What do environmental groups say about nuclear power? Greenpeace

[kristopher]

Nuclear Energy
No Solution to Climate Change

Introduction

Economic Failure

The Fallacy of Competitiveness

The Unseen Costs

The Implications of Nuclear Expansion
Radioactive Waste : The Problem with No Solution
The Horror of Nuclear Accidents and the Threat to Health
Nuclear Weapons: Uncontrollable Worldwide Proliferation

The United Nations IPCC View: "The security threat... would be colossal"

Conclusion

The nuclear industry's disingenuous claims to a role in alleviating climate change must be rejected for what they are: dangerous and self-serving fantasies which would create a serious legacy of deadly radioactive waste, increase the risks of catastrophic nuclear accidents and also vastly increase the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Environmental impacts aside, nuclear economics preclude its use to combat global warming. It is not the cheapest of the non-fossil fuel alternatives; nor is it the cleanest. A host of renewable technologies have outstripped nuclear power in development and performance, while energy efficiency measures remain the most cost effective way to address the need for new power.

The challenge posed by climate change raises important questions about what kind of world we wish our children to inherit: one in which the inseparable technologies of military and civil nuclear power are prevalent in every nation or one in which energy is used wisely and generated through the use of sustainable renewable energy systems.

The choice is ours.

Appendix: Commercial Renewable Energy Technologies

References

Full read at http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/no.nukes/nenstcc.html

[XemaSab]

1. Hey, I remember 1997!

:D

[kristopher]

2. The discussion isn't new, is it?

[joshcryer]

3. It is essential that dogmatic 'environmentalists,' opposed to all nuclear power, not be...

...allowed to delay the R&D on 4th generation nuclear power.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20081121_Obama.pdf

[joshcryer]

20. Did anyone read this article by Hansen?

Anyone at all?

[Nihil]

23. I read the PDF ...

... but I wouldn't put money down that Obama had ...

[NNadir]

4. Um...um...um...a very, very, very, very, very, very, very., very serious...

...bunch, they...

Drive their fucking bourgeois cars to the edge of a glacier, get naked and poof! Climate change goes away.



http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/naked-glacier-tunick-08182007/

Circus clowns with an appalling hatred of science. There is NO OTHER kind of anti-nuke.

It would be amazing if one of them, just one of them, worked for a living, but it's not likely.

[Tikki]

5. Look real close at the link, Dude...the people there are the clowns? and..

the picture there is the Circus, something you wouldn't want the family to miss.

http://www.hanfordwatch.org/


Tikki

[NNadir]

22. Yeah, clowns. You're not looking at the parking lot, dude.

They fucking drove there.

The Hanford site, by contrast, is the most studied site in the world.

Why?

Because someone died there?

No, not at all.

The reason is a cartoon vision of reality.

Maybe you're laboring under the impression that driving around in cars at high altitudes is comparable to a rusty drum outside a reactor.

It's, um, not.

[Tikki]

25. Sadly, we know you WONT read what is at the link...

How hidebound of you...But that is exactly what GE, Battell, Westinghouse, etc...expect of you.

http://www.hanfordwatch.org

The Tikkis

[GliderGuider]

7. Gee maybe kristopher was right in that other thread - they are, how did he put it?

Oh right, "greedy, stupid irrational panderers".

Thanks for the description, kristopher - it's perfect.

[kristopher]

9. That described your beliefs about environmental groups, not mine.

That was sleazy even for you.

[GliderGuider]

11. I described them as "politically astute".

Many people see that as a positive quality in an organization that has to function in the public arena. I don't actually think they pander, any more than any organization that offers a product for sale. You know your market, you give it what it wants and expects, and you don't give it things you know it will reject. It's just common business sense. If you have a change of heart and want to sell something else, like Patrick Moore did, you leave the company.

I suppose I don't see most environmental groups as being quite as high-minded as they paint themselves, but that's by no means "pandering".

[kristopher]

13. Here is the exchange.

GG:
The public still retains a strong belief in the five root perceptions, due to the complexity of the issues, the difficulty in sorting out information from vested interests, and the deliberate obfuscation of the issues by those same interests. Because of the inertia of public opinion and knowledge, any environmental organization that wants to recruit new members must treat the support of nuclear power as a third-rail issue. Opposition to nuclear power on the other hand is an easy sell, because it has been embedded in the public consciousness for so many decades.

The reason environmental organizations aren't embracing (or even discussing) nuclear power is not technical, it's political and perceptual. Nuclear power a third rail issue. Any environmental organization that wishes to be seen by the public as "credible environmental thinkers" (and grow their membership base as a result), had better not touch it. Those organizations re not stupid, so they have a strict hands off policy regarding substantive debate on nuclear power as a potential option.

They may be objectively pursuing climate solutions, but they are doing it in all domains except one.
It is more useful to search for the source of our questions than for their answers.


kristopher:
So environmental organizations are greedy, stupid and irrational panderers?

