I have no idea. I've read articles giving both sides and I don't know enough
about it to make a judgment, probably because I haven't read enough and I don't
know anything about the people who are making the arguments.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2018 11:55 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Oh yes, climate change is involved pretty certainly. That's what I get for
dashing off a quick email.
There may be opposing opinions about fire suppression, but from everything I've
heard and read, fire is an important part of many ecosystems. After millions of
years, some plants and animals have evolved to actually benefit from fires.
It's part of their reproductive cycle. Is that not true?
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2018 9:22 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
That appears to be one opinion. There are opposing opinions as well and
additionally, an opinion that climate change is also involved. The article
describes all of these.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 9:39 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Unfortunately, with these huge fires, we are reaping the consequences of the
misguided fire suppression policies of decades past.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 8:41 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
So having read Carl's post and Evan's post, I'd like to mention a few things in
response. The November 5 issue of The New Yorker has an article by Ian Frazier
which describes the huge prarie fire that occurred in March in areas of
Oklahoma and Kansas. It's a fascinating article describing the fire, the
responses of the people affected, the tremendous amont of help offered by white
Christian rural Americans throughout the Midwest afterward, and the causes of
the fire. I'd also like to mention that I'm old enough to make some of my own
judgments, based on personal experience in addition to reading about them, as
is Carl, about whether or not things are better now for all of us human beings,
than they were 50 years ago. I can even talk with some knowledge, about how
things were 60 years ago when I had just graduated from college. The stuff that
you guys who are now 60 years old or younger, know about from reading books or
seeing videos , we experienced directly.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 6:19 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Carl, it's not a question of one extreme or the other. It does not follow that
because I do not believe we are headed for disaster that I think everything is
hunky dory. I don't think we need to have one extreme or the other.
And I think, if you were open to the evidence, it would not be too hard to show
that things are far better in a great many measures than they were even fifty
years ago, let alone two hundred.
You should be cautious about mistaking what you hear on the news for normality.
If it's news, then it's not normal, by definition. You will seldom hear
newscasts that talk about positive events. That is one problem with the news
that most of its critics agree on, i.e. if it bleeds, it leads. That's not just
a cliche, it's true. But it gives those who take in too much of it a jaundiced
view of humanity's progress.
As I've mentioned, there are a good many books that lay out the evidence for
that progress. It is illuminating that noone has evinced any curiosity as to
what those might be. Almost as though they don't want to hear a different point
of view that offers not merely opinion, but lots of facts to support it.
Having said all that, I am perfectly aware that we have lots of problems.
That will always be the case. But saying we have lots of problems is not a
reason for discouragement. It is not a reason for complacency either. If you've
read all, or even most of my posts here, you should know I am not complacent.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 5:49 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Hi Evan and All Who Reject Gloom,
It must be the way I hunker down over my keyboard that causes my post to sound
"gloomy".
Your Cheery facts are truly uplifting, but do not put the wild life back, along
with the new forests.
Our oceans may still cover the majority of the planet,but filthy water makes
Sea Life difficult. There is still lots of water coming down the mountains,
we're having a minor flooding North of Seattle at this very moment, but that
does not mean we have the volume of pure water we once had.
It's not that I'm challenging your figures, I've seen them over the years.
Some years back concern was raised regarding the method of clear cutting Old
Growth Forests in Washington State. Weyerhaeuser, the company under attack,
countered by reporting statistics showing that there were more trees today than
back when the Territory became a State, in 1889. And it was true.
Weyerhaeuser, at the time, was planting more trees than they were "harvesting".
Of course this did not take into consideration that the trees they were
putting into the ground were about 1 to 3 feet tall, while the ones being
removed were
100 plus feet tall and could produce thousands of board feet, compared to a
twig that might make a nice toothpick.
But besides our different view, why is my position "Gloomy"? How can I say
that we are destroying species, both animal and vegetable at a rate not seen
since the meteor slammed into Earth. How do I put a smiley face on the
countless thousands of people being forced out of their homeland and fighting
for food and water in sprawling refugee camps, or drowning when their
overloaded, flimsy boats capsize? How can I comment on the growing numbers of
homeless men and women and children being forced from their homes and living in
tents alongside the highway, without sounding a bit grim? Are you labeling our
life threatening mistakes as "gloomy" because they bother you? Or do you
really believe everything is hunky dory, and our transgressions will take care
of themselves?
I find it interesting. I can get with some of my friends and talk sports over
a few brews, trashing the coach or the quarterback for their stupidity.
