Things You're Not Supposed to Know #29: The Creator Of The Gaia Hypothesis Supports Nuclear Power
Lab~Mouse 2 April 2005 11:21:17
James Lovelock is one of the icons of the environmental movement. His idea that the Earth is a self-regulating, living organism (the GAIA hypothesis, first expounded in his 1979 book GAIA: A New Look at Life on Earth) provides the philosophical underpinning of environmentalism.
So it may be surprising that Lovelock is an enthusiastic supporter of nuclear energy, which he says has "great benefits and small risks." In the preface to the seemingly paradoxical book Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, he writes: "I want to put it to you that the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) as our main energy source are far greater and they threaten not just individuals but civilization itself." The answer, he maintains, is the clean energy from nuke plants, which produce almost nothing that clogs up the atmosphere. As for what to do with all that radioactive waste, Lovelock has a shocking answer:
Natural ecosystems can stand levels of continuous radiation that would be intolerable in a city. The land around the failed Chernobyl power station was evacuated because its high radiation intensity made it unsafe for people, but this radioactive land is now rich in wildlife, much more so than neighboring populated areas. We call the ash from nuclear power nuclear waste and worry about its safe disposal. I wonder if instead we should use it as an incorruptible guardian of the beautiful places of the Earth. Who would dare cut down a forest in which was the storage place of nuclear ash?
Lovelock does admit that nuclear power is "potentially harmful to people," something that his brethren in the group Environmentalists for Nuclear Power often try to downplay. Truthfully, some of their points are good ones. More people have been killed by coal-mining than by nuclear power, even when you factor in the shorter time that nuclear power has existed. Most of the radiation we get zapped with comes from outer space (around two-thirds) and medical procedures (around a third), with only a smidgen from nuke plants.
Still, when you know about all the unpublicized accidents and near-meltdowns that have occurred, it's hard to be quite so blase about the dangers. After all, the group's own literature says, "Nuclear energy is a very clean energy if it is well designed, well-built, well operated, and well managed." Trouble is, it's often none of those things. Design flaws, human error, corruption, incompetence, greed, and toothless oversight mean that in the real world, nuke plants often don't work as advertised.
