Slashdot Mirror
Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power?
Heywood J. Blaume writes "In a Washington Post editorial Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, now says he was wrong about opposing nuclear power 30 years ago. In the article he addresses common myths about nuclear power, and puts forth the position that nuclear power is the only feasible, affordable power source that can solve today's growing environmental and energy policy issues. From the article: 'Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.'"
Unfortunately that's A FOUNDER of greenpeace, not greenpeace itself. Greenpeace itself will continue its crusade against nuclear power, despite the clear environmental benefits nuclear power offers over the current standard of fossil fuels. And the media will continue to present greenpeace as if it speaks for the entire environmental movement.
Greenpeace and PETA are between the two of them doing more damage to environmentalism than anyone else in the entire world except the Bush administration itself.
Moore is a paid lobbyist who specializes is garnering favorable press for environmentally destructive mining and energy industries. He's not just ex-Greenpeace, he's an ex-environmentalist who parlayed his prior experience working for Greenpeace into working against it. If you are a major polluter, Moore is the go-to guy for whitewashing your corporate image.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
There, I've said it, I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
This type of loudmouth, foul based tripe has caused us 30 years of progression as far as our energy. What if by today we all could have small nuclear batteries to give us heat in our homes and runing our transportation?
The oil companies would have/are going to spread as much FUD about it as possible unless it's their energy but we could've had this all along if it weren't for the hippies actually helping the oil companies keep feeding us their product.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Widely unnoticed by the general public, which is all caught up in Peak Oil yes-or-no discussions, Uranium faces the very same problems as fossil fuels, but they seem to be worse.
_ history/historical_ux.php(flash required for the small graphic, but the numbers are there in plain text)
From this article: In 2001 the European Commission said that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. With military and secondary sources, this life span could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the worlds energy supply.
And here is the actual development of Uranium price over the last century:
http://www.uranium.info/prices/monthly.html (note that the peak around '78 about coincides with the peak of the US and Soviet nuclear arsenal during the Cold War)
And here you have, again, the development of Uranium prices over the past 4 years:http://www.cameco.com/investor_relations/ux
Now if not only China builds dozens of reactors, but the western industrialized world as well, nuclear (i.e. fission) energy stops looking to be very attractive in the long run. Give us fusion (hot or cold), or give us renewable energy as our main source, but don't try to balance two resources which are ultimately limited and might well be seeing their practical end within our century. Don't floor the gas pedal if you know you will have to stop eventually, either by slowing down yourself or by being slowed down by a concrete wall.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
I have to stand up and say I'm probably guilty of lumping Environmentalists into a big group.
I grew up with hippies around. They grew herbs and shat in a bucket. They wore natural fibers and (when required) drove an ancient Volvo diesel. They ate vegies and talked about dolphin-tainted tuna.
We, on the other hand, raised and slaughtered pigs, chickens, and rabbits. We drove Ford pick-ups and drank beer on Saturday. We used flush toilets and cooked steaks on the grill. We talked about nuking the ruskies and took drags off Marlborl Reds.
So, here's the thing. I see environmentalists as having their priorities fucked up. Why is an owl more important than a logger's family? Why is old-growth forest more important than a parking lot? Why are we worried about dolphins?
In short, if there isn't a direct payoff to me, then fuck it.
Just like you can't argue the Savior's sacrifice with an atheist, you can't use extinction to argue with us; we just don't care.
Now, I tend to be a more reasonable redneck. I lived in Europe and Asia. I honestly think that the solution to many of America's problems is $5/gallon gasoline. That and a 20% consumer tax could provide the social services needed to get the Old Girl right again.
However, as for the Amazon; fuck it.
Baby seals? Where's my club?
Dolphins? They taste great with some mayo and relish.
Poverty in Africa? Fuck them! We have poverty in America.
Cows? Good for boots and steaks; and milk's ok too.
Redwood forest? That shit would look really good as a new deck.
And hippies? Well, they may have some valid points. But if they think I should give up my deck, tuna, steak, or car, then fuck them.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Kudos to the 60 scientists for criticizing the Kyoto Protocol as politicized science and calling for a public debate on climate science. Kyoto was a humongous fraud from its inception when power-hungry United Nations bureaucrats maliciously altered the conclusion of the scientific report (1995) in their policy-maker's report.
The perpetrators of this fraud should be brought to justice, followed by public condemnation of the environmentalists, politicians, slashdot readers, and government bureaucrats who ignored the real scientists and pushed Kyoto for political/ideological gain, wasting billions of tax dollars.
The destructive Kyoto fraud was made possible by the power of today's governments to extort billions of dollars via taxation and fund so-called science. This state science creates a massive opportunity for power-lusters to use government to politicize science and escape being prosecuted for fraud and sued for damages.
Consequently, bad science is running amok today, with all kinds of bogus claims about air pollution, genetically modified foods, pesticides, etc. (Recall the millions of people, mostly women and children in the Third World, who died painfully and needlessly from malaria because of a dishonest campaign by environmentalists that led to a near-banning of DDT in the 1970s.)
Objective science is so precious a human value that we must be eternally vigilant in preserving and protecting it from political power-lusters. More than a debate on climate science, we need a debate on the proper functions of government and whether governments should be allowed to fund science.
Sure, maybe the hundreds of scientists are wrong. But, you know, maybe they're right too? Shouldn't an attempt be made to curtail some of this?
I got a news flash for you cupcake, We were sold out by those hundreds of scientists who were more interested in scarfing up some grant money, than they were about fixing the problem. If human activity is really causing "global warming" it's 30 - 50 years to late to do anything; Read the article the red dye #2 is bad style ecologists have destroyed the only world we have by "saving" us from the evil(tm) nuclear power and the result is we're now choking on the radioactive contamination spewed from our coal fired plant, and looking for summer vaction property in greenland
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Sure.
I've got a question for you as well. Here goes:
Did you stop beating your wife yet? Yes or no.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Patrick Moore is a fucking asshole! Reason? The fact that he did not do his due-diligence all those years ago. When you factor in the real cost to life of the various methods of the production of power, they all suck. Nuclear tends to suck less. If you want to find out why, just read all the other arguments, I'm too tired to go through all the pros and cons again, but I'm sure you'll find it there.
My issue has always been with knee-jerk reactionaries like this who really don't think the problem through. This guy has been an asshole so long that he does not realize the harm he had directly or indirectly caused to the environment by his short-sighted actions. My question is: will he take responsibility for his role in degrading our enviroment? What will he do to rectify the situation?
Regardless, I have no use for people like him and his cronies and I hope that they have a nasty bout of of some sort of lung ailment due to the pollution they're responsible for. Moreover, if it kill them, it will increase the amount of oxygen needed for the rest of us and reduce the pollution due to their methane-producing flatulence and halitosis.
But, apart from that, I have no opinion!!
*** Don't be dull.***
Oh come on. That is such bullshit. In only in Sweden, we have had an estimated of 2000 deaths due to chernobyl. Confirmed by Swedish authorities, which is quite different from 4000 covered up by the communists.
I mean Sweden is quite far off, and if we had 2000 deaths, then it is not really beliable to say they had 4000..
I thought the number was in the range of 150-250000 in total. Thats the official swedish ones that is.