But if I turn to commenting on some of our stupid political policies, or the
people proposing them, my friends call me "Mister Negativity".
Sigh!
Carl Jarvis
On 11/4/18, Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl, I think your gloomy forecast is unwarranted. The environmental
footprint of humanity is already decreasing. I could post another
article today, but I don't want to deluge people here with reading
material when there's so much stuff they're probably trying to read
already.
Forests are returning in America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union.
Just one fact from this essay:
"Rebound is already happening. Abandonment of marginal agricultural
lands in
the former
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has released at least 30 million
hectares and possibly as much as 60 million hectares to return to
nature, according to careful studies by geographer Florian Schierhorn
and his colleagues. Thirty million hectares
is the
size of Poland or Italy. The great reversal of land use that I am
describing
is not
only a forecast; it is a present reality in Russia and Poland as well
as Pennsylvania and Michigan."
https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-5/the-
return-of-nature
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 3:00 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
First of all I've read a great number of books and articles, and sat
in far too many discussion groups that beat all around the subject of
whether or not we should expand our use of nuclear power. To my way
of thinking this is the wrong discussion. Yes, we do need to solve
our energy problem. But the answer is not whether oil or Sun or Wind
or Nuclear Energy will solve our need. The problem is far simpler.
It's called Population Control. If we go back just a short 200 years
and look about the Globe, we see beautiful forests, pristine lakes and
rivers, an abundence of whild life, rivers chocked with fish, a land
of plenty...an entire globe of plenty. You could, if your Time
Machine reaches back that far, walk beaches uncluttered by cigarette
butts, gum wrappers, condoms, or plastic bags and containers. The few
roads were clear of litter and you would find not a singal rusty car
or broken cook stove or refrigerator dumped in the vacant lots. And
the noise polution? Just a flock of North American Parrots flying
overhead.
Too many people. That is the problem. Of course countries like Saudi
Arabia and Israel are doing what they can do to lower the numbers of
people. And of course our Uncle Sam is helping by the sales of war
machines and ammunition.
But still, we are at about 7 billion people, many struggling just to
get a drink of fresh water or a cup of rice.
The question we attack should be how to humanely reduce our world
population at least by half. Of course this problem will solve itself
if we are unable to do so. Famine, war and disease will make the
Black Plague look like the sniffles if we don't take steps to avert
self destruction.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/4/18, Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, everybody here posts articles, and I did post one already, so
in response to your eminently reasonable post, here's an article:
Why I changed my mind about nuclear power: Transcript of Michael
Shellenberger's TEDx Berlin 2017 November 21, 2017 By Michael
Shellenberger If you are really open to other views, I hope you'll
read it and consider.
*
Like a lot of kids born in the early 1970s, I had the good fortune to
be raised by hippies. One of my childhood heroes was Stewart Brand.
Stewart is not only one of the original hippies, he’s also one of the
first modern environmentalists
of
the
1960s and 70s. As a young boy, one of my favorite memories is playing
cooperative games that Stewart Brand invented as an antidote to the
Vietnam War.
I’m from a long line of Christian Pacifists known as Mennonites.
Every August, as kids, we would remember the US government’s atomic
bombing of Japan by lighting candles and sending them on paper boats
at Bittersweet Park.
After high school, throughout college, and afterwards, I brought
delegations
of people
to Central America to promote diplomacy and peace and to support
local farmer cooperatives in Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Over time, as I’ve travelled around the world and visited small
farming communities on every continent, I’ve come to appreciate that
most young people don’t want to be stuck in the village. They don’t
want to spend their whole lives chopping
and
hauling wood. They want to go to the city for opportunity — at least
most
of
them
them do — for education and for work.
What I’ve realized is that process of urbanization of moving to the
city is
actually
very positive for nature. It allows the natural environment to come back.
It
allows
for the central African Mountain Gorilla, an important endangered
species, to have the habitat they need to survive and thrive.
In that process you have to go vertical, and so even in places like
Hong Kong you can see that with tall buildings they can spare the
natural environment around the city.
Of course, it takes a huge amount of energy to go up, and so the big
question of our time is how do you get plentiful, reliable
electricity without destroying the climate?
I started out as an anti-nuclear activist and I quickly got involved
in advocating for renewable energy. In the early part of this century
I helped to start
a
labor
union and environmentalist alliance called the Apollo Alliance and we
pushed
for
a big investment in clean energy: solar, wind, electric cars.
The investment idea was eventually picked up by President Obama, and
during
his time
in office we invested about $150 billion to make solar, wind and
electric cars much cheaper than they were.
