Why pro-nuclear environmentalism has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded - and how to change this Barry Brook

Why pro-nuclear environmentalism has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded - and how to change this Barry Brook | 9 July 2011 at 9:41 PM | Categories: Emissions, Future, Nuclear | URL: http://wp.me/piCIJ-1fn

…means No Chance of halting climate change

With George Monbiot on the debating warpath against Greenpeace and in support of nuclear power as a serious mechanism for tackling climate change, and Mark Lynas' new book on planetary boundaries and techno-fixes, "The God Species", now out (despite some weird problems on the launch day), it really is time for environmentalists to get serious about starting (and sustaining) a pro-nuclear movement. Not just arguments of logic, science and engineering and not just appeals for people to 'do the numbers and figure it out' (although these are still important) -- no, we need a real 'can do, must do' movement. What do I mean, and how do we achieve this? I'll let my friend Ben Heard explain, in the brilliant guest post below (which is also up on DecarboniseSA.com).
p.S. I'm reading The God Species right now (it's excellent) -- will do a review in due course.
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Why pro-nuclear has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded

Guest Post by Ben Heard. Ben is Director of Adelaide-based advisory firm ThinkClimate Consulting, a Masters graduate of Monash University in Corporate Environmental Sustainability, and a member of the TIA Environmental and Sustainability Action Committee. After several years with major consulting firms, Ben founded ThinkClimate and has since assisted a range of government, private and not-for profit organisations to measure, manage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and move towards more sustainable operations. Ben publishes regular articles aimed at challenging thinking and perceptions related to climate change and sustainable energy at decarbonisesa.com.
There is no point denying it. The anti-nuclear movement in Australia has been remarkably effective. Combined with abundant cheap coal, Australia’s anti –nuclear movement has kept us the only one of the world’s top 16 economies not to employ nuclear power. It made people like me grow up anti-nuclear without ever really being asked to think about it. The result is some of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world; in South Australia around 720g CO₂-e/kWh (which is one of the lowest levels in the country I might add. NSW, Victoria and Queensland are all much higher), compared to a mere 90g CO₂-e/kWh in nuclear dominated France.
Meanwhile, the pro-nuclear position has, to my observation, failed to ever really gain much traction, and has evidently failed to deliver change. This is said with all respect to the many smart and passionate people who have worked on the issue for much longer than I.
Why has the anti-nuclear movement succeeded? It is easy and tempting to write-off its success to dishonourable actions from the leadership of the movement which:

• Lies
• Distorts information
• Grants itself the luxury of being single-issue, and ignores the rest of the world’s problems when they don’t suit them
• Uses fear-mongering freely and to great effect
• Never, ever feels obliged to correct the record when their fear-mongering is subsequently shown to be completely false

Um…then how are you holding the sign?

While these points and things like it are arguably true (I have certainly encountered all of the above myself), it grants the anti-nuclear movement all the power by taking the focus off the shortcomings of the pro-nuclear approach.  It’s also clear that we can challenge these things when the opportunities arise, but we can’t change them. This makes it all largely beside the point.
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