Discursive Bibliography

To preface, I’m only using three sources at the moment. I plan to use more. Furthermore, these sources will help me with around half of the paper, as they’ll help me address the actual paradigm shift that is occurring (although they could also help me establish some foundation as well).

Bisconti, Ann S. “Public Opinion on Nuclear Energy: Turning a Corner?”
Nuclear Newswire, 12 July 2019, www.ans.org/news/article-314/
public-opinion-on-nuclear-energy-turning-a-corner/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.

• The content contained in this article is polling data which documents the current (or at least current from 2019) public opinion of nuclear energy was
• Generally, the data suggests a trend that favors the increased implementation of nuclear energy – this’ll help me clearly show the paradigm shift because its an objective way to show the increased favorability of nuclear energy – it may help if I bring in another source from past years (especially following Three Mile Island or Chernobyl) that shows a reluctance or opposition to nuclear energy
• One passage that I’ll paraphrase comes from a ‘perception gap’ – that people perceived that people around them viewed nuclear energy negatively even if they didn’t hold those views; the article helps show that this perception gap is narrowing, suggesting that the overall perception of nuclear energy is slowly becoming more accepted
• Specifically, this source will be useful to my introduction of the paradigm shift half way through my essay – I’m planning on discussing the stigma surrounding nuclear energy in the first half, and then the paradigm shift that’s undermining this stigma in the second half, so this’ll be a good article in the second half which clearly demonstrates changing views

• The content contained in this article was a description of the doomsday clock and what time it is on the clock in 2020 (the article says that we’re 1o0 seconds until midnight) – the article explained its justification for why we’re so close to midnight right now
• One of my plans to discuss the paradigm shift in favorability of nuclear energy over time was to discuss the shift from viewing a nuclear holocaust in the future to viewing a climate wasteland in the future – in 0ther words, people are starting to think climate change will destroy the Earth, no longer a nuclear war
  • While this article does discuss the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, it also spends a considerable amount of time talking about climate change – it thinks that climate change is a major contributing factor to the Earth’s current position on the doomsday clock, which hadn’t been the case in past decades (as they solely blamed nuclear weapons) – this shifting in blame, from solely blaming nuclear weapons to blaming nuclear weapons and climate change could help in my explanation of the paradigm shift, as nuclear energy is a solution to climate change
• Specifically, I was going to focus on the passage titled: “An insufficient response to an increasingly threatened climate;” as it discusses the climate’s role in affecting the Earth, something that wasn’t taken as seriously in past decades (which allowed nuclear weapons to become the main boogeymen)
• I intend to link nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, because if people are wary of nuclear weapons, this could lead them to be wary of nuclear energy as well, due to their employment of similar methods (and the similar radiation that can occur). So I would then say a shift away from viewing nuclear bombs as the potential reason for an apocalypse to viewing climate change as this reason would lead to a more favorable view of nuclear energy, because it would no longer be associated with something completely destructive, but it would also be seen as a potential solution to the apocalypse

• This journal article focuses on not only what the Linear No-Threshold model is, but also it seeks to discredit this model, as the model has been used to justify the avoidance of nuclear energy
• The Linear No-Threshold model suggests that people should face adverse affects/mutations after low exposure to radiation
• Why is this important – I could discuss in my first half of the essay about how this Linear No-Threshold model inspired reluctance among people in relation to building nuclear reactors, especially in their neighborhoods – it filled their mind with worst case scenarios and grotesque mutations that scared them
• I could then discuss how discrediting this model has led to a paradigm shift, as people are starting to realize that nuclear energy is safer than it was previously made out to be
• “the persistent use of the linear no-threshold model for risk assessment by regulators and advisory bodies continues to drive an unfounded fear of any low-dose radiation exposure, as well as excessive expenditures on putative but unneeded and wasteful safety measures.” – this sentence from the abstract may be worthwhile to use/ discuss, as it highlights why the Linear No-Threshold model was problematic, because it caused fear of low-dose radiation, and then I could continue and say that it’s good that this model is being disproved, as it only functioned to inspire fear.
• I’ll probably use this source in two different places in my essay (or at least I’ll discuss the Linear No-Threshold model in two different spots) – the first time, I’ll use it to establish why the public was so hesitant to trust nuclear energy, and the second time, I’ll use the disproving of the theory to highlight the paradigm shift that’s underway, as a common objection to nuclear energy is being discredited.