Pandora’s Propaganda – nuclear’s film advertisement spreads from USA

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

The nuclear advertising film ‘ Pandora’s Promise’ will be showing around Australia, and in Edinburgh and London in the next couple of weeks. It is largely funded by people from the pro nuclear Breakthrough Institute, including people like Bill Gates, who has his own nuclear power company Terra Power. It is directed by passionate nuclear enthusiast, Robert Stone, who does Q and A afterwards, and over-talks any critical questioners.

The film initially discusses the “downside” of the nuclear industry’s history, using previous accidents to prove the safety of new nuclear. It singles out supposed leading anti nuclear activists who now are pro nuclear. However, not one of these has genuine anti nuclear credentials. Names include Stewart Brandon who now runs a pro nuclear think tank.No one in the film ever led the anti-nuclear movement.

Weaknesses of this film include the way that it:

mocks anti nuclear opinions as a bunch extremists and zealots. It makes no effort to portray any sensible opposing opinion.
minimises the health effects of ionising radaiation with downright untruths, for instance, telling us only that Chernobyl killed 56 people. It leaves out that a United Nations World Health Organization agency predicts 16,000 more will die from Chernobyl cancers and that the European Environment Agency estimates 34,000 more. It omits that non-fatal thyroid cancer struck another 6,000, mostly children
does not mention the crippling economics that is now closing nuclear plants in USA (Florida, Wisconsin and California), nor the imperative for tax-payer subsidy
does not mention insurance: the nuclear industry, alone among industries is exempt from risk through USA’s Price Anderson Act, as well as every home owner’s insurance policy stating that this policy does not compensate you for any radiation damage from a nuclear power plant.

The film moves on to promotion of new nuclear power plants. In this discussion it

avoids the economics of Small Nuclear reactors (SMRs) Even under the best of circumstances, there will be no SMR prototype for as long as a decade or more. There are serious questions over the economics of mass producing these, over their safety, and the huge costs of maintaining security over thousands of little nuclear reactors scattered around the land. None of this is discussed in the film.
promotes Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) – fast breeder reactors. but doesn’t mention the past failure of these, in USA , France (Super Phoenix) Japan (Monju), and their enormous cost.
Dishonestly minimises the nuclear waste problems of IFR’s. Film does not explain that the final wastes, while smaller in volume, are far more radioactive and dangerous than existing nuclear wastes, and therefore require the same amount of storage space and security.

This film has been described by Robert F Kennedy as an “elaborate hoax”.https://nuclear-news.net/2013/06/21/nuclear-war-robert-stone-versus-robert-f-kennedy-jr/

If you are interested in critiques of Pandora”s Promise, these can be found at www.nuclear-news.net, by scrolling down the right hand sidebar to the SEARCH box at the bottom, and just typing in “Pandora’s Promise”.

Australia – to most capital cites Oct 7 – 14

Edinburgh, Scotland – Centre for Contemporary Arts – Tues Oct 8

London, England – Ritzy PicturehouseSat Oct 16

September 28, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes, media

10 Comments »

thanks for that, i will be going to critique and observe the locations and attendees…

Comment by citizenperth | September 28, 2013 | Reply
You can pick from dozens of positive, honest and informed reviews from the list below:

Comment by biodiversivist | September 29, 2013 | Reply
- Ha ha – that list included nuclear sources – especially the Breakthrough Institute – yeah – well informed BY THE NUCLEAR LOBBY
  
  Comment by Christina MacPherson | September 29, 2013 | Reply
- i don’t read reviews.. i do reviews.
  
  Comment by citizenperth | September 29, 2013 | Reply
i don’t read reviews, i write them….

Comment by citizenperth | September 29, 2013 | Reply
I’m not here to criticize your review of the film, only to correct a couple errors. The BreKthroug Institute did jot fund the film in any way, neither did Bill Gates. And the Breakthrough Institute is not funded by industry, we list all our founders on our website: http://thebreakthrough.org/about/funders/

Comment by Jessica Lovering | September 29, 2013 | Reply
- ‘the film was partly financed by billionaire Paul Allen, whose Microsoft cohort Bill Gates has invested heavily in new nukes.” quoted in …..http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dr_hansen_we_need_you_at_fukushima_and_diablo_canyon_20130826/
  I don’t care who funds the Breakthrough Institute. Its list of members looks like a collection of white male technocrats all of whom see nuclear power as the big fix for the world’s problems. Are you the token female?
  
  Comment by Christina MacPherson | September 29, 2013 | Reply
didnt mr stone get advice from the uk smc??? hehe! what a numpty.. he should try talking to real fukushima residents instead of backing his mates in the insurance and banking systems ,,
great point christina

Comment by arclight2011part2 | September 29, 2013 | Reply
hmmm… you guys jointly got the ‘nuke industry butt-hurt’ responses pretty quickly…… ;)… must have said something well…….

Comment by citizenperth | September 30, 2013 | Reply
Quote ‘mocks anti nuclear opinions as a bunch extremists and zealots. It makes no effort to portray any sensible opposing opinion’
Can’t there be any anti-nuke type citizen scientists without ‘Credentials’ opinions critiqued? There might be a few good ideas gathered from them.

Comment by Albert N Michall | September 30, 2013 | Reply