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Nuclear power in the Anthropocene Age – theme for September 2014

Great changes in the Earth’s history are marked in geological Ages, with great changes caused by events such as volcanoes, meteorite impacts, climate change and the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and  occurring over millions of years.  Now geologists are seeing changes in the Earth that are occurring over merely  one hundred years.

These changes are caused by the activities of one species – human beings. They usher in a new Age – the Anthropocene (or human-caused ) Epoch.

The changes in the Anthropocene Age are already profound:

• Landscape – Deforestation, desertification, mountains carved by mining, rivers dammed and rerouted, islands sinking under sea level rise.
• Ecology – massive extinctions of species – loss of habitat, loss of biodiversity
• Climate change – rise in greenhouse gases in atmosphere, heating of air and oceans, acidification of oceans, glaciers melting, sea level rise
• Water – shortage of clean drinking water, pollution of groundwater and surface waters.

Those are just a few “headlines” for the changes that we have already wrought on the only liveable planet.

THE NUCLEAR CONTRIBUTION to the Anthropocene Epoch has already been great – with the landscape scarring effect of thousands of atmospheric and underground atomic bomb tests.

Radioactive pollution – from atomic bomb making, and testing, and from several parts of the nuclear power chain has affected soil, groundwater and air.

The nuclear lobby loves to talk about “background radiation” as if it’s all naturally caused and benign. However it includes radionuclides that never before existed on Earth – plutonium, strontium, cesium, carbon-14, and radioactive iodine from atomic bomb testing and other nuclear activities.

September 6, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, Christina's themes, environment