GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Founder of Greenpeace advocates Nuclear Power....

We've said this a number of times on this blog - if you believe that cutting greenhouse gases is important (and I don't) - then the only option is nuclear energy.
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. 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.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.
Please read his whole article - he makes a persuasive case. Of course, I personally don't believe that cutting greenhouse gases is that important.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a previously unheard of level of open-mindedness by an environmentalist, impressive.

Coal, nuclear, whatever. So long as it gets built.

11:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A few years ago I hauled part of a crane from Fort McMurray to the Sod Daisy Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, TN. While sitting outside of the plant waiting to unload I realized that there weren't any visible emissions coming from the plant. I really started to look at nuclear power in a new light (pun sort of intended).

12:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you!

There is scant evidence that people will continue to support the Kyoto Accord when they realize that it means personally having to pay more for things that produce GHG emissions (such as electricity), or personally lower their use of things that produce GHG (i.e. electricity).

Here, finally, is an environmentalist who suspects that people aren't going to volunteer to lower thier standard of energy use (i.e. - lower their personal standard of living), so we need to find the cleanest possible way of moving forward.

I'm not sure it's the complete answer - but it's a dang good start.

The biggest problem that we have now, is the number of people who think we can meet GHG targets by just taxing those meanie oil companies, which they think won't have any personal, financial impact on them. In other words -too many people living in a dream is equaling a GHG nightmare.


AB/ba

12:50 AM  
Blogger OMMAG said...

Remember when the Peace movement kind of died out in the post Vietnam era?

Then the "Movementarians" started to splinter off into various areas of pre-occupation. You had the political correctness bunch wagging fingers and clucking tongues at just about any institution or cultural habit that could possibly imply that everyone isn't necessarily included in the big happy group hug of inclusiveness and non-discriminatory inclusiveness. The animal-rights bunch out to save whales, owls, bunny rabbits and circus animals. And the big time scammers in the "Environmental" movement ready to tell us that the sky was indeed falling and scaring the pants off little old ladies and impressionable children on any number of topics.

Well back then these guys were all over the Nuclear power issue with their psuedo- science and hysterical claims and were successfull in two things. 1) They bilked a lot of people out of a lot of money that was used to promote their POV and to line their own pockets. 2) They effectively stopped development of nuclear power through their campaigns and forced gvernments into wrong headed power management programs that we are now paying a big price for.

So now these same asshats and hypocrites see the writing on the wall and want us all to convert?

Thanks for nothing!
Nobody should have been listening to these guys in the first place.

3:19 PM  

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