In the film “Pandora’s Promise” environmentalists and experts tell their own personal stories why they went from being fiercely anti to strong pro nuclear energy. In the film, the environmentalists explore the aftermath of atomic bombs and disasters like the Fukushima disaster in Japan and the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. People have made nuclear power out to be a global disaster, and whether or not you believe nuclear power should be shut down, is your own personal opinion. But what Pandora’s promise is trying to tell us, is that Nuclear power is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
A study was done and the film shows that coal and oil are the most harmful out of all the conductors of electricity, and nuclear power is the least harmful. “Pandora’s Promise asks whether the one technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty.” (PandorasPromise.com) The film is trying to tell us that yes, a large amount of radiation is bad, but we are exposed to various amounts of natural radiation every single day and we don’t even know it. After the disaster in Chernobyl, an entire city nearby was evacuated. When people visit the city today, they see the ruins and think that the disaster has caused this, but it was just the decaying of time and things being broken. People of Chernobyl decided to ignore the restrictions and move back into their old houses. None of these people who have been living there 25 years after the disaster have died of cancer or of any illness. They had tremendous consequences but none of which people expect. People are led to believe that what they hear about nuclear disasters and nuclear plants are a lot worse than what they are told. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in the clearing of the operation and got some significant doses of radiation and their health had been studied ever since. Even in the large amount of people who were heavily rated, 40 to 50 people have died so far and a few thousand have shortened life spans due to cancer in future. People have been fed an urban myth about what the impacts of chernobyl actually were.
Pandora’s Promise was very eye opening but I am still not sure whether nuclear power is the best alternative. Every conductor of electricity has its pros and cons which makes it hard to really say what is the best alternative for the developing world today.