We seemed to be having a lot of success but we were starting to have
some challenges.
Some of them you’re familiar with. Solar and wind generate
electricity in Germany just 10 to 30 percent of the time, and so
we’re dependent on the weather for
electricity.
There were other problems we were noticing, though. Sometimes these
energy sources generate too much power and while you hear a lot of
hype about batteries we don’t have sufficient storage even in
California, where we have a lot of investment and a lot of Silicon
Valley types putting a lot of investment in battery and other storage
technologies.
While we were struggling with these problems, Stewart Brand came out
in
2005
and
said we should rethink nuclear power. This was a shock to the system
for me
and my
friends. Stewart was one of the first big advocates of solar energy
anywhere
during
the early 1970s. He advised Governor Jerry Brown of California.
But he said, look, we’ve been trying to do solar for a long time and
yet we
get less
than a half of a percent of our electricity globally from solar,
about two percent from wind, and the majority of our clean energy
comes from nuclear and hydro.
And according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
nuclear produces four times less carbon emissions than solar does.
That’s why they recommended in their recent report the more intensive
use of renewables, nuclear and carbon
capture
and storage.
Let’s take a closer look at Germany. Germany gets the majority of its
electricity and all of its transportation fuels from fossil fuels.
Last year Germany got
40 percent
of its electricity from coal, 13 percent from nuclear, 12 percent
from natural gas,
12 percent from wind, and six percent from solar.
Keep in mind that you don’t just have to go from 18 percent solar and
wind to 100 percent solar and wind. To replace the entire
transportation sector with electric cars you’d need to go from 18
percent renewables to something like 150 percent. Germany’s done a
lot to invest in renewables and innovate with solar and wind, but
that’s a pretty steep climb — even before you get to the question of
storage.
Let’s look at last year. Germany installed four percent more solar
panels but generated three percent less electricity from solar. Even
when I’m in meetings with energy experts and I ask people if they can
make a guess as to why they think that
is, and
you’d be shocked by how many energy experts have no idea.
The reason is just that it wasn’t very sunny last year in Germany.
Well, that probably meant that it was windier, right? Because if it’s
not
as
sunny
then maybe there’s more wind and those things can balance each other out?
In truth, Germany installed 11 percent more wind turbines in 2016 but
got two percent less of its electricity from wind. Same story. Just
not very windy.
So then you might think, “Well, we just need to do a lot of solar and
wind so that when there’s not a lot of sunlight or wind we can get
more electricity from
those
energy sources.”
That’s what Germany is trying to do. Its plan is to increase the
amount of electricity it gets from solar by 50 percent by 2030, which
would take you from 40 to
60
gigawatts.
But if you have a year like 2016, you’ll still only be getting nine
percent
of your
total electricity from solar. And this is the biggest solar country
in the world.
Germany is the powerhouse of renewables.
The obvious response is we’ll just put it all in batteries. We hear
so much
talk
about batteries. You would think that we just have a huge amount of
storage.
Environmental Progress took a look at our home state of California
and we discovered that we have just 23 minutes of storage for the
grid — and to get that 23 minutes you’d have to use every battery in
every car and truck in the state.
(Which,
as you
can imagine, is not super practical if you’re trying to get somewhere.
And
Germany
might be a little different but not very different from California.)
Most people are aware that to make this transition to renewables,
Germany has been spending a lot more on electricity. And German
electricity prices rose about
50 percent
over the last 10 years. Today, German electricity is about two times
more expensive than electricity is in France.
You might think, look, that’s a small price to pay to deal with
climate change. And I would agree with that. Paying a bit more for
energy — at least for those of us in the rich world — is a decent
thing to do to avert the risk of catastrophic global warming.
But when you compare French and German electricity, France gets 93
percent of its electricity from clean energy sources, mostly hydro
and nuclear while Germany gets just 46 percent, or about half as much
clean energy.
Here’s the shocking thing: German carbon emissions have gone up since
2009,
and up
over the last two years, and may go up again this year. And while
German emissions have gone down since the 1990s, most of that is
because, after reunification, Germany closed the inefficient coal
plants from East Germany. Most of its emissions
reductions
are just due to that.
Let’s look at last year. One of the ways you can reduce emissions
quickly
is
by switching
from coal to natural gas, which produces about half as much emissions.
Coal
to gas
switching would have resulted in lower emissions except for the fact
that Germany took nuclear reactors off-line. And when it did that,
emissions went up again.
