies have also found that printed and televised news stories discuss costs and risks a good deal more than the benefits of nuclear power. 'About twice as many stories would push a neutral reader or television viewer in an antinuclear direction than would tend to push such a person in a pronuclear direction' (p. 105). Nuclear power is presented in a more negative light than coal, in spite of the severe health problems associated with coal combustion, while in contrast solar power is presented on television in very positive terms. This raises the question of whether it is possible to raise public understanding to the level at which intelligent participation in nuclear power decisions can be expected. Certainly, if this book, for example, were to be widely distributed and read, a more informed public attitude on nuclear waste management might be expected. But at £16 a copy is this likely? And what about the comment that: 'the link between knowledge and attitude is weak on most public issues' (p. 108). The arguments are however not only on technology. The final chapter, on value issues, draws a distinction between technical and value judgments, and argues that 'if we accept the assurances of the nuclear community that waste management is technically feasible, then the problematic issues are overwhelmingly social and political. Again, because so many of the basic issues in waste management involve conflicts of values, significant areas of uncertainty and disagreement will surely remain even after several more decades of research, development and political conflict' (p. 198). This leads to the conclusion that a reliance on achieving widespread agreement on the technical issues is an illusion. 'Highly respected scientists and vocal activists from industry or environmental groups will oppose whatever choices are made for waste management. Hence there is virtually no chance of achieving public confidence through the melting away of opposition' (p. 198). To find a solution the authors recommend a value-oriented approach which would try to build public confidence, and construct a decision-making process that anticipates continuing disagreement. Some novel proposals are put forward. To bring the public into the decision process it is suggested that a r a n d o m cross-section should be paid to attend hearings and w o r k s h o p s - - a nuclear jury service? And in seeking for a decision process that the 'losers' will accept they propose a series of national, regional, and local referenda. It is claimed from the Swedish referendum and from American experience, that antinuclear dissenters in the states that have held nuclear referenda have tended to accept the majority's decision and seem to have muted their subsequent opposition. But surely this is not always the case? In Austria where the referendum voted by a narrow majority against the start-up of the completed Zwentendorf nuclear power station, the question of reopening the matter has never been abandoned; Switzerland is having to face a succession of nuclear referenda as the opponents are never able to accept a rejection of their views; and in the U.S.A.
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the Union Electric C o m p a n y in Missouri, having survived one state initiative over its Calloway station is now faced with another over the nuclear waste issue. The evidence from studies of the Swedish referendum Zetterberg (1979) and the Californian proposition 15 (Hensler and Hensler, 1979) suggests that despite intensive pre-referendum information campaigns the greater part of the voting public had little understanding of the issues involved. Does this matter? The authors of Too Hot to Handle appear to believe not and can see no alternative. '... we consider it most unlikely that nuclear experts and government officials acting on their own can manage nuclear wastes in a way that will be perceived as legitimate by the public. And we consider it unlikely that public choices on the value issues at the heart of the waste management programme will be any worse than the value choices that would be made by elites' (p. 205). Such a belief in the commonsense of the ordinary m a n might be justified were it not for the 'sects' whose particular field of activity is in value issues. It has indeed been suggested in a very interesting paper which supports .the Douglas and Wildavsky view, that the radical environmental movement is a spiritual movement, the latest manifestation of gnosticism, a revolt against the materialism of industrial society, (Timbal-Duclaux (1980). Are we now experiencing an outbreak o f mass paranoia, a new secular sectarianism comparable to the millenial movements of the Middle Ages? (Cohn, 1957.) '... Just as individual paranoia is regarded as a disease, so should society be able to reject mass paranoia as a rational basis of risk assessment. If people believe they are being threatened by the nuclear power plant, and all the available scientific evidence tells us they are not, then it is up to the public authorities not to accept that fear' Hansen and Gjorup (1982). This is perhaps an area where environmental psychology might be able to make a contribution. References
Cotgrove, S. (1982). Catastrophe or Cornucopia: the Environment, Politics and the Future. Chichester: Wiley. Cohn, N. (1957). The Pursuit o f the Millenium. London: Secker and Warburg. Crosland, A. (1971). A Social Democratic Britain. London: Fabian Society. Douglas, M. and Wildavsky, A. (1982). Risk and Culture. California: University of California Press. Hansen, H. J. M. and H. L. Gjorup (1982). Societal risk is not just the sum of individually perceived risks. Comparison of risks resulting from major human activities. Annual Congress, Soci6t6 fran~aise de Radioprotection. Hensler, D. R. and Hensler, C. P. (1979). Evaluating Nuclear Power: Voter Cho&e on the California Nuclear Energy Initiative. Rand Corporation. Penty, A. J. (1917). Old Worlds for New. London: Allen and Unwin. Timbal-Duclaux, L. (1980). De l'6cologisme comme gnose naturaliste moderne. Le Progrks Technique, No. 17. Zetterberg, H. (1979). Environmental Awareness and Political Change in Sweden. Stockholm: SIFO.
