A RAMBLING FABLE WITHOUT A MORAL

There is this fable I once heard applied to a topic which I will not name. A person is on a bus. Suddenly she realizes that the bus is going the wrong direction and she alerts everyone to this fact. No one believes her assertion. So she insists on getting off the bus. She starts walking the way she knows is right. All the signs say she is going the wrong way, but she perseveres, she keeps walking... I don't remember how it ends. Really, I don't remember if she reaches her destination, the bus goes off a cliff, or she rots en route. But I do know that feeling. The feeling that something is not right and everyone thinks it is. There are plenty historical examples of movements forming around misguided assumptions, of people refusing to go with the tide, or not refusing to. These are moments that retrospectively we often cannot fathom what people were thinking, why didn't someone say something, or why didn't anyone listen? I cannot explain why, but this is how I feel about the new widespread belief that nuclear power is the solution for our energy needs. The idea of building hundreds of nuclear plants over the next hundred years is one of those notions that just doesn't sit right with me. Now, my intuition has certainly been wrong before. I tend to muddle things up with the hard-headed spirit I was born with. But it is the same feeling I get at the thought of immunizing my children. It is certainly what keeps me away from highly processed food, and makes me suspicious of anti-depressants. What is that? Fear of the unnatural? Maybe, I guess that is the trend in my guiding force. Also, distrust of our government. But it is more than that. It's almost like a vibrational analysis. A color, a ringing, a tone, that cues me in. The information is mixed, scattered, displaced, but still readable. There is a big NO sensation around nuclear power. Every part of me leans away. I am not a scientist even though sometimes I wish I was so I could masquerade these sensations as verifiable fact. There is no way that I think anyone should buy my argument just because its a feeling I have...that would be silly. But I really do have that feeling and it is what I have to follow. I started this blog to talk about pathways. I know we all have multiple paths to choose, as individuals and in our chosen and not chosen collective communities. Within the collective, it is so easy to jump on board the nuclear renaissance. To feel the closeness and quantity of folks around sharing this view. Ahhhh...the answer...we have found it. Everyone is smiling, the bus is pulling out. Get me off this path. I would rather walk alone than ride here. Nuclear Power is a mesmerizing technology derived from visionary experimentation. In current hands and contexts the idea of it as our main source of power is lacking the capability for the appropriate application of that vision.