Unfortunately, this does not necessarily make the issues simpler. It does not help to conclude that any global policy decision that increases the public risk at all is a priori wrong, because of unintended consequences and complex interconnections. A nuclear power plant in New York puts local residents at some risk from possible cancer due to possible radiation exposure from possible leaks due to probable bungling and/or inadequate engineering and/or substandard construction. On the other hand, a fossil fuel plant of the same size puts a different population at risk from acid rain, ozone depletion and the Greenhouse Effect. 6 And no power plant at all increases the risk of pneumonia in the area served during Winter brown-outs - probably the worst hazard of the three in the short term, but one to which millennia of familiarity have hardened us!
The point is, every public policy decision creates risks. Even a decrease in bus fare, if it affects millions of people, will cause some people to die this year who would otherwise have lived longer. The questions must always be, "Is this likely to do any good? How much good? Is it likely to do any harm? How much harm? What are the relative probabilities of good and harm? How many people are likely to suffer from the harm? How many people are likely to benefit from the good?" And of course the two questions most popular with politicians, "Which people?" and "When?" Time to duck the difficult issues again. I am satisfied to point out the questions; I have no more competence than the next person to offer answers. Suffice it to say that any sensible policy regarding radiation hazards, whether public or personal, must take into account that each of us is going to die, that our lifespan is frustratingly short no matter what we do, and that our chances of dying of cancer (radiation-induced or otherwise) are already rather high.7 So any strategy dictated exclusively by absolute minimization of our cancer risk is somewhat silly. Still, all other things being equal, less (ionizing) radiation is better!