Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it, partly because it cannot be detected by human senses. It can't be seen or heard, or touched or tasted, even though it may be all around us. There are other things like that. Radio waves, for example. They are all around us but we can't detect them, sense them, without a radio receiver. We can't sense radioactivity without a special device, such as a Geiger counter. But unlike common radio waves, nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.

The advocates of nuclear power will sometimes point to a nuclear power plant and say: "See, there's nothing coming out, no smoke, or haze, like you sometimes see at a coal-powered plant. Thus, nuclear power is cleaner than coal." But nothing could be further from the truth. Radiation can and does get out of nuclear power and weapons plants, and radiation can hurt you.

Nuclear radiation consists of tiny particles or rays which are spit out, or emitted, by the atoms of certain chemical elements, such as uranium or radium. These elements, which are found in nature, are said to be radioactive. In addition large quantities of other radioactive materials are produced inside the reactor of a nuclear plant. All these radioactive materials, both natural and manufactured, emit radiation. These particles or rays, like tiny bullets, tear through living tissue. They ionize it--that is they change the electrical charge of its atoms and molecules. Hence nuclear radiation is a form of ionizing radiation. It can kill a living cell immediately, or it can disrupt its normal life cycle.

At very high levels, radiation can kill an animal or human being outright by killing masses of cells in vital organs. But even the lowest levels can do serious damage. There is no level of radiation that is completely safe.

The tiny bullets of radiation can disrupt the chromosomes of the reproductive cells. Gross birth defects can occur at higher dose levels. Even at lower levels, cell damage can result in increased incidents in later generations of diabetes and cancer, and lower resistance to disease in general.

If, in passing through living tissue, the radiation does not hit anything important, the damage may not be significant. This is the case when only a few cells are hit, and if they are killed outright. Your body will slough off the dead cells and replace them with healthy ones. But if the few cells are only damaged, and if they reproduce themselves, you may be in trouble. They reproduce themselves in a deformed way. They can grow into cancer. Sometimes this does not show up for many years.

This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation. Serious damage can be done without the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred. A person can be irradiated and feel fine, then die of cancer five, ten, or twenty years later as a result. Or a child can be born weak or prone to serious illness as a result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.

All the more reason the truth about radiation produced by nuclear power and nuclear weapons plants should be told. Working people should understand all that is known about it. It is too serious a matter to be trusted to company-controlled safety people and company dominated government agencies.

For military, profit, and political reasons, the nuclear industry and the government have for many years carried on a campaign to obscure the facts and confuse the public about the real dangers of radiation. That is another reason for the mystery surrounding it. They don't want us to know the truth....

There is only one way to protect people from the cancer and genetic damage caused by nuclear power plants, from the possibility of catastrophic accidents at these plants, and from the continued and growing accumulation of deadly radioactive waste which cannot be stored safely.

That is to shut down all the nuclear power plants immediately....It is possible to shut down the nuclear power plants immediately without disrupting the economy or interfering with the growth of industry. How is this possible in the short term, before other alternatives are developed? The answer is a four-letter word, coal.  
 
Coal as the immediate alternative
By using more coal, we could shut down all nuclear power plants this year, and still leave ourselves a comfortable margin of electrical generating capacity in reserve....

Coal does not involve the possibility of catastrophic accidents wiping out whole states. Coal does not involve the problem of either low-level or high level radioactive wastes. Industry operated on coal for decades and it never threatened to wipe out the human race.

Moreover, techniques already exist and are in use in many places to remove almost all of the worst pollutants from coal emissions....

Ten years ago, before many of the problems with nuclear power were widely understood, the government and nuclear industry were projecting as many as a thousand major nuclear power plants in the United States by the end of the century. But, by the time of President [James] Carter's first State of the Union message in 1977, that figure had been cut to 300. Today, in 1981, the number being spoken of is less than 100, with 73 of those already completed....

The energy corporations have already invested some $150 billion in the existing nuclear plants and those that are already in some stage of construction. They want to use these plants until they get their money back. They also want to use them to reduce the power of the United Mine Workers union.

In addition, the suppliers of components for nuclear plants are hoping to recoup their investments by exporting nuclear plants overseas to underdeveloped countries. Since they can't sell them in the U.S. anymore, they are trying to palm off a bad investment on these countries. However, they know that if the American people put a stop to nuclear power here, this shell game will be exposed and it will became very difficult to sell these monsters anywhere....

It is therefore of historic importance that a significant section of American labor--with the United Mine Workers up front--is taking the lead in the fight for safe energy and full employment and for ridding the country of the nuclear menace. The labor movement and its allies in the rest of the population can solve this big problem. They can solve it because unlike the capitalists, they have an interest in doing so. Labor's jobs do not depend on nuclear power; on the contrary, they depend an the development of safe energy. And the working class must be concerned about the general health of the population and the future of all our children.

Sooner or later the labor movement and its allies--the working farmers, students, and so on--must take political power in their own hands in order to resolve this problem as well as others in the interests of the common people.  
 
 
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