Does technology really matter more than the natural landscape?

After we published an article on Beyond Nuclear International about the habitat and ecosystem destruction that would be wrought by the construction of new nuclear power plants on the British coastline, a more serious challenges such as sea-level rise and radioactive contamination.
I understand his sense of urgency. Yet, these don’t seem like either-ors to me.
And I do think that “liking landscapes” is desperately important and their enjoyment a growing deprivation. If we have
never been outside, walked an ancient wood, felt awed by the delicate silvery curl of lichen on a branch, heard the eerie, commanding call of a hawk or the whispered rustlings of a small mammal scurrying through undergrowth to safe cover, why would we strive to save any of it? Who will be left to care, to “like landscapes” and all that fills them? So he
may be right that it sounds like a trivial obsession. But it ought to matter…..
Surely the importance of landscapes and all who live in them must be at least in part why we fight to end the use of nuclear power plants? And also because they will contaminate our world forever; because sea-level rise will subsume them at a terrible price for all of us. And because building, operating and decommissioning them involves making and leaving a pervasive and persistent mess the like of which we have not equalled anywhere else.
At the same time, even if we abandon the energy vices of nuclear power and fossil fuels — an urgent necessity — we recognize that we have not solved our destructive ways. Even renewable energy comes with extractive impacts and environmental justice violations. While we struggle to remediate these, we are all too aware that we have left it far too late. We were Once-lers from the beginning, our greed trumping conservation and efficient use of energy. We didn’t listen to the Lorax or hear the Peregrine’s warning call. Instead, we are in a race against time and our own folly. We are in the time of “UNLESS”.
Beyond Nuclear 5th Sept 2021
No comments yet.
-
Archives
- July 2022 (61)
- June 2022 (277)
- May 2022 (375)
- April 2022 (378)
- March 2022 (405)
- February 2022 (333)
- January 2022 (422)
- December 2021 (299)
- November 2021 (400)
- October 2021 (346)
- September 2021 (291)
- August 2021 (291)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Fuk 2022
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
Leave a Reply