The authors of Freakonomics have a new article in The Times Magazine called "The Jane Fonda Effect". If you haven't read Freakonomics (and I suggest you do), this is a good introduction to their style of economic investigation and problem-solving. "[People] prefer a measurable risk to an immeasurable uncertainty. (This condition is known to economists as ambiguity aversion.) Could it be that nuclear energy, risks and all, is now seen as preferable to the uncertainties of global warming?"