Watch Out for Greenwashers

Just so you know, I am in a new job situation where having a venue to process the huge amounts of information I am getting regarding the broad area of nuclear power and renewable energy is critical to not being completely overwhelmed by my designated tasks to educate my state's citizens on the problematics of nuke power. As previous posts indicate, I am struggling to find the appropriate language to articulate my intuitive sense that nuclear power is just a darn bad idea. I am not yet ready to be set loose on a public education campaign, because I have not yet assimilated the information I am getting on nuclear power's pros and cons. This is the critical first juncture of turning my intuition into verifiable argumentation that can at least poke preliminary holes in the massive greenwashing campaign of the nuclear industry. I did read an article today however, that gives me reason to keep tredging forward. This piece points to the extensive time it would take to build the kind of energy system around nuclear power being proposed by the industry and its spokespeople like Patrick Moore. The assertion being made to sell nuke power is that it is the only solution to our global warming crisis. Well, according to this article that solution is decades away. Thus, it seems appropriate to suspect that we can view this claim as nothing other than the marketing of a fantasy in the form of a reality--a coy way to appropriate the Gore movement to bolster, what has been a dying industry. Also, this article talks again about safety and provides several examples of why we should distrust the safety of plants we have now and apply that distrust to the future. This is a serious point folks. Nuclear power has had some tremendously terrible environmental impacts, and has often failed to meet regulatory standards. I will be back later with a more philosophical discussion of nukes Promethean implications.