They are greedy because their primary motive for all they do is to attract new (presumably dues paying) members and they are stupid because they irrationally exclude the supposed "best" solution to the problem they want to address in order to pander to those potential members.

And yet you STILL ignore the obvious alternative that independent researchers like Jacobson have made crystal clear - nuclear is a third rate solution to our problems.

[GliderGuider]

14. Not quite.

Environmental organizations are formed to effect social change. They can't do that if they are just four people in a church basement. Their power is directly proportional to their membership. They are like political parties that way. So the desire to grow their membership isn't an ignoble one, it's inherent to their goals.

Regarding their objectivity, when I say, "they are doing it in all domains except one" regarding their dismissal of any positive aspects of nuclear power,it's no more surprising than the fact that the Democratic Party, in its attempt to gain and keep political power doesn't advocate shifting the tax burden onto the poor as the Republicans do. There may or may not be objective reasons to consider that, but the Democrats, like environmental groups, have a vision they wish to share. That vision need not include every possibility, and in order to succeed with the chosen base of supporters, it had better not include those things the base can't accept.

That's not pandering, it's the reality of power politics. And make no mistake, what Greenpeace and the Sierra Club do is in large measure power politics.

[kristopher]

15. Riiiiiiiiiiighht.

[GliderGuider]

19. Oh, ye of little faith...

:hi:

[Nihil]

24. And there, in black & white, we have it in his own words (for the second time) ...

> kristopher:
> So environmental organizations are greedy, stupid and irrational panderers?

No reference to three of those four words in anything that GG said.

(The only reference to "stupid" was to directly state "Those organizations
are not stupid" ... thus proving the lie in the subsequent word-twisting
attempt.)

The only references to all four of those words are from Kristopher, not only in
the above quote (carefully phrased as if questioning, even though it was a
complete strawman) but also in the "explanation" paragraph following it
(to twist the knife in the wound).

:think:

[GliderGuider]

26. I note kristopher's description of environmental groups.

They are greedy because their primary motive for all they do is to attract new (presumably dues paying) members and they are stupid because they irrationally exclude the supposed "best" solution to the problem they want to address in order to pander to those potential members.

I'm sure glad I didn't say that. I'd have people all over my ass for it if I had...

[Nihil]

27. Yeah ...

> I note kristopher's description of environmental groups.
>
>> They are greedy because their primary motive for all they do is to attract new
>> (presumably dues paying) members and they are stupid because they irrationally
>> exclude the supposed "best" solution to the problem they want to address in order
>> to pander to those potential members.
>
> I'm sure glad I didn't say that. I'd have people all over my ass for it if I had...

If you'd have said it, it would have been glowing in the dark by now ...

... oh, wait ...

I mean that it would have blown up like Chern... hang on a minute will you? ...

... such a comment would have landed like a :nuke: ... Hmmm ...

[joshcryer]

21. Look at those demographics. Where's the glacier?

[NickB79]

6. What does the founder of Greenpeace say about nuclear power? NT

[FBaggins]

8. Not *the* founder... but certainly one of them.

The only one with any scientific background.

[kristopher]

10. Not a founder, but definitely on the payroll of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Patrick Moore was a leading figure with Greenpeace Canada and subsequently with Greenpeace International between 1981 and 1986. In 1991 he established a consultancy business, Greenspirit Enterprises, "focusing on environmental policy and communications in natural resources, biodiversity, energy and climate change."<1>

Moore began working for the Nuclear Energy Institute front group, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, in 2006.

He has worked for the mining industry, the logging industry, PVC manufacturers, the nuclear industry and in defence of biotechnology. In October 2008, Greenpeace issued a statement distancing itself from Moore, saying he "exploits long gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes." <2>

...From 1984 he became involved in a family business, Quatsino Seafarms Ltd, farming salmon on Vancouver Island. Until 1991 he was President of the company and between 1986 and 1989 was President of British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association.

Following claims by the United Fishermans and Allied Workers Union about pollution by the industry generally, the Vancouver Sun reported "Moore called the union's concerns 'phoney', saying that we are not causing pollution and there is no such thing as genetic pollution."(1)...

Full profile at Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_Moore

[FBaggins]

16. Wrong yet again.

He most certainly was one of the founders of the organization. In fact they used to list him as such on their website. He's still listed on that page. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/history/founders/

Patrick Moore was a leading figure with Greenpeace Canada and subsequently with Greenpeace International between 1981 and 1986.

He was on the Committee before it even was "Greenpeace".

[kristopher]

17. Point taken; yet he is still a paid spokesperson for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

And several other endeavors that are antithetical to environmental organizations.

In other words, his past association with Greenpeace is what he trades on to make money by providing GREENWASHING services for industries that prefer to spin their actions rather than behave responsibly.

[FBaggins]

18. Never heard of "begging the question" eh?

n/t

[txlibdem]

12. Now, now. Let's not bring FACTS into this dogmatic argument.

That'll just muck up the carefully crafted story line...

:rofl: