Mark Lynas, author of climate change book "High Tide" and long-time direct activist has written in this week's New Statesman magazine of his conversion to nuclear power as a solution to climate change.
Mark Lynas
The former participant in Reclaim the Streets actions and GM-crop decontaminations admits to his 'desperation' in a search for alternatives to fossil fuels with the onset of climate change and peak oil but believes that no combination of energy efficiency measures, wind, solar or biomass are likely to come close to meeting our energy needs of the future. While not seeing nuclear as a 'panacea', the prospect of five or six degrees of global warming are likely to be 'far worse'.
The increasing number of high profile figures classing themselves as environmentalists who are supporting nuclear power is likely to open up a major debate within ecological thinking. It seems a pity that Lynas does not openly reflect upon his premises in his article, namely that our present way of life should and can continue beyond fossil fuels. Given that corporate, political and military power depends on exactly that - access to power in the form of energy sources - it's hard to imagine any kind of sustainable future when these forces are allowed to continue to fuel oppression and destruction of our ecosystems through nuclear-fuelled (and nuclear armed) might.
Perhaps this is the point in history where mainstream environmentalism - in the form of some kind of more regulated business as usual - splits off from radical ecology, which sees no alternative to a complete overthrow of the dominant culture of hatred, oppression and destruction. It may be hard to imagine such a revolution happening but it's even harder to accept that without such a fundamental shift in our cultural values any kind of meaningful relationship with the rest of life on earth can ever occur.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200505300014
The increasing number of high profile figures classing themselves as environmentalists who are supporting nuclear power is likely to open up a major debate within ecological thinking. It seems a pity that Lynas does not openly reflect upon his premises in his article, namely that our present way of life should and can continue beyond fossil fuels. Given that corporate, political and military power depends on exactly that - access to power in the form of energy sources - it's hard to imagine any kind of sustainable future when these forces are allowed to continue to fuel oppression and destruction of our ecosystems through nuclear-fuelled (and nuclear armed) might.
Perhaps this is the point in history where mainstream environmentalism - in the form of some kind of more regulated business as usual - splits off from radical ecology, which sees no alternative to a complete overthrow of the dominant culture of hatred, oppression and destruction. It may be hard to imagine such a revolution happening but it's even harder to accept that without such a fundamental shift in our cultural values any kind of meaningful relationship with the rest of life on earth can ever occur.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200505300014
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