There’s still question about the future: if we do a lot of solar and
wind, won’t it all work itself out?
One of the biggest challenges to solar and wind has come from
somebody in Germany who is not a pro-nuclear person at all. He’s an
energy analyst and economist
named
Leon Hirth. What he finds is that the problem I described earlier —
where you have too much solar or wind and you don’t know what to do
with it — reduces their
economic
value.
The value of wind drops 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of your
electricity, Hirth finds, and the value of solar drops by half when
it gets to just 15 percent.
One of the things you hear is that we can do a solar roof fast — just
one day to put up the thing — whereas it takes five or ten years to
build a nuclear plant. And so people think that if we do solar and
wind we can go a lot faster.
But the speed of deployment was the subject of an important article
in the journal Science last year, which was coauthored by the climate
scientist James Hansen.
They
found
that even when you combine solar and wind you just get a lot less
energy than when you do nuclear. That goes for Germany as well as the
United States. They just compared ten years of deployment for the two
technologies and it’s a stark comparison.
Well, I can tell what you’re thinking, because it’s what I was thinking:
it
sounds
like I might need to rethink my views of nuclear power. But what
about Chernobyl?
What about Fukushima? What about all the nuclear waste? Those are
really reasonable questions to ask.
When I was starting to ask them, there were other people who were
starting to change their minds. One of the ones I was most impressed
by, and who was very influential, was George Monbiot.
Monbiot wrote a column shortly after Fukushima where he went through
the scientific research on radiation and concluded, “The anti-nuclear
movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the
impacts of radiation on human health.”
I write some pretty harsh things sometimes, but this was a pretty
strong column.
He was talking to a lot of scientists who study radiation.
One top British scientist who studies radiation is Gerry Thomas. She
started
something
called the Chernobyl Tissue Bank out of her concern for the accident.
She’s
a totally
independent professor of pathology at Imperial College in London.
I called her and said, “I’d like to present on the science of
radiation but
I’m not
a radiation scientist, so can I just steal your slides? If you let
me, I’ll
put your
picture on them.”
The first thing she points out is that most ionizing radiation —
that’s the
kind
of radiation that is potentially harmful that comes from a nuclear
accident — is natural.
I was like, “That sounds alright. I like natural foods. Natural
radiation from hot springs.”
Gerry said, “No, actually, natural radiation is just as potentially
harmful
as artificial
radiation.”
What’s striking is that the total amount of ionizing radiation we’re
exposed
not
just from Chernobyl and Fukushima but all of the atomic bomb testing
in the
sixties
and 70s totals just 0.3 percent. Most of the radiation we’re exposed
to comes from the earth, the atmosphere, and the buildings around us.
Let’s look at the big one: Chernobyl. This was the event that led me
to be anti-nuclear and become an anti-nuclear activist.
The United Nations has overseen these very large research efforts
involving
hundreds
of scientists around the world who do this research. So the
possibility of somebody fudging the data or covering something up is
pretty low in that environment,
because
there are so many credible scientists at different universities doing
the research.
This was a pivotal moment for me. Chernobyl is the worst nuclear
accident we’ve ever had. Some people say it’s the worst accident
we’ll ever have. I don’t need to make a statement that strong. But
they literally had a nuclear reactor without
a
containment
dome and it was on fire. It was just raining radiation down on everybody.
It
was
a terrible accident.
But when they start counting bodies, what they come up with is 28
deaths from acute radiation syndrome, 15 deaths from thyroid cancer
over the last 25 years.
As
horrible
as it sounds, thyroid cancer is the best cancer to get because hardly
anybody dies from it. It’s highly treatable. You can have a surgery
to remove the thyroid
gland
and take thyroxine, which is a synthetic substitute. In fact, most of
the people who died were in remote rural areas where they couldn’t
get the treatment they needed.
If you take the 16,000 people who got thyroid cancer from Chernobyl,
they estimate
160 of them will die from it. And it’s not like they’re dying of it
right away. They’ll die from it in old age. That’s not to say it’s
okay, but it’s to put it in some context.
And there’s no evidence of any increase in thyroid cancer outside of
the three nations most affected, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
There’s no evidence of an effect by Chernobyl on fertility, birth
malformations, or infant mortality; nor for causing an increase in
adverse pregnancy outcomes or still births; nor for any genetic
effects.
I think this last one is the most striking thing:
there’s no evidence of any increase in non-thyroid cancer including
among the cohort who put out the Chernobyl fire and cleaned it up
afterwards.
