Nuclear lies – theme for January 2012
In 2012 in their desperate struggle to keep the nuclear industry alive, corporations, governments, academia and media will trot out the same old lies, plus a few newer ones.
The new ones will be:
1. to downplay the prospects for renewable energy and energy efficiency – lies about costs, about “base load” power.
2. to tout the safety of new nuclear technology, such as “small modular thorium nuclear reactors”.
3. More subtly than lies – the nuclear lobby uses OMISSIONS – watch how in 2012 the topics of Fukushima, and nuclear waste, fade from mention in the media, even though they are still topics of critical importance.
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And there’s the ever-present framing – my favorite is “plant”. To refer to a nuclear power station as a “plant” is to support the Nuclear Energy Institute “frame”. Many plants are beautiful, and all plants support life by absorbing carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen, and providing nutrients for the web of life. A nuclear power station is a “nuclear reactor” or an “atomic reactor”. This terminology is accurate and rightfully inspires fear – because unlike plants, reactors release many radionuclides (occasionally even plutonium) which cause disease, mutations, and death. (For information on framing, check out the short book “Don’t Think of an Elephant” by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff.)