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Dear Editor,

How much weight are we going to give to STIGMA in the DGR debate? 

The media and theories of stigmatization tell us that the nuclear industry is stigmatized.  Some might want to know why.  The primary motivator for stigmatizing the industry is fear.  Legitimate fear derived from nuclear disasters and the threat of the Atomic Bomb.  The past history of disasters has placed a mark on the industry which will be very difficult to remove for sure.  The Nuclear Industry has learned from these disasters’ making the day to day safe operations, human safety and the environment their primary focus.  Let’s give the industry credit for this effort.

What one needs to realize is that Stigma is a human created concept from our cognitive abilities.  If it is human created we need to decide how much influence we are going to give to perceived Stigma when making decisions about our behaviours, attitudes and decisions.

A Nuclear Stigma that Mr. Robertson so often reminds us of, does have negative impacts but only if we let it.  The more visible a stigmatizing condition the greater the impact on interaction.  We let it when we live with fear of nuclear, signs bearing the disrespected use of the trefoil, slang terms and angry outbursts.  Is the SOS/SRA feeding the stigma prematurely?  From what I have learned they are creating a Stigma for themselves and doing it with pride. This is ironic coming from a group that is using STIGMA as a platform against the DGR.

What we need to keep in mind when using the word Stigma or process of stigmatization is transferring this to the Deep Geological Repository.  Learning more and understanding as much as possible will ease any stigmas that might arise. Let’s not couple the past nuclear disasters of working reactors with the storage debate. 

 That is not fair or realistic.   We are smarter than this!

Jacalene Krall

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Friday, July 27, 2012