BOOK R E V I E W S
THE RISK BUSINESS: ACCEPTANCE NUCLEAR POWER
OF
G. G R E E N H A L G H Down P a r k House, Crawley Down, Sussex R H I O 4 H Q Environmental Groups in Politics The Resource Management Series. By Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder: George Allen and Unwin, 1980, 208 pp. £15.00. The Risk Analysis Controversy: Proceedings of a Summer Study on Decision Processes and Institutional Aspects of Risk, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, 22-26 June 1981. Edited by Howard C. Kunreuther and Eryl V. Ley. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1982, 236 pp. $23.20. Planning for Rare Events: Nuclear Accident Preparedness and Management. IIASA Proceedings series, Volume 14: Proceedings of an International Workshop, January 1980. Edited by John W. Lanthrop. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981, 268 pp. £16.75. Too Hot to Handle? Social and Policy Issues in the Management of Radioactive Wastes. Edited by Charles A. Walker, Leroy C. Gould and Edward J. Woodhouse. Yale: Yale University Press, 1983, 209 pp. £16.00. Philip Lowe lectures in countryside planning at University College, London and has written extensively in the fields o f environmental politics, rural planning and the history o f ecology. Jane Goyder has been involved in research at University College, London into postwar conservation issues and policies, has studied the various countryside pressure groups, and has taught planning at Thames Polytechnic. Howard C. Kunreuther is at the Department o f Decision Sciences, Wharton School, University o f Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A. Eryl V. Ley is at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria. Charles A. Walker is Raymond John Wean Professor and Chairman o f the Department of Chemical Engineering at Yale University. Leroy C. Gould is Professor o f Criminology at Florida State University. Edward J. Woodhouse is a political scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Geoffrey Greenhalgh joined the newly formed Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in 1948, and has been associated with nuclear power development since that time. He has served as Scientific Attachb at the British Embassy in Stockholm, and as the UKAEA representative to Euratom. In 1964 he was appointed as the first Director of the British Nuclear Forum. He left the British Nuclear Forum in 1977 and is now an independent consultant on nuclear affairs.
In their different ways these four books, throw some light on the growing obsession with risk--nuclear risk in particular--in our present society, and the related question of how decisions can be made on the complex technological issues 0272-4944/85/010109 + 08 $03.00/0
© 1985 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited
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involved in the siting, construction, and operation of nuclear power installations, and their acceptance by the public. • It is generally recognized that opposition to nuclear power is associated with a concern for the protection of the environment, yet, for this reviewer, it is apparent on the experience of operating stations that uranium can be represented as a less polluting energy source than coal, and safer than hydroelectricity. This gives rise to the paradox that those who m i g h t be expected to welcome a cleaner energy source are most active in opposing it. To help in understanding this situation any information on the structure and organization of the environmental groups is to be welcomed. Environmental Groups in Politics gives a comprehensive survey of the growth, organization, and activity of the environmental lobby in the U.K. Since 1895, when the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society was formed, the movement has grown to the extent that Lowe and Goyder estimate two and a half million p e o p l e - - a b o u t 10% of the adult p o p u l a t i o n - - a r e now members of an environmental group. These groups range from over 1250 local amenity societies, to the 77 national groups, whose membership, organization, and interaction with local government, Parliament, the civil service and the media is studied in this book. In this respect the title is somewhat misleading, since despite the involvement of a greater number of people than any political party or trade union, the environmental movement has so far failed to emerge as a political force in the U.K. The authors conclude that: 'In the main, environmental groups have less influence with government than the major economic interest groups. They have fewer political resources and lack powerful sanctions' (p. 179). Why? This is in marked contrast to the rise of the 'Greens' as a political force in West Germany. It would have been interesting if this difference had been explored. Does it, for example, depend on the