The NYAS-Greenpeace Report

摘要

On March 28, 1979, nuclear power's confident assurance of public safety, based on decades of safe operation, was shaken somewhat by the partial meltdown of one of the commercial nuclear power reactors at Three Mile Island. But the complete lack of any personnel or environmental damage, and the thorough overhaul of the whole nuclear enterprise afterwards, dispelled much of the potential fear.Then, on April 26, 1986, came the fire and meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor. Mishandling by the Soviet authorities and exaggeration by a generally anti-nuclear press and a panic-prone public led to an apocalyptic dimension to the picture. It was now claimed that we were poisoning the only planet we had. We were said to be polluting the human gene pool, and perhaps that of all other creatures as well. This was pictured as not just the end of civilization, but the end of Life itself.