Ethics in words: The conundrum of nuclear safety

Paul Dombrowski
University of Central Florida
Spring 2011

Nuclear energy is becoming an increasingly important component of the overall national energy picture. In a technical communication course for juniors and seniors, both majors and non-majors, we discuss the ethical challenges of representing nuclear energy realistically and fairly in discourse. We examine how everyday language can become confused, misused, and misunderstood when applied to technical and scientific information. We also discuss how this  difficulty is compounded by the emotional, political, and world-view dimensions of the discourse context.