George Monbiot fails to see the impact of nuclear power on indigenous peoples

George Monbiot’s nuclear mistakes | Green Left Weekly, Jim Green, 26 March 11,”……… Monbiot takes offence at ill-informed, moralistic objections to nuclear power. Fair enough. Yet two of the greatest objections to nuclear power both have a moral dimension — one because of its particularity, the other because of its generality.The particular moral problem concerns the disproportionate impacts the nuclear industry has on indigenous peoples. The industry’s racism is grotesque.
In Australia, we can point to examples such as the (defeated) attempt to mine the Jabiluka uranium deposit in the Northern Territory, despite the unanimous opposition of Traditional Owners.

Another example is the current push to establish a national nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory.

Regardless of all the other debates about energy options, it’s difficult to see how the industry’s pervasive racism can be reduced to being just another input into a complex equation, and tolerated as a price that must be paid to keep the lights on.

The other big moral (and practical) concern with nuclear power is its connection to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

There is a long history of peaceful nuclear programs providing political cover and technical support for nuclear weapons programs. Recent examples include North Korea’s use of an “Experimental Power Reactor” to produce plutonium for bombs, and the ongoing controversy over Iran’s nuclear program.

The nuclear industry exacerbates the proliferation problem. Japan’s plutonium program illustrates the point.

A 1993 US diplomatic cable posed these questions: “Can Japan expect that if it embarks on a massive plutonium recycling program that Korea and other nations would not press ahead with reprocessing programs? Would not the perception of Japan’s being awash in plutonium and possessing leading edge rocket technology create anxiety in the region?”

Since 1993, Japan’s plutonium stockpile has grown enormously and regional tensions are sharper than ever.

Yet Japan is still pushing ahead with the huge reprocessing plant at Rokkasho that will result in a rapid expansion of Japan’s already obscenely large stockpile of separated, weapons-useable plutonium.

Another recent example of a grossly irresponsible policy fanning proliferation risks is the decision of a number of national governments, led by the US, to abandon the principle that civil nuclear trade should not be permitted with countries that refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That is a recipe for weapons proliferation.

The nuclear industry is its own worst enemy. We can’t reasonably be expected to support an industry that behaves so irresponsibly.

Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, indiscriminate and immoral of all weapons. They pose a real threat to humanity, all the more so because nuclear warfare has the capacity to directly cause catastrophic climate change.

Academics Alan Robock and Brian Toon summarise recent research on the climatic impacts of nuclear warfare: “A nuclear war between any two countries, each using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs, such as India and Pakistan, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. This is less than 0.05% of the explosive power of the current global arsenal.”…..

George Monbiot’s nuclear mistakes | Green Left Weekly