difference in the political structure, with proportional representation and a federal constitution in G e r m a n y giving greater opportunities for minority parties; or is there a more fundamental reason in that the environmental movement in the U.K. is essentially of the middle class. The authors quote Crosland's charge that environmentalists are affluent people who 'want to kick the ladder down behind them. They are militant about threats to rural peace and wildlife and well loved beauty spots; but little concerned with the far more desperate problem of the urban environment in which 80 per cent of our citizens live' (Crosland, 1971). Environmentalism is, however, 'only one indicator of the wider social movement', and although recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of adherants, the social attitudes it reflects are not new. In discussing the development of the environmental movement Lowe and Goyder note that this was not smooth process but that periods of sudden growth of new environmental groups occurred towards the end of periods of sustained economic expansion as 'more and more people turned to count the mounting external costs of unbridled economic growth and sought to reassert non-material values' (p. 25). The rise of environmental concern was then 'an integral part of the late Victorian intellectual reaction to many of the tenets of economic liberalism ... the Victorians' earlier self-confidence was sapped by the
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Great Depression of the 1880s ... Britain's increasingly disappointing industrial performance in the final decades of the century was matched by a growing equivocalness towards industrialism itself... (which led to) ... a value system which disdained trade and industry, which stressed the civilised enjoyment, rather than the accumulation of wealth, and which preferred social stability to enterprise' (p. 19). These views are today echoed by the new environmental groups, which can be seen as the heirs of the Victorian guild socialists, and a statement from the Green Alliance is quoted with the comment that it could well have been expressed in 1899 instead of 1979. But how far are these idealistic views representative of the environmental movement as a whole? The lack of any cohesive political force, already noted, raises the question of whether so m a n y diverse groups embracing a wide range of concerns can be lumped together and represented as a single movement. It may then be significant that Cotgrove makes a distinction between the 'new environmentalists' and the 'nature conservationists'. He suggests that the radical environmentalists want a different kind of society and use the environment as a lever to try to bring about the kind of changes they want ... 'what distinguishes members of the new environmental groups is not their heightened environmental awareness at all, but their alternative value system. Nature conservationists are equally concerned for the environment but they differ on questions of social values' (Cotgrove, 1982). Lowe and Goyder implicitly accept this distinction with their comment that 'Many established environmental groups ... do not directly confront dominant societal goals and it is unlikely that their members would show such marked antipathy towards industrial values' (p. 27). It would indeed be surprising if m a n y of the million or more members of the National Trust, typically 'middle-aged and middle-class, a country lover with a strong interest in gardens and an appreciation of fine houses' (p. 140) would support the wilder views of the more radical sections of the environmental movement. It then seems probable that the numbers of these fundamentalists who constitute the hard core of the nuclear power opposition may not amount to more than a few per cent of the population in the U.K. Cotgrove goes on to identify the 'new environmentalists' as 'younger, better educated, left in politics, and more likely to be employed in the non-market sector'. Some support for this view can be found in the chapter which Lowe and Goyder devote to the Friends of the Earth, noting the emphasis on young people, radicalism and idealism; the notions of participatory democracy and forms of direct political protest. M a n y initial staff members and supporters had been involved in student politics, and 'it is from a similar following of young well educated, middleclass discontents that F.o.E. still draws the majority of its support' (p. 127). Unlike the nature conservation groups which regard their members primarily as a source of income, the F.o.E. uses its followers as a political resource. 'It deliberately facilitates people to become agents of change .... Political activism is encouraged .... The belief has persisted that a large public is awaiting a spur to action: indeed F.o.E. would like to be a mass movement' (. 132).
