Why Climate Activists Will Go Nuclear Power Or Go Extinct - 2020

Nuclear Power Industry

Shellenberger reports that in October 2019, the British climate activist group Extinction Rebellion carried out two weeks of civil disobedience in London and other cities around the world. Six thousand activists blocked the five main bridges that cross the River Thames, which flows through London, preventing people from getting to work or home. An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson went on national television and made a series of alarming claims. “Billions of people are going to die.” “Life on Earth is dying.” And, “Governments aren’t addressing it.”

This is an important article from Shellenberger becasue for the last decade he have been obsessed with a question: Why are the people who are the most alarmist about environmental issues also opposed to all of the obvious solutions?  Those who raise the alarm about food shortages oppose expanding the use of chemical fertilizers, tractors, and GMOs. Those who raise the alarm about Amazon deforestation promote policies that fragment the forest. