nuclear-news

Naomi Klein on nuclear power

“It isn’t just nuclear, this is the same argument the fracking industry in now using – that it’s a bridge, that it’s lower carbon, etc. This is a line that was developed by the fossil fuel industry in the late 1980’s that was then adopted by some parts of the environmental movement. It’s an argument that is still around, even though the bridge is burning.”

“The thing to stress is that there is really good research out there that shows that we can switch to 100 per cent renewables by 2030 or 2050. There is a great team out of Stanford lead by Mark Jacobson I look at in my book. It is not technology that is holding us back any more. So if we can do it with renewables, why are we doubling down on gas, why are we talking about nuclear – which is way more expensive and obviously massively higher risk.”

“I think it is happening because this is a very profitable model for our elites, and it’s a lot easier for them to wrap their heads around switching from oil to gas, or switching from fossil fuels to nuclear. I mean these are often the same companies. It’s a highly centralized, corporatist industry that also consolidates wealth and power.”

“I think we should be viewing the climate crisis as a message that our economic system is deeply, deeply flawed. We are facing not just a climate crisis but a crisis on so many levels. And it comes back to that extractivist mindset that it’s always required that somebody else eat the risk. That’s one of the biggest issues I have with nuclear – who is going to eat the risk on this? I understand how people like George Monbiot, who I have a huge amount of respect for, are coming to this desperate conclusion. In the absence of the kind of social movement that I’m talking about, that is true. It is only a social movement on a huge scale that can achieve the just kind of transition that we want.”

“I think we can do this without nuclear, it’s just that it’s less challenging to our current political structures to do it that way. This is the society that we’ve created and we’ve got a lot of transformation work to get off that path.”

(From a Guardian webcast from October 2014 discussing her new book This Changes Everything with Owen Jones)

December 15, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print, Resources -audiovicual