Action is always better than hope
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In the name of creating change we can bereave in, President Obama has kept his campaign promises to unilaterally attack in Pakistan and escalate the war in Afghanistan (with predictable environmental consequences). Now, the Pope of Hope is following through on what is, in my opinion and that of many other environmentalists, yet another anti-green pledge: nuclear power.
"The last two power plants to be built in the US were the Watts Bar plant, which began construction in 1973, was completed in 1990, and didn't begin commercial operation until 1996, and the River Bend plant, which was built in 1977 and went online in 1986," explains Brian Merchant.
"(Obama) announced the initial $8 billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in close to three decades," writes Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. "The cost to construct these behemoths is so huge, and the risks are so great, that no sensible investor, no banks, no hedge funds will invest in their construction."
"Because nuclear energy was redefined by the Bush administration as a national security concern, social and environmental safeguards can be legally ignored," explains Barbara Rose Johnston, senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology and the co-author of The Consequential Dangers of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. This has resulted in what she calls a "boom," with the American nuclear power industry gearing up to build 34 new nuclear plants (adding to the current stock of 103 commercial reactors). "To fuel this boom uranium tailings are being re-mined and new claims dot the southwest landscape, including mining claims in many of our major national Parks: the Grand Canyon, Moab, Arches National Monument," adds Johnston. "This is a global phenomena: the escalating value of uranium ore has prompted expansion, recommissioning of existing mining, and new contracts for uranium mining in the United States, Canada, Australia, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, India, Armenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, and South Africa."
WATCH VIDEO: Obama's Nuclear Option
Nuclear Power is Not Carbon-Free
Nuclear Power is Not Safe
Dr. Helen Caldicott sez: "As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced."
Nuclear Power is Not Inevitable
Educate yourself about what's wrong with nuclear power and gear up to practice some global self-defense. There's no time like now to be green.