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It is then tempting to classify the F.o.E. as a 'sect', as opposed to a 'caste', in the sense in which these terms are used in the interesting paper on a Cultural Theory of Risk by Thompson and Wildavsky which is included in The Risk Analysis Controversy, the proceedings of the I1ASA* June 1981 study meeting. This meeting was designed as a forum to explore the role of risk analysis techniques in resolving conflicts: the participants, from different countries and different disciplines are all active practitioners in the risk business. The 14 papers, printed together with a verbatim discussion, covered specific risk assessment problems, institutional aspects of risk, and decision processes. They give a number o f interesting insights into this complex and controversial subject. In picking out only two of the papers for comment, this review does not do full justice to the book. In evaluating risk in a cultural context Thompson and Wildavsky identify two distinct cultural biases in Western secular society: castes and sects, one hierarchial, the other egalitarian. 'A sect erects a wall of virtue between itself and the nasty outside world from which it wishes to set itself apart. [This leads to a] holistic style of risk management--a total system model in which causal links can be (and are) traced until the blame for every particular misfortune can be laid at some particular door . . . . No "background" risk is acceptable, all harm has to be accounted for ... the idea that some risk is inevitable, and that particular deaths are its statistically inevitable outcome, are rejected. [Castes on the other hand] internally differentiated (and therefore hierarchical) favour (risk) management by specialized and professionally staffed agencies' (p. 157). This theme is developed at greater length in Risk and Culture by Douglas and Wildavsky 1982t. In their IIASA paper Thompson and Wildavsky also distinguish between real (physical world) risks, which can be the subject o f risk assessment, and social (the physically non-existent) risks of harm to social structures. Indeed in social systems, including the industrial countries, where threatenable social structures exist, social risks are among the most serious of the risks that have to be managed. This difference between 'real' and 'irrational' risk was explored in greater depth by Brian Wynne in Institutional Mythologies and Dual Societies in the Management of Risk at the same meeting. Wynne argues that the absolute boundary between science and politics, or fact and value, should not be taken for granted. He criticises the myth of a natural consensus' which assumes a single objective truth can be arrived at by scientific debate, and the assumption that if this process fails, one group or other can be exposed as incompetent or malign by the ultimate test of legal cross-examination using the 'unsurpassed precision of the legal framework' to determine where the truth lies. In his criticism of an excessive reliance on scientific rationality Wynne appears to be harking back to the guild socialists o f 60 years ago when A. J. Penty complained of 'the prejudice of the modern intellectual against all reasoning which is not based upon material facts'. Penty (1917). Using this argument Wynne suggests that accidents can then, falsely, be presented as 'sporadic individual lapses from normal standards of objectivity and rationality', and as such 'essentially eradicable'. This misleads to the assumption that the causes and responsibilities of an accident, and lessons for the *International Institute of Applied SystemsAnalysis. ~"Reviewedby Timothy O'Riordan, Journalof EnvironmentalPsychology, 3, 345-354.
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future can always be established; that there is a clear-cut problem with a clear-cut solution, and that occasional lapses can be limited as in the case of TMI by 'the fervant pursuit of better psychological control of operator reaction to boredom, stress, and operating room instruments, and better recruitment and training'. Wynne suggests that concentrating on these remedial measures may distract attention from a more fundamental source of accidents: the limited scope of prevailing knowledge and the inability of a technological organization to be sure of making a proper distinction between significant and trivial events. The question of nuclear accidents was thoroughly explored at another IIASA international workshop of January 1980 on Planning for Rare Events: Nuclear Accident Preparedness and Management. This meeting was inevitably influenced by the events at Three Mile Island in the previous year, and three papers on this were presented by the three main actors in the d r a m a - - t h e owner, General Public Utilities Corporation; the NRC;* and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A second group of papers covered emergency planning in six countries (U.S.A., U.K., F.R.G., The Netherlands, U.S.S.R., and France.) A set of papers on some technical aspects of emergency planning and the assessment of the effects of a nuclear accident included contributions from U.S.S.R., Hungary and Japan. There was also a clear presentation of the main results of the German nuclear power plant risk study. A further section of three papers considered the broader issues and the special problems arising from the rarity of nuclear accidents. As at all workshop meetings, discussion between the participants is an important part of the proceedings. In this case the discussion was not, as for the Risk Analysis meeting reproduced verbatim, but was edited and organised into a cohesive sequence under 12 separate topics. This requires a much greater effort, and some degree of interpretation on the part of the Editor, which may colour the views presented, but this is well justified by the readable and logical development of ideas which results. A verbatim account may flatter the participants whose off-the-cuff remarks are recorded in print, but it is very tedious to read, and weighted in favour of those who talk the most rather than those who have something interesting to say. As the title of the workshop emphasized, a special problem of (serious) nuclear accidents is that they are rare. This requires planning to minimize a substantial risk to society without much guidance from the experience of actual accidents. While the plant operator must maintain preparedness for an event that is extremely unlikely to occur while he is on duty. A difficulty of high consequence/low probability events is in accepting that the risk is a product of these two factors. Attention tends to be focused on one or the other, which confuses the public and regulators alike. If nuclear power is so safe why are emergency plans required? As Harold Green put it: 'AEC/NRC, having boxed itself into the myth that the probability of a serious accident was so vanishingly low that it need not trouble any rational person, could not easily treat such an accident as sufficiently credible to warrant highly visible emergency plans without loss of face or credibility' (p. 160).
*Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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But for another contributor, Joanne Linnerooth, it is possible to view emergency planning as a promotional strategy to win public confidence. 'Perhaps promotors of nuclear power are now concentrating on emergency planning because they recognise that the public is concerned with the consequences of accidents and is not satisfied by assurances that accidents rarely occur. Perhaps these promotors are saying "Let's now focus on the consequences and let's convince the public that the consequence of accidents will be taken care of because we have emergency plans"' (p. 35). In the end, for the general public, it should be a matter of confidence and trust in organizations and officials. Green argues that despite the possibility that meaningful emergency plans may paradoxically heighten the impression that nuclear power is too dangerous to be acceptable, public acceptance can be won by 'relentless truth-telling' ... 'the fact that a technology is extraordinarily hazardous does not mean that the risks cannot be drastically reduced through appropriate design, operation, and maintenance or that the risks are unacceptable. The crucial question is the extent of public confidence in the officials... (p. 163). This however is unlikely to satisfy the 'sects'. The F.o.E. at the Sizewell Inquiry, are seeking, with their pretension to be an independent safety authority, to undermine public confidence in the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Apart from nuclear accidents, the other major public concern is on the management and disposal of radioactive waste. This is the subject of Too Hot to Handle which despite its trendy title is a fair and sensible account o f the technical and policy issues involved. Apart from the three editors who contribute a chapter each, and one jointly, other chapters come from Jan Stolwijk, Stanley Neary and John Herbert, and Slovic and Fischhoff. After an introductory chapter setting waste management in the context of the nuclear power programme and the energy future of the U.S.A., (Gould) there are good accounts of the science and technology, (Walker) and the potential health hazards o f nuclear power operations (Stolwikj). Public attitudes toward radioactive wastes (Neary and Herbert) are followed by a Slovic/ Fischhoff chapter 'How safe is safe enough?' The politics o f waste management (Woodhouse) reviews the American scene, and the book ends with a discussion of value issues by the three editors. Perhaps the most disturbing chapter o f the book is that on public attitudes toward radioactive waste by Stanley Neary and John Herbert which comes to the conclusion that government decisions on radioactive waste policy should not be delayed in the false expectation that an informed public consensus can be achieved. The reasoning and basis for this conclusion might be equally well applied to nuclear power in general. In the first place the public has little knowledge o f nuclear wastes and their disposal. A multiple choice question survey found that the average respondant score was only slightly better than could have been obtained from random guessing. This is not surprising when it is found that the little information the public has is obtained from newspapers, television, and news magazines, with network television news as the most trusted source. In a study from June 1972 to December 1977 of 266 stories related to nuclear power carried by the three major television networks, it was found that the average air time was only 77.3 s.