I’m still surprised by this finding, and so I put the link to the web
site on that slide, because I don’t think you should take my word for
it. Reading about Chernobyl was, for me, a big part of changing my
mind.
What about Fukushima? It was the second worst nuclear disaster in
history and a lot smaller than Chernobyl. There have been no deaths
from radiation exposure, which is pretty amazing. Meanwhile, 1,500
people died being pulled out of nursing
homes,
hospitals — it was insane. It was a panic. The Japanese government
shouldn’t
have
done that. It violated every standard of what you’re supposed to do
an accident.
You’re supposed to shelter-in-place. In fact, by pulling people out
of their
homes
and moving them around outside they actually exposed more people to
more radiation.
And you have to put that in comparison of the other things that were
going on, like the 15,000 to 20,000 dying instantly from drowning —
pinned down by many different technologies, by the way — from that
tsunami.
So while there was no increase in thyroid cancer, there was the
stress and fear from believing you were contaminated despite the
evidence showing that that wasn’t the case at all.
Some scientists did an interesting study. They took a bunch of school
children from France to Fukushima and had them wear dosimeters, which
is what we call geiger counters now.
You can see here that when those kids go through the airport security
system
their
radiation exposures spiked. When they flew from Paris to Tokyo on the
airplane their radiation exposures spiked. They went through the
French embassy’s security
system
their radiation exposures spiked.
When they went to the city of Tomioka, which received a lot of
radiation from the accident, it was just a tiny blip compared to the
security systems.
Let’s put this in an even larger context. If you live in a big city
like London, Berlin, or New York, you increase your mortality risk by
2.8 percent, just from air pollution alone. If you live with someone
who smokes cigarettes your mortality risk increases 1.7 percent.
But if you were someone who cleaned up Chernobyl, your mortality risk
increased just one percent. That’s just because there wasn’t as much
radiation exposure as
people
thought.
I’m from the state of Colorado in the United States where we have an
annual
exposure
to radiation about the same as what people who live around Chernobyl get.
This is really basic science and is right there on their web site but
nobody
knows
it. Only eight percent of Russians surveyed accurately predicted the
death toll from Chernobyl, and zero percent accurately predicted the
death toll from Fukushima.
Meanwhile, there are seven million premature deaths per year from air
pollution and the evidence against particulate matter only gets
stronger. That’s why every
major
journal that looks at it concludes that nuclear is the safest way to
make reliable electricity.
All of this leads to an uncomfortable conclusion — one that the
climate scientist James Hansen came to recently: nuclear power has
actually saved 1.8 million
lives.
That’s not something you hear very much about.
What about the waste? This is the waste from a nuclear plant in the
United States.
The thing about nuclear waste is that it’s the only waste from
electricity production that is safely contained anywhere. All of the
other waste for electricity goes into the environment including from
coal, natural gas and — here’s another uncomfortable conclusion —
solar panels.
There’s no plan to recycle solar panels outside of the EU. That means
that all of our solar in California will join the waste stream. And
that waste contains
heavy
toxic metals like chromium, cadmium, and lead.
So how much toxic solar waste is there? Well, to get a sense for
that, look
at how
much more materials are required to produce energy from solar and
wind compared to nuclear. As a result, solar actually produces 200 to
300 times more toxic waste than nuclear.
What about weapons? If there were any chance that more nuclear energy
increased the risk of nuclear war, I would be against it. I believe
that diplomacy is almost always the right solution.
People say what about North Korea? Korea proves the point. In order
to get nuclear power — and it’s been this way for 50 years — you have
to agree not to get
a
weapon.
That’s the deal.
South Korea wanted nuclear power. They agreed not to get a weapon.
They don’t have a weapon.
North Korea wanted nuclear power. I think they should have gotten it.
We didn’t let them have it, for a variety of reasons. They got a
bomb. They are testing missiles that can hit Japan and soon will be
able to hit California.
So if you’re looking for evidence that nuclear energy leads to bombs
you can’t find it in Korea or anywhere else.
Where does that leave us? With some more uncomfortable facts. Like if
Germany hadn’t closed its nuclear plants, it’s emissions would be 43
percent lower than they are today. And if you care about climate
change, that’s something you at least have to wrestle with —
especially in light of the facts I’ve presented on the health
impacts
of different energy sources.
I’d like to close with a quote from somebody else who changed his
mind about
nuclear
power, and somebody else who was a huge childhood hero for me, and
that’s
Sting:
“If we’re going to tackle global warming, nuclear power is the only
way to generate massive amounts of power.”
