
Think that Margulies cartoon is on target? A lot of folks do. Here's a report from yesterday:
The government said Saturday that it had found higher than normal levels of radioactive materials in spinach and milk at farms near the ravaged nuclear power plants, the first confirmation by officials that the nuclear crisis unfolding at power plants nearby has affected the nation’s food supply.
While officials downplayed the immediate risks to consumers, the findings are likely to further unsettle a nation worried about the long-term effects of the damaged nuclear power plants. The crisis, which has entered its second week, has caused alarm in some countries that fallout from Japan might reach their shores.
I don't intend to overplay the event (no need for that, the facts speak for themselves) and I don't intend to write about the technical issues involved with Japan's nuclear crisis, but I can't help but think that the combination of the potential seriousness of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor problem coupled with Japan's past history along with a lack of transparency in the nuclear industry worldwide has lead to a great deal of public skepticism, and not just in the US.
For examples, check out these recent headlines:
And,
in an earlier story,
“What is likely to come will depend a lot on how transparent the regulators in Japan are,” Mr. Leyre [a utilities industry analyst with Exane BNP Paribas in Paris] said. “There will be a lot of focus on whether people feel confident that they know everything and that the truth is being put in front of them.”
Over the years, Japanese plant operators, along with friendly government officials, have sometimes hidden episodes at plants from a public increasingly uneasy with nuclear power.
The Japanese remember the WWII radiation experience all too well, and in addition (as if more is needed), this all comes in the middle of an ongoing humanitarian crisis due to the earthquake and tsunami, one less loudly reported on than the nuclear plant accident. The death toll, likely above 10,000, is not from the reactor accident, nor is the near-abandoned elderly population in Japan's north. Mix it together and you have a situation that leaves no room for risk communication error.
Those discussing Japan's plight must therefore balance the past, the present and the future with every official pronouncement. That "present" includes the heroic effort underway at Fukushima by the plant workers who have remained, but see today's Independent, which notes the good news of a likely restoration of electricity to the plant today:
The operator of the 40-year-old facility, Tokyo Electric Power, faces mounting criticism over its handling of the disaster. But its president's public apology for "causing such great concern and nuisance" appeared to underplay the incident. The first signs that radiation is starting to permeate the country's food and water supplies were detected yesterday.
Was there ever a bigger dichotomy between public opinion of management and that of the rescue workers?
To help us sort through this, I want to highlight a piece written by Baruch Fischhoff for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dr. Fischhoff is one of the country's most experienced risk communicators, and has some common sense advice for industry, though it applies to Japan's government as well:
- If the nuclear energy industry is to be seen as a responsible partner with the public, it must change the way it communicates.
- Corporate management must think of its external communications as key parts of the firm's activity, not as an undesirable necessity.
- Better communication alone won't ensure that nuclear energy is accepted by the public, but it will help.
and adds:
Following these principles won't be easy for an industry that has often viewed communication as a one-way process. It will need to move beyond a "decide-announce-defend" communication strategy to an approach that begins by listening to the public and moving in a more acceptable direction. In fact, the industry's relationship with the public must be paramount. That means worrying at the highest levels of management about whether the industry actually has a story worth telling, in the sense of bringing genuine benefits and acceptable risks to society.
To that, I would add
my own less erudite risk communication principles:
1. Don't over-reassure. While it's tempting to do so for the sake of keeping calm, you will lose credibility if you are wrong - and you only have one shot at it. If you lose cred, no getting it back.
2. Tell the truth, even if it's bad news. And if you don't know, say so and tell us what you do know. The more transparency the better.
3. Treat the public like grown-ups who can handle bad news. Don't assume they'll panic. The only people who panic are politicians (see 9/11/2001 NYC for some excellent risk communication by Rudy Giuliani and a calm, albeit upset, populace).
Is Japan handling this as well as possible? I don't think so. Let's put it this way: events haven't made me trust the utilities and the Japanese authorities more now than when the event first happened.
Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard, risk communication experts I've also had the pleasure of meeting and working with, put it this way:
The main communication problem results from the public’s inability to know how much of the situation is under how much control, and what might happen if things get worse. Japanese officials have not helped us to understand that. Worse, they have not communicated in ways that encourage us both to trust that they are telling us everything they know and everything they’re worried about, and to trust that they know what they are doing.
What are the worst cases their experts are worried about and working to prevent? The world has a right to know that, and the world has a right to judge them harshly for not revealing that. More importantly, the world has no choice but to try to figure out on its own what the worst case scenarios might be that officials are either too irresponsible to consider or too cowardly to reveal.
Under such conditions, outside speculation about worst case scenarios justifiably gains traction – especially since the trajectory of the story has been to keep getting worse in the face of official assurances that things were not likely to get worse.
Events do have a way of taking their own path. It's unfortunate because if things actually do improve, or turn out less dire than speculation, who is going to believe it?
These are known and well-tested risk communication principles. Whether Japan (and the nuclear industry) is ready to act on them is not so clear, but until they adopt transparency, they won't be winning the trust of the international public—and in the case of Japan's government and utilities, their own people—as much as they need to. And, based on current events, one can argue that they really need to.