No, that’s not an ironic title, as anybody who deals with either the anti-vaccination or the anti-nuclear power crowd* for any length of time will readily enough attest. Ronald Bailey of Reason (H/T: Instapundit) is busy beating his head against the wall over the smug, self-congratulatory rhetoric of James Speth (from the latter group): Bailey had to read Speth’s book, and noted that Speth was bragging over helping to block the production of fast breeder reactors. Now, you can make the argument that blocking these kinds of nuclear plants is a good thing, as fast breeder reactors produce Evil Sinful ScaryDevil Killing-Metal plutonium and The Triple-Cursed Dirt of Hell radioactive waste; and if nuclear weapons are your absolutely greatest worry, well, it’s a free country. But Speth’s supposed greatest worry is global warming.
Or, as Bailey notes:
…in an alternative universe in which 200 reactors come online, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be about 35 percent lower than they currently are. In other words, the reactors that Speth opposed could have been a huge part of the solution to what Speth claims is humanity’s “biggest threat.”
They could have, but that would have been a violation of Speth’s religious beliefs. And we should all stop pretending that we think that the anti-nuclear Left is motivated by anything more rational than a particularly illogical theology; or that the Democratic party isn’t happy to pander to them.
Moe Lane
*Or the frighteningly high percentage of the Democratic party whose reaction to seeing the second plane smash into the World Trade Center live, on national television was to muse Hmm. How did the US government fake that?
Crossposted to RedState.
Steve Maley
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
I have given up arguing with
illinoisconservative (Diary) Thursday, October 8th at 10:45AM EST (link)liberals about nuclear power. The science is there, but they refuse to look at it.
Whether you believe in global warming (GW) or not, nuclear power makes sense. Liberals believe that since many conservatives are skeptical about global warming, that we are just fine with throwing tons of real pollutants (other than CO2) in to the air, into coal waste pits that leach into our groundwater, etc.. This conservative isn’t.
Nuclear power is clean and safe. It solves all the greenhouse gas emission problems for the Global Warming crowd. Yet, they are nearly 100% against it. Except of course Obama who pays lip service to it.. “We’ll consider it.. look into it” which is Dem-speak for “no way in hell!”.
It could also help in CA
ceili_dancer (Diary) Thursday, October 8th at 4:49PM EST (link)With the water shortages that we have in CA, we could build plants near the ocean and use the distilled water (from the steam) for a source of water in the area. There could be safeguards for radiation leakage, but I think it is easily feasable, therefore, it won’t happen.
Let's face it
mustango (Diary) Thursday, October 8th at 10:55AM EST (link)Matt Groening has been our country’s de-facto Nuclear Energy Czar for the past 20 years.
“I just miss — I miss being anonymous.” — Barack Obama
I fully sympathize, Mr. President. I miss you being anonymous too.