Thank you for listening.
*
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 12:45 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
No, it's just that if you're unaware of the continuing devastation
that has resulted from that accident, saying that the damage from
fossil fuel energy is more dangerous, is an opinion based on
inadequate information. My point was that the damage done to that
area of the world has been downplayed.
No
one can ever liv in the immediate area again. People have been
permitted to move back to nearby areas, even though there is still
evidence of dangerous radiation there. Those people and their
children and their children's children may be negatively affected in
ways that we aren't aware of. You haven't heard about the hundreds of
workers who died, trying to seal off the under water radiation which
is, in fact, still leaking, nor about the real possibility that the
radiation reached Tokyo, nor about the fact that some of it reached
our Pacific shores a few years ago. No one is writing about the fact
that some of our nuclear energy plants were designed identically to
the one in Japan. I've read statistics about the danger of the
plants, but you never see that information on TV or read it in the
corporate press or hear it on the radio. The reason is not that it
isn't important news.
It's
that it isn't in the interest of the nuclear industry, which has a
powerful lobby, for the public to know the facts about the danger.
Many years ago, there was a nuclear energy plant in Suffolk County on
eastern Long Island at Shoreham. Thank God, after public pressure, it
was closed. There were many problems with it. Had there been an
accident. There's no way that all of us who lived on Long Island
could have left quickly enough to be safe. There just aren't enough
roads, nor could the Long Island railroad handle the situation. And
this plant was located about 65 miles from Manhattan.
Radiation spreads. There were, at the time, about 8 million people
living in the 5 boroughs of New York City. There's an old, leaky
nuclear plant at Indian Point on the Hudson River, not far from New
York City now. There's been public pressure to close it for years.
Our Corporate Democratic Governor Cuomo who is very friendly to Wall
Street, as is our corporate friendly Democratic Senator Schumer, has
been resisting closing that plant.
But perhaps, while I've been otherwise engaged withother dangers and
injustices, that plant has been closed. I'd be very relieved if it were.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2018 10:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Oh, so I gotta pass a test before you will consider my viewpoint
worthy of consideration?
Do you ask people who agree with you what they know about a subject
before you consider their views as legitimate? I would bet not.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2018 10:32 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
iOK. So what do you know about the aftermath of that nuclear accident
in Japan?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2018 9:57 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Evan: nuclear power
Once again, if someone disagrees with you, it's not because they
might have a legitimately different perspective, it's only because
they've been manipulated by the so-called "corporate" media, not
because they might actually have a different point of view.
What would be the point of discussing the issue if you come at it
with that kind of attitude?
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2018 9:50 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Evan: nuclear power
I belatedly found part of one of Evan's emails which I managed not to
see or forgot about or something. So, I would just like to mention
the nuclear accidents that took place at Three Mile Island, in
Russia, or was it Ukraine? And in Japan. We have no reasonable
method for dealing with nuclear waste, and we have no reasonable way
of dealing with the results of nuclear contamination. What has
happened in Japan is a nightmare, but the corporate media has been
downplaying it. There have been serious informative articles about it
in the alternative media for years, and a few good novels have been
written about the problem in the past few years. But for the majority
of Americans, out of sight, out of mind. This method of manipulating
the public works beautifully. Intelligent people who want to be
informed about what is happening, can be diverted from the most
disturbing information. And by the way, these nuclear plants in the
US are old and falling apart, and they're heavily subsidized by the
government because, apparently, they don't do well in that free
market that all the promoters of capitalism praise. It's interesting
that our government also subsidizes fossil fuel companies. Now what
good is a low carbon footprint when the water and vegetation and
earth are irradiated and will remain so for thousands of years? How
is supporting nuclear waste more environmentally friendly than
carbon emissions?
Miriam
Evan wrote
How many people have died as a result of nuclear power, as opposedhttp://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/11/21/why-i-changed-my
to say, coal mining, or oil drilling? Now solar power is probably
safer, and I guess wind power might be up there, although I can
think of ways people could be injured or killed working with or on
windmills. I'll stack the safety of nuclear power against any of the
fossil fuels though. And yes, I do support subsidies of nuclear
power. It will help us get off carbon emissions faster. For the same
reason, I support subsidies for renewable energy. It's also worth
noting that, "...
according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear
produces four times less carbon emissions than solar does. That's
why they recommended in their recent report the more intensive use
of renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage."
-mind-a
bout-nuclear-power-transcript-of-michael-shellenbergers-tedx-berlin-2
017
