Greens must examine their conscience over nuclear energy...

...while domestic (New Zealand) greens still cling to their anti-nuclear phobias, greens internationally are confronting the lies propounded over the last 30 years by greenpeace and other green fundamentalists about the reality of nuclear power generation.

Nothing has damaged green credibility more, or continues to demonstrate green anti-capitalism and green left wing hypocrisy better than their stance on this issue...

...Says self proclaimed climate change activist and environmentalist Mark Lynas...Global warming and finite resources mean our way of life is more threatened than ever, and it's time for the environmental movement to face up to some hard truths...

...Even Chernobyl, surely the worst-imaginable case for a nuclear disaster, was far less deadly than most people think. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, 28 people died due to acute radiation sickness – all firemen and power plant workers, some of whom had been exposed to radiation doses as high as one million millirems. By comparison, 167 men were killed during the Piper Alpha disaster on a North Sea oil rig in 1988. But it is the long-term effects from Chernobyl that tend to scare people most. In a 2006 report, Greenpeace claimed that “60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000”.
These figures, if correct, would make Chernobyl one of the worst single man-made disasters of the last century. But are they correct? The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation reports 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children and young people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, but very few deaths (thyroid cancer is mostly treatable). Indeed, it concludes, “There is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident”...more here...with ongoing discussion/comments...

...but Mike Lynas and other pro-nuclear progressives will not confront the elephant in the room. That elephant is the zealous anti-capitalist, nihilist mindset of fundamentalist greens. As I pointed out in a (deleted) post at his website, Mark Lynas and other pro-nuclear greens must acknowledge that for many in the green movement public access to cheap safe energy is a total anathema, hence their illogical attitude to nuclear energy...