April 22nd, 2007

Dear Readers,

Walking around Earth Day in the early 1990s, I was shocked to see my local nuclear power plant tabling a booth and handing out fliers.  Shocked that Earth Day had been absconded by these scoundrels.  I kept asking myself:  Who let THEM in?!?

Over the years, I looked at other suspicious activities at various national environmental organizations.  Why weren't THEY at the forefront of opposing nuclear power?  Many were virtually silent, except for a few "we don't support new nuclear power plants" comments mixed with a few "we see only a limited role" comments.  It turns out that a lot of environmental organizations, such as the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), are strictly political organizations, NOT environmental ones.

And now we've come to Earth Day 2007, where The New Green is called Nuclear.  To the New Greenies, the ONLY environmental hazard the world faces is Global Warming.  To them, in their very limited view, nukes are green -- the great, simple, environmentally sound solution to all the world's woes.  Never mind accidents.  Never mind terrorism.  Never mind the energy-intensive process of building nukes and supplying their fuel.  And never mind, most of all, the environmental damage an atomic decay does!

Well, we've heard all that before.  Nukes were supposed to be "too cheap to meter," way back in the day.  Back before anyone had carefully studied the effects of radiation on DNA.  Yet the New Greenies think nuclear power will solve the world's problems!  If not the current generation of nukes, then "Gen 4" or "Gen 5" will do it.  In fact, these "new" designs are not new at all!  Similar designs were considered and DISCARDED LONG AGO (they had different names back then).

There's nothing GREEN about any of it, especially when one properly accounts for the millions of years of problems that nuclear waste creates.  Problems that will cost MONEY and LIVES.

Nuclear power can't solve global warming (it requires enormous energy just to separate out the uranium, for instance, plus the waste, plus the heat, plus the energy suck created by having to care for the infirm after an accident, etc. etc. etc.).  Even a crash (crash and burn would be a better description) program to build 5,000 new nuclear power plants (we now have less than 500 worldwide) would be impossible to achieve because of political, environmental, AND economic reasons.  And engineering hurdles.  And physics, reliability, machine interface problems -- you name it where nuclear power is concerned, it doesn't really work.  And you can't even recycle the steel or anything else that nukes use!

SO HOW CAN THESE PEOPLE POSSIBLY CALL IT GREEN?!?

A clean nuclear future is not just difficult.  It's impossible.  It isn't going to happen.  Yes, enough nukes to poison the planet already exist and will be difficult to shut down (but must be).  But a global switch to nuclear power for the majority of our electricity needs?  IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

So WHY are people like New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (Discovery: GREEN: THE NEW RED, WHITE, AND BLUE) and his cohorts like Stewart Brand and Peter Schwartz SO gung-ho for nuclear?

Money!  Power!  Prestige!

Friends, jet planes, rich people supporting them and inviting them to give lectures to important people, television shows like the Discovery show, interviews with Larry King, Wolf Blitzer and all the rest, days and days of testimony in Congress -- some in closed session -- you name it, it's the glamorous life for an activist or a reporter.  To be listened to!

Who cares if your FACTS are wrong?  Who cares if you're demanding the impossible even if it was a good idea (which it isn't)?  Who cares if you talk down nuclear half the time, and talk it up the rest?  At least you've got the world's ear!

Earth Day 2007 should be the last day true environmentalists celebrate their environmentalism with pro-nukers.  Pro-nukers are NOT environmentalists, and, much though they want to hijack environmentalism for their own brand of poisonous industrialism known as nuclear power, it shouldn't happen.  It's wrong.

The pro-DNA movement needs a day which is unequivocally ours.  Chernobyl Day will probably have to be it -- April 26th.  It should become true environmentalists' international pro-DNA day of education and mourning for victims of the nuclear holocaust, past, present, and future.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman

Carlsbad, CA