I was talking this evening with a woman from Mongolia about the catastrophe, tsunami & maximum credible accident (MCA) in Japan. - she asked me about the number of victims & I told her about the about 20.000 already detected deads, but probably more - she said: 'it's Gods will & Gods penalty over Japan' & explained: 'they must have been doing something terrible' - & continued: 'they are building all these cars & a lot of people die because of these cars..' - well I didn't argue, but later in the evening I thought about the victims of nuclear plants & the victims of car accidents - in the Chernobyl disaster there died about 40.000 people - in traffic accidents about 1 Mio. people are dying every year. - about 59.000 people died in the last ten years in Germany. - In fact much more people die in traffic accidents than by nuclear plants & I wonder if even the worst-case scenario nuclear accident now in Japan would change the relation of death poll otherwise. -
We are shocked by the mass of deads at one place, but are quite indifferent to the much higher tribute to death, when it comes in small numbers all around us in daily life- & of course we don't care much about the price we pay to have individual car traffic - it's bloody very high, but we only really care when it comes close to us & hits close friends or relatives. It doesn't give us the feeling that it kills our own tribe - it's like the natural death toll when old or sick people die. - What makes us so much afraid is - when so much people die at one place. This gives us the feeling, that we as race die all together, while the single deadly accidents all around us don't really scare us, because of course we wouldn't be so unlucky to die in a car accident.
So this is the reason why we protest those nuclear plants but not much more dangerious traffic weapons, called cars. - I never saw someone with a bumper sticker with 'No cars' or 'No Individual Traffic' -
