Korea had the highest level of public acceptance before the accident (86.9 percent), followed by China, Bulgaria, Russia, and Bangladesh. Greece had the lowest public acceptance rate among the 42 countries (11.4 percent), and the level of public acceptance in Austria and Morocco was below 20 percent (Fig. 1). After the accident, the level of public acceptance in 40 countries declined (Morocco and Spain were the exceptions). As expected, Japan had the largest decrease in public acceptance rates (22.8 percent), followed by Iraq, Egypt, Kenya, Bangladesh, and China.
Although Spain's acceptance level increase was not statistically significant, Morocco had a 15.3 percent increase in acceptance. One possible reason for Morocco's counter-trend is that the proportion of people who had heard about the leakage of radiation from the nuclear reactor in Japan was smaller in Morocco (78.8 percent) than in the other countries (88.3 percent).
Despite this bias, it is clear that for most well-studied groups, greatly elevated radiation levels can occur up to thousands of kilometers away from the disaster site. For example, recorded radiation levels in mushrooms were up to 13,000 Bq/kg in Denmark in 1991 (Strand- berg 2003) and up to 25690 Bq/kg in Norway in 1994 (Amundsen et al. 1996).
According to the International Nuclear Event Scale by the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear accidents have also occurred in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Japan, the former USSR, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and incidents have been recorded in Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States (Sovacool 2010).
The environmental consequences of nuclear accidents, although potentially drastic, are easily marginalized in policy debates—these include fallout of radioactive sub- stances, biological contamination, and even changes to the behavior, physiology, and morphology of species (Møller & Mousseau 2006).
Although Spain's acceptance level increase was not statistically significant, Morocco had a 15.3 percent increase in acceptance. One possible reason for Morocco's counter-trend is that the proportion of people who had heard about the leakage of radiation from the nuclear reactor in Japan was smaller in Morocco (78.8 percent) than in the other countries (88.3 percent).
Despite this bias, it is clear that for most well-studied groups, greatly elevated radiation levels can occur up to thousands of kilometers away from the disaster site. For example, recorded radiation levels in mushrooms were up to 13,000 Bq/kg in Denmark in 1991 (Strand- berg 2003) and up to 25690 Bq/kg in Norway in 1994 (Amundsen et al. 1996).
According to the International Nuclear Event Scale by the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear accidents have also occurred in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Japan, the former USSR, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and incidents have been recorded in Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States (Sovacool 2010).
The environmental consequences of nuclear accidents, although potentially drastic, are easily marginalized in policy debates—these include fallout of radioactive sub- stances, biological contamination, and even changes to the behavior, physiology, and morphology of species (Møller & Mousseau 2006).