Analyze

Information and data to create this article was pulled from numerous sources (5 pages of references), esp. The International Atomic Energy Agency, and many research articles.

The author is Sonja D. Schmid who is a professor of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech. Her area of expertise is the social aspect of science and technology, esp. during the Cold War, as well as science and technology policy, science and democracy, qualitative studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear emergency response. As a professor and researcher she has does relevant studies on Fukushima and nuclear disasters relevant to the DSTS network. One such article titled "The unbearable ambiguity of knowing: making sense of Fukushima" is cited below:

Schmid, Sonja D. "The Unbearable Ambiguity of Knowing: Making Sense of Fukushima." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. N.p., 2013. Web.

Three quotes that support this are

“Numerous case studies have document that meaningfully engaging lay communities in decisions traditionally made by scientific and technical elites can enable greater vigilance and raise confidence about individual emergency prepardeness.” (Schmid 196)

“So far, the nuclear industry has almost exclusively focused on accident prevention.” … “nuclear emergency preparedness and response has hardly gained traction.” (Schmid 200)

“They created an organization, Spetsatom” … “and with defining generalizable strategies about how to respond to a possible future nuclear emergency” (Schmid 200)

I further examined more details about the Fukushima disaster not mentioned in the article as I don't remember much from when this disaster occured. I also examined more about the first responders at Fukushima and the efforts that were made to attempt to minimize the effects of the disaster on an individual scale. I then looked into other similar disasters, like the Chernobyl disaster, that have occurred that I was not very familiar with and compared them to the Fukushima disaster.

The author is Sonja D. Schmid who is a professor of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech. Her area of expertise is the social aspect of science and technology, esp. during the Cold War, as well as science and technology policy, science and democracy, qualitative studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear emergency response. As a professor and researcher she has does relevant studies on Fukushima and nuclear disasters relevant to the DSTS network. One such article titled "The unbearable ambiguity of knowing: making sense of Fukushima" is cited below:

Schmid, Sonja D. "The Unbearable Ambiguity of Knowing: Making Sense of Fukushima." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. N.p., 2013. Web.

This is supported by analyzing the current emergency response system for nuclear disasters. Schmid notes that disaster prevention was the focus of the nuclear industry and disasters were rare up until recent and emergency response was hardly focused on. She also notes that as the nuclear sectors grows in size the frequency of disasters will likely increase and there has been a noticeable shift in focus towards emergency response.

The article appears to produced from numerous studies and research articles with data, as mentioned above, from sources like the International Atomic Energy Agency.

One argument presented is that public engagement leads to increased vigilance and emergency preparedness. Nuclear emergency response should not be governed by one elite body of scientists. Information should be crowd sourced from the public to increase awareness and transparency and lead to more ideas as well as public support. Another argument presented is that risk prevention has historically been the focus of governing bodies instead of risk acceptance and emergency response. A nuclear reactor being placed near the ocean is more fiscally responsible but natural disasters are unavoidable, regardless of the amount of risk prevention that has been taken. Instead, the focus should be on emergency response after natural disaster strikes. Safety is also sometimes substituted for profitability.

The book from which this excerpt is a part of has been used and referenced in classes outside of Virginia Tech including MIT and Johns Hopkins.

The author is Sonja D. Schmid who is a professor of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech. Her area of expertise is the social aspect of science and technology, esp. during the Cold War, as well as science and technology policy, science and democracy, qualitative studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear emergency response. As a professor and researcher she has does relevant studies on Fukushima and nuclear disasters relevant to the DSTS network. One such article titled "The unbearable ambiguity of knowing: making sense of Fukushima" is cited below:

Schmid, Sonja D. "The Unbearable Ambiguity of Knowing: Making Sense of Fukushima." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. N.p., 2013. Web.