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'A hypothetical viewer equipped with three television sets who watched all the network news every night would have received only 62 minutes of information per year about nuclear power' (p. 105). Several studies have also found that printed and televised news stories discuss costs and risks a good deal more than the benefits of nuclear power. 'About twice as many stories would push a neutral reader or television viewer in an antinuclear direction than would tend to push such a person in a pronuclear direction' (p. 105). Nuclear power is presented in a more negative light than coal, in spite of the severe health problems associated with coal combustion, while in contrast solar power is presented on television in very positive terms. This raises the question of whether it is possible to raise public understanding to the level at which intelligent participation in nuclear power decisions can be expected. Certainly, if this book, for example, were to be widely distributed and read, a more informed public attitude on nuclear waste management might be expected. But at £16 a copy is this likely? And what about the comment that: 'the link between knowledge and attitude is weak on most public issues' (p. 108). The arguments are however not only on technology. The final chapter, on value issues, draws a distinction between technical and value judgments, and argues that 'if we accept the assurances of the nuclear community that waste management is technically feasible, then the problematic issues are overwhelmingly social and political. Again, because so many of the basic issues in waste management involve conflicts of values, significant areas of uncertainty and disagreement will surely remain even after several more decades of research, development and political conflict' (p. 198). This leads to the conclusion that a reliance on achieving widespread agreement on the technical issues is an illusion. 'Highly respected scientists and vocal activists from industry or environmental groups will oppose whatever choices are made for waste management. Hence there is virtually no chance of achieving public confidence through the melting away of opposition' (p. 198). To find a solution the authors recommend a value-oriented approach which would try to build public confidence, and construct a decision-making process that anticipates continuing disagreement. Some novel proposals are put forward. To bring the public into the decision process it is suggested that a r a n d o m cross-section should be paid to attend hearings and w o r k s h o p s - - a nuclear jury service? And in seeking for a decision process that the 'losers' will accept they propose a series of national, regional, and local referenda. It is claimed from the Swedish referendum and from American experience, that antinuclear dissenters in the states that have held nuclear referenda have tended to accept the majority's decision and seem to have muted their subsequent opposition. But surely this is not always the case? In Austria where the referendum voted by a narrow majority against the start-up of the completed Zwentendorf nuclear power station, the question of reopening the matter has never been abandoned; Switzerland is having to face a succession of nuclear referenda as the opponents are never able to accept a rejection of their views; and in the U.S.A.
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the Union Electric C o m p a n y in Missouri, having survived one state initiative over its Calloway station is now faced with another over the nuclear waste issue. The evidence from studies of the Swedish referendum Zetterberg (1979) and the Californian proposition 15 (Hensler and Hensler, 1979) suggests that despite intensive pre-referendum information campaigns the greater part of the voting public had little understanding of the issues involved. Does this matter? The authors of Too Hot to Handle appear to believe not and can see no alternative. '... we consider it most unlikely that nuclear experts and government officials acting on their own can manage nuclear wastes in a way that will be perceived as legitimate by the public. And we consider it unlikely that public choices on the value issues at the heart of the waste management programme will be any worse than the value choices that would be made by elites' (p. 205). Such a belief in the commonsense of the ordinary m a n might be justified were it not for the 'sects' whose particular field of activity is in value issues. It has indeed been suggested in a very interesting paper which supports .the Douglas and Wildavsky view, that the radical environmental movement is a spiritual movement, the latest manifestation of gnosticism, a revolt against the materialism of industrial society, (Timbal-Duclaux (1980). Are we now experiencing an outbreak o f mass paranoia, a new secular sectarianism comparable to the millenial movements of the Middle Ages? (Cohn, 1957.) '... Just as individual paranoia is regarded as a disease, so should society be able to reject mass paranoia as a rational basis of risk assessment. If people believe they are being threatened by the nuclear power plant, and all the available scientific evidence tells us they are not, then it is up to the public authorities not to accept that fear' Hansen and Gjorup (1982). This is perhaps an area where environmental psychology might be able to make a contribution. References
Cotgrove, S. (1982). Catastrophe or Cornucopia: the Environment, Politics and the Future. Chichester: Wiley. Cohn, N. (1957). The Pursuit o f the Millenium. London: Secker and Warburg. Crosland, A. (1971). A Social Democratic Britain. London: Fabian Society. Douglas, M. and Wildavsky, A. (1982). Risk and Culture. California: University of California Press. Hansen, H. J. M. and H. L. Gjorup (1982). Societal risk is not just the sum of individually perceived risks. Comparison of risks resulting from major human activities. Annual Congress, Soci6t6 fran~aise de Radioprotection. Hensler, D. R. and Hensler, C. P. (1979). Evaluating Nuclear Power: Voter Cho&e on the California Nuclear Energy Initiative. Rand Corporation. Penty, A. J. (1917). Old Worlds for New. London: Allen and Unwin. Timbal-Duclaux, L. (1980). De l'6cologisme comme gnose naturaliste moderne. Le Progrks Technique, No. 17. Zetterberg, H. (1979). Environmental Awareness and Political Change in Sweden. Stockholm: SIFO.