The Rise of Nuclear Fear feat. Spencer Weart

Is part of our rejection of expertise, distrust of
science and weaponization of the precautionary principle tied to
how suicidally close we came to mutually assured destruction
during the cold war? What are the cultural drivers that have led
the modern left to reject nuclear energy? How did we come to
exaggerate the potential harms from a nuclear accident to
biblical proportions? How is the idea of nuclear apocalypse
different from climate apocalypse in terms of its imagery and
cultural framing? I am joined by Spencer Weart the retired
director of the Center for History of Physics for the American
Institute of Physics to answer these questions. Spencer holds a
Ph.D. in physics and astrophysics and has devoted much of his
career to working as a historian of science. He is the author of
a number of books including “The Rise of Nuclear
Fear.”