!! NUCLEAR SOLUTION TO AIR POLLUTION !!

Photo by Trougnouf, via Wikimedia Commons: Doel, Belgium

Carbon pollution is so much riskier than radioactive pollution.  The Three Mile Island nuclear accident (1979) rocked me, but on further reflection (and documented carbon pollution trends) I’ve come around to recognizing that the world needs nuclear energy if we are not to smother ourselves in carbon toxins, which are much more deadly than risks of nuclear accidents.  

I’ve recently finished reading a book about carbon titled Symphony in C, (where c=carbon) by Professor Robert Hazen, of the Deep Carbon Observatory.  And today I’ve pondered an interview with nuclear advocate Michael Shellenberger, about our need for nuclear generation.  (Note:  Schellenberger is dismissive of much environmental activism, so I suggest skipping forward to his central thesis in the linked interview, beginning with the subhead Nuclear Existential Anxiety where he effectively deconstructs our nuclear dread.

On a positive note is this very upbeat essay by Rebecca Solnit  on ten ways to confront the environmental crisis without losing hope. (It’s a bit long, but very worthwhile.)

Wolfsburg, Germany. Photo by Felipe Tureba/EPA.

> > > UPDATE :  Friend Jim Conrad at BackyardNature.net shared an important counter argument, from a retired nuclear engineer, on the many problems of fusion energy, detailed at the BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS