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>> Most deaths attributed to the Fukushima disaster were people who froze to death because they couldn't afford heating after electricity price hike caused by F
by lovemenot 5y ago
>> Most deaths attributed to the Fukushima disaster were people who froze to death because they couldn't afford heating after electricity price hike caused by Fukushima's shutdown.
Do you have a source for this? How many froze, and of those which were for economic reasons?
I was in Japan at the time, and the assertion doesn't look right, unless it's comparing tiny numbers: e.g. zero nuclear deaths and two frozen through economics, technically means "most deaths" were from freezing.
- pornel 5y agohttp://ftp.iza.org/dp12687.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp12687.pdf Yes, both are small numbers of people. I think it's a very illustrative effect — how few people were directly affected by the disaster, and how second-order effects affecting whole populations are magnified. Similarly how fear of flying after 9/11 caused people to take less-safe-per-mile car instead.
- lovemenot 5y agoTheir models predict excess deaths from economically driven cold which compare marginally unfavourably with deaths from nuclear related dislocation. Even if the model holds correct, the government's policy to shutdown reactors immediately was likely the right choice. Just in terms of number of expected deaths. Two factors lead me to think so: aftershock risk and the possibility of systemic failure in the nuclear industry.