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Nuclear Free
Related: About this forumTrampling Science to Boost Nuclear Power
http://fair.org/home/trampling-science-to-boost-nuclear-power/
Trampling Science to Boost Nuclear Power
When the Washington Post and New York Times are making the same corporate-friendly point, its safe to assume that some PR agency somewhere is earning its substantial fees.
In this case, the subject is the need for nuclear powerand, for the Post editorial board (4/18/16), for fracking as well. Standing in the way of this in the Posts version is favorite target Bernie Sanders, while the Times business columnist Eduardo Porter (4/19/16) blames the scientific phobias and taboos of progressive environmentalists.
While campaigning in New York, Mr. Sanders has played up his opposition to nuclear power, the Post editorialists wrote, citing his contention that the Indian River nuclear plant, 25 miles from Manhattan, is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Sanders criticism came as little surprise, the Post declared; he had already promised to phase out nuclear power nationwide by steadily retiring existing reactors.
If we are serious about global warming, we will ignore Mr. Sanders sloganeering, the paper urged. Nuclear accounts for about a fifth of the countrys electricity, and it is practically emissions-free.
In reality, nuclear power is not emissions-free; the process of mining and enriching uranium fuel, along with constructing nuclear plants, operating backup generators during reactor downtime, disposal of nuclear waste and eventual decommissioning of plants all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
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Trampling Science to Boost Nuclear Power (Original Post)
NeoGreen
Jul 2016
OP
kristopher
(29,798 posts)1. The most relevant part of Naureckas' discussion...
...wrapping political and ethical choices in the mantle of science is what Porters column is all aboutcomparing to climate change denial the lefts failure to accept the scientific consensus on nuclear power, meaning that 65 percent of scientists favored building more nuclear plants in a Pew poll. The difference between an actual scientific consensus on the physical fact of global warming and a political preference expressed by two out of three scientists for a particular energy policy ought to be obvious; conflating the two is doing the opposite of what Porter claims to be advocating for, which is somehow disassociating the scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in.
Repeat:
The difference between an actual scientific consensus on the physical fact of global warming and a political preference expressed by two out of three scientists for a particular energy policy ought to be obvious; conflating the two is doing the opposite of what Porter claims to be advocating for, which is somehow disassociating the scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in.