UK Greens on New Nukes

Two UK Green Party womenfolk speaking truth to nuclear power courtesy of the New Statesman.  Dr. Caroline Lucas is a Green Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Principal Speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales. Siân Berry is the founder of the Alliance against Urban 4×4s and the current Green Party candidate for Mayor of London.

Nuclear Fallout by Caroline Lucas - New Stateman - 11 Jan 08

"The fact is that it simply isn't true to call nuclear power the ‘answer’ to the so-called energy gap we face over the next 10 years, and it cannot be the answer to climate change. The earliest that a new nuclear power station could come on stream is around 2017 – too late to fill the energy gap and seven years after the deadline for the UK’s 20% emissions reduction target. Even if Britain built ten new reactors, it's been estimated that nuclear power can only deliver a 4 per cent cut in carbon emissions some time after 2025."

Could the Stig Go Green? by Siân Berry - New Statesman - 14 Jan 08

"The announcement was made by John Hutton on Thursday, but not before we heard from the government’s own Nuclear Consultation Working Group that the second public consultation process had failed hopelessly to make up for the deficiencies of the first. This was drily underlined by Jonathan Dimbleby who called a straw poll on Friday’s Any Questions and couldn’t find a single person in the audience who felt they had been involved in a meaningful debate on the issue."

"It is, I have to admit, a stroke of PR genius for the nuclear industry to have signed up Johnny Ball. If anyone’s image says 'friendly, trusted scientist' to my generation (who are statistically most opposed to nuclear power) then it’s him. And he must be having an impact; it’s like the Fur Council signing up Beatrix Potter as an advocate or, indeed, like an investment bank taking on a Labour Prime Minister. It’s about time the forces of good stole this tactic and gathered a few unlikely allies of our own. Perhaps the Stig should expect a call?"

UK Greens on New Nukes

Two UK Green Party womenfolk speaking truth to nuclear power courtesy of the New Statesman.  Dr. Caroline Lucas is a Green Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Principal Speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales. Siân Berry is the founder of the Alliance against Urban 4×4s and the current Green Party candidate for Mayor of London.

Nuclear Fallout by Caroline Lucas - New Stateman - 11 Jan 08

"The fact is that it simply isn't true to call nuclear power the ‘answer’ to the so-called energy gap we face over the next 10 years, and it cannot be the answer to climate change. The earliest that a new nuclear power station could come on stream is around 2017 – too late to fill the energy gap and seven years after the deadline for the UK’s 20% emissions reduction target. Even if Britain built ten new reactors, it's been estimated that nuclear power can only deliver a 4 per cent cut in carbon emissions some time after 2025."

Could the Stig Go Green? by Siân Berry - New Statesman - 14 Jan 08

"The announcement was made by John Hutton on Thursday, but not before we heard from the government’s own Nuclear Consultation Working Group that the second public consultation process had failed hopelessly to make up for the deficiencies of the first. This was drily underlined by Jonathan Dimbleby who called a straw poll on Friday’s Any Questions and couldn’t find a single person in the audience who felt they had been involved in a meaningful debate on the issue."

"It is, I have to admit, a stroke of PR genius for the nuclear industry to have signed up Johnny Ball. If anyone’s image says 'friendly, trusted scientist' to my generation (who are statistically most opposed to nuclear power) then it’s him. And he must be having an impact; it’s like the Fur Council signing up Beatrix Potter as an advocate or, indeed, like an investment bank taking on a Labour Prime Minister. It’s about time the forces of good stole this tactic and gathered a few unlikely allies of our own. Perhaps the Stig should expect a call?"

Fun With Neocons

A book review in the NY Times of "The Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons" by Jacob Heilbrunn.

The quoted segment echoes my thoughts on how U.S. actions by the current administration, and that of too many of their supporters, are often framed as "not as bad as (horrible person)". This is used as a means of justification of whatever hideous, value neutered to outright immoral policy that gets their power tripping selves off.

We can be horrible because some horrible people are even more horrible? Use the worst in society to define our values and actions? No more moral and ethical lines that we will never cross?

Talk about slippery slopes. Talk about moral relativism. The article opening . . .

Fathers and Sons by Timothy Noah - NY Times - 13 Jan 08

"To be neoconservative is to bear almost daily witness to the resurrection of Adolf Hitler.

'Truly Hitlerian,' the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer pronounced Saddam Hussein’s saber-rattling before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy defense secretary, opined that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers 'misread our system as one that’s weak, that can’t take casualties. ... Hitler made that mistake.' Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary, said of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last spring, 'Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system.'

In the same month, the defense analyst Richard Perle mused on whether it had been 'a correct reading' of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 'to believe that business could be done with him that would produce a result? I don’t think so. These are the difficult decisions. Diplomacy with Hitler. Chamberlain went to Munich, presumably on the theory that you talk to your enemies and not to your friends, and what did it produce?'

Just about the only place the neoconservative movement can’t locate Hitler is Nazi Germany."

Fun With Neocons

A book review in the NY Times of "The Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons" by Jacob Heilbrunn.

The quoted segment echoes my thoughts on how U.S. actions by the current administration, and that of too many of their supporters, are often framed as "not as bad as (horrible person)". This is used as a means of justification of whatever hideous, value neutered to outright immoral policy that gets their power tripping selves off.

We can be horrible because some horrible people are even more horrible? Use the worst in society to define our values and actions? No more moral and ethical lines that we will never cross?

Talk about slippery slopes. Talk about moral relativism. The article opening . . .

Fathers and Sons by Timothy Noah - NY Times - 13 Jan 08

"To be neoconservative is to bear almost daily witness to the resurrection of Adolf Hitler.

'Truly Hitlerian,' the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer pronounced Saddam Hussein’s saber-rattling before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy defense secretary, opined that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers 'misread our system as one that’s weak, that can’t take casualties. ... Hitler made that mistake.' Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary, said of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last spring, 'Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system.'

In the same month, the defense analyst Richard Perle mused on whether it had been 'a correct reading' of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 'to believe that business could be done with him that would produce a result? I don’t think so. These are the difficult decisions. Diplomacy with Hitler. Chamberlain went to Munich, presumably on the theory that you talk to your enemies and not to your friends, and what did it produce?'

Just about the only place the neoconservative movement can’t locate Hitler is Nazi Germany."