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> "Some of the blame for this should lie at the feet of activists with good intentions like Jane Fonda." Public and political opposition to nuclear has, over t

> "Some of the blame for this should lie at the feet of activists with good intentions like Jane Fonda." Public and political opposition to nuclear has, over the decades, had a lot more to do with Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima than Jane Fonda.

DonHopkins 7y ago
100% of the blame for 80's style workout leggings, leotards, leg warmers, neon spandex, scrunchy socks, headbands, and mullets deserves to lie at the feet of Jane Fonda, however. https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-dress-like-1980s-aerobics-3420029 https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-dress-like-1980s-aerobics-3...
- mc32 7y ago
  Yeah... styles or rather fashions are quirky. All it did was make people look ridiculous but it didn’t retard a foundational industry by decades like her anti-nuke movement.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Blaming Jane Fonda's anti-nuke movement for retarding the foundational nuclear industry is like blaming her and her first husband's movie Barberella for retarding feminism, instead of the patriarchy who fought tooth and nail against the ERA. https://purpleclover.littlethings.com/entertainment/7556-regrets-only/item/barbarella-68/ https://purpleclover.littlethings.com/entertainment/7556-reg... Now how exactly did you mean she was responsible for Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    - mc32 7y ago
      Chernobyl and Fukushima came long after her no-nukes romp. TMI was a minor event that was fearmongered way out of proportion by the movement.
      - DonHopkins 7y ago
        The "fearmongering" was about much worse things that could possibly happen in the future, and some of those much worse things have actually happened since TMI. Getting lucky in one incident doesn't mean your luck will always hold and the fear is unjustified. When I was a kid, some old friends of my family lived on a horse ranch in Mt. Wolf, Pennsylvania, a mile or so from TMI (which had a 20 mile radius evacuation zone). When we visited them some time before it happened, they joked and teased me about how I should be worried if ever I saw steam rising from the cooling towers (which I could clearly see there always was). A year or so later, they were cowering in their basement with diarrhea from the radiation leak, with no idea how long they would be there or how it would end. TMI had much more influence over their change of opinion about nuclear energy than Jane Fonda did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Voluntary_evacuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Vol...
        mc32 7y ago
        That experience contradicts the EPA and Dickinson college (which had radiation monitoring equipment) who did not detect elevated levels of radioactivity. They also sampled wildlife from the vicinity afterwards and found no evidence of radiation.
        DonHopkins 7y ago
        Can you provide a link to that evidence please? The claim that there were no elevated levels of radioactivity agrees with what Met Ed and public officials were incorrectly announcing at the time, but contradicts what Wikipedia cites NRC historian Samuel Walker as writing in "Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective". Dickenson College is 30 miles or so from TMI, while Mt. Wolf is a few miles away, and from the ranch the cooling towers loomed clearly visibly on the horizon. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mount+Wolf,+PA,+USA/Dickinson+College,+28+N+College+St,+Carlisle,+PA+17013,+United+States/@40.0846219,-76.7259773,6677m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c890b8c4f44ceb:0x9c056eeaedd1d3b9!2m2!1d-76.703856!2d40.0631514!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c91e2a4b737e19:0x573655367542056!2m2!1d-77.1972141!2d40.2028536!3e2?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mount+Wolf,+PA,+USA/Dickinso... Do you have any doubts that the power company and public officials were terribly prepared for the disaster, and lied to the press and public (as was also true with Chernobyl and Fukushima), and that is a much bigger continuing problem for nuclear power's reputation than Jane Fonda ever was? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Emergency_declaration_and_immediate_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Eme... >The uncertainty of operators at the plant was reflected in fragmentary, ambiguous, or contradictory statements made by Met Ed to government agencies and to the press, particularly about the possibility and severity of off-site radioactivity releases. Scranton held a press conference in which he was reassuring, yet confusing, about this possibility, stating that though there had been a "small release of radiation...no increase in normal radiation levels" had been detected. These were contradicted by another official, and by statements from Met Ed, who both claimed that no radioactivity had been released. In fact, readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained. >Angry that Met Ed had not informed them before conducting a steam venting from the plant, and convinced that the company was downplaying the severity of the accident, state officials turned to the NRC. After receiving word of the accident from Met Ed, the NRC had activated its emergency response headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland and sent staff members to Three Mile Island. NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie and commissioner Victor Gilinsky initially viewed the accident, in the words of NRC historian Samuel Walker, as a "cause for concern but not alarm". Gilinsky briefed reporters and members of Congress on the situation and informed White House staff, and at 10:00 a.m. met with two other commissioners. However, the NRC faced the same problems in obtaining accurate information as the state, and was further hampered by being organizationally ill-prepared to deal with emergencies, as it lacked a clear command structure and did not have the authority either to tell the utility what to do, or to order an evacuation of the local area. Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23940-1. (Google Books) https://books.google.com/books?id=0EDwbQF5k24C&dq=%22three+mile+island%22+%2B+books&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=U9PLSbDxG4WEtwfz3qTaCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7#PPP9,M1 https://books.google.com/books?id=0EDwbQF5k24C&dq=%22three+m...
guscost 7y ago
The fact that you're casually dropping Three Mile Island and Fukushima in the same list with Chernobyl has a lot to do with Jane Fonda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome

DonHopkins 7y ago

100% of the blame for 80's style workout leggings, leotards, leg warmers, neon spandex, scrunchy socks, headbands, and mullets deserves to lie at the feet of Jane Fonda, however. https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-dress-like-1980s-aerobics-3420029 https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-dress-like-1980s-aerobics-3...

mc32 7y ago
Yeah... styles or rather fashions are quirky. All it did was make people look ridiculous but it didn’t retard a foundational industry by decades like her anti-nuke movement.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Blaming Jane Fonda's anti-nuke movement for retarding the foundational nuclear industry is like blaming her and her first husband's movie Barberella for retarding feminism, instead of the patriarchy who fought tooth and nail against the ERA. https://purpleclover.littlethings.com/entertainment/7556-regrets-only/item/barbarella-68/ https://purpleclover.littlethings.com/entertainment/7556-reg... Now how exactly did you mean she was responsible for Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima?
  - mc32 7y ago
    Chernobyl and Fukushima came long after her no-nukes romp. TMI was a minor event that was fearmongered way out of proportion by the movement.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      The "fearmongering" was about much worse things that could possibly happen in the future, and some of those much worse things have actually happened since TMI. Getting lucky in one incident doesn't mean your luck will always hold and the fear is unjustified. When I was a kid, some old friends of my family lived on a horse ranch in Mt. Wolf, Pennsylvania, a mile or so from TMI (which had a 20 mile radius evacuation zone). When we visited them some time before it happened, they joked and teased me about how I should be worried if ever I saw steam rising from the cooling towers (which I could clearly see there always was). A year or so later, they were cowering in their basement with diarrhea from the radiation leak, with no idea how long they would be there or how it would end. TMI had much more influence over their change of opinion about nuclear energy than Jane Fonda did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Voluntary_evacuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Vol...
      - mc32 7y ago
        That experience contradicts the EPA and Dickinson college (which had radiation monitoring equipment) who did not detect elevated levels of radioactivity. They also sampled wildlife from the vicinity afterwards and found no evidence of radiation.
        DonHopkins 7y ago
        Can you provide a link to that evidence please? The claim that there were no elevated levels of radioactivity agrees with what Met Ed and public officials were incorrectly announcing at the time, but contradicts what Wikipedia cites NRC historian Samuel Walker as writing in "Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective". Dickenson College is 30 miles or so from TMI, while Mt. Wolf is a few miles away, and from the ranch the cooling towers loomed clearly visibly on the horizon. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mount+Wolf,+PA,+USA/Dickinson+College,+28+N+College+St,+Carlisle,+PA+17013,+United+States/@40.0846219,-76.7259773,6677m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c890b8c4f44ceb:0x9c056eeaedd1d3b9!2m2!1d-76.703856!2d40.0631514!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c91e2a4b737e19:0x573655367542056!2m2!1d-77.1972141!2d40.2028536!3e2?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mount+Wolf,+PA,+USA/Dickinso... Do you have any doubts that the power company and public officials were terribly prepared for the disaster, and lied to the press and public (as was also true with Chernobyl and Fukushima), and that is a much bigger continuing problem for nuclear power's reputation than Jane Fonda ever was? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Emergency_declaration_and_immediate_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Eme... >The uncertainty of operators at the plant was reflected in fragmentary, ambiguous, or contradictory statements made by Met Ed to government agencies and to the press, particularly about the possibility and severity of off-site radioactivity releases. Scranton held a press conference in which he was reassuring, yet confusing, about this possibility, stating that though there had been a "small release of radiation...no increase in normal radiation levels" had been detected. These were contradicted by another official, and by statements from Met Ed, who both claimed that no radioactivity had been released. In fact, readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained. >Angry that Met Ed had not informed them before conducting a steam venting from the plant, and convinced that the company was downplaying the severity of the accident, state officials turned to the NRC. After receiving word of the accident from Met Ed, the NRC had activated its emergency response headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland and sent staff members to Three Mile Island. NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie and commissioner Victor Gilinsky initially viewed the accident, in the words of NRC historian Samuel Walker, as a "cause for concern but not alarm". Gilinsky briefed reporters and members of Congress on the situation and informed White House staff, and at 10:00 a.m. met with two other commissioners. However, the NRC faced the same problems in obtaining accurate information as the state, and was further hampered by being organizationally ill-prepared to deal with emergencies, as it lacked a clear command structure and did not have the authority either to tell the utility what to do, or to order an evacuation of the local area. Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23940-1. (Google Books) https://books.google.com/books?id=0EDwbQF5k24C&dq=%22three+mile+island%22+%2B+books&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=U9PLSbDxG4WEtwfz3qTaCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7#PPP9,M1 https://books.google.com/books?id=0EDwbQF5k24C&dq=%22three+m...

guscost 7y ago

The fact that you're casually dropping Three Mile Island and Fukushima in the same list with Chernobyl has a lot to do with Jane Fonda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome