Ecological disasters, nuclear or otherwise, present major risks to the life, health and well-being of populations. The Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters are just two examples among many which are still vivid memories, especially because of the large number of victims. The Chernobyl disaster affected, and continues to affect more than 4 million people, in addition to the 135,000 people evacuated from the villages closest to the reactor, who are still living on contaminated land. Those victims fear for their future, exposed as they are, as the scientists tell us, to congenital illnesses and malformations.
With the growing use of technology, and the increasing use of the environment as a sink into which the waste products of technology are deposited, the margin of error for adding pollutants to the environment is constantly decreasing, thus increasing the probability of accidental large-scale contamination.