Point Of Inquiry

Host: Chris Mooney When the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan last month, it left behind not only mass destruction, but also a nuclear crisis that was covered 24-7 by the international media.  Since then, we've been embroiled in a huge debate about nuclear policy—should there be a "Nuclear Renaissance" in the United States, or should we put it on hold? A central issue underlying all this is the scientific question of risk. How dangerous is radiation, anyway? Do we overreact to reactors?  To tackle that question, we turned to two different guests. One is one of the world's foremost experts on radiation exposure and its health consequences; the other is a journalist who's done a new book about why we often misperceive risk, to our own detriment. David Brenner is the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. His research focuses on understanding the effects of radiation, at both high and low doses, on living systems, and he has published more than 200 papers in the pe