Posted on 04/16/2006 3:29:19 AM PDT by Timeout
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
May I propose dumping the waste material for all the new nuclear power plants in her backyard?
But then, my realistic side kicks in and says, "They're only taking this position so that they can support Iran's 'right' to a 'peaceful' nuclear program."
I read somewhere that the founder of Greenpeace left the group because it became to radical and anti-capitalist. He was a tree-hugging nutjob but not completely off the deep end, IIRC.
It's about time the simpletons realize there are no easy answers. There are just some answers that make more sense than others. Enriching middle eastern tyrants and allowing them to cripple domestic petroleum production has proven to be far more dangerous than addressing the technical challenges of nuclear energy. Now if they'd just stop the fearmongering over global warming... no chance they have to continue to raise money some way.
Yes, I'd forgotten that. Seems like it was several years ago, but I read something similar.
I, too, read this with a wary eye...suspecting an Iran angle. But I think it's genuine. This could be a real breakthrough if the public sees a schism developing between pragmatic greenies and their purist comrades. (I'd love to hear this guy expound on Teddy Kennedy's blocking wind power on Nantucket).
And just imagine the panic will this produce at the DNC~!
Great point - I've always wondered why the environmentalists didn't support nuclear as it is the cleanest energy we have. I too took this article as a sign of enlightenment. Unfortunately your analysis is more likely correct.
Sadly, it is too late to undo the damage his ignorance has done to the world and the environment.
Maybe this guy has realized that no one will accept living in cold, shivering caves wearing only animal skins in order to save his precious Gaia. They'll burn every stick of every tree on the planet, and lynch him from the last standing one before they cut it down, in order to avoid living that way. Maybe a few of these guys have finally gotten smart.
I say that guardedly, of course, just days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country had enriched uranium. "The nuclear technology is only for the purpose of peace and nothing else," he said. But there is widespread speculation that, even though the process is ostensibly dedicated to producing electricity, it is in fact a cover for building nuclear weapons.
Widespread speculation? Isn't Ahmadinejad alternating public statements between 'we're building nuclear weapons' and 'Israel should be wiped off the map'?
There's really no room for doubt about Iran's (stated) intentions.
Apart from that- it looks like the Common Sense Fairy cracked Moore over the head with a Louisville Slugger.
Any influence that his epiphany may have will be limited by this- which appears at the end of the article:
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, is chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. He and Christine Todd Whitman are co-chairs of a new industry-funded initiative, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which supports increased use of nuclear energy.
The moonbats will see only those two words and dismiss the rest of what he has to say.
I doubt it, however, I think it was Winston Churchill that said: "If you're not a Liberal by the time you are twenty, you don't have a heart. If you're not a Conservative by the time you're forty, you don't have a brain"
Any movement with the slightest potential to discredit capitalism will be hijacked by the radical left- you can bet on it!
OK, we're all on board. Now, let's do it.
ping
Yet when rational people tried to tell him exactly that 20 years ago, he could do nothing but shout tired slogans and insult their intelligence.
I guess that wising up eventually is better than dying stupid, but it's also too little too late.
bookmark bump...
This guy isn't a moonbat, he and Greenpeace really parted ways. Greenpeace would rather have us burning dung in fire pits than have any type of Nuclear energy.
Thanks for posting.
Friends had told me they'd heard some of the enviro-extremists were starting
to relent on their jihad against nuclear power.
You'd think they'd come around earlier seeing how the French are so
committed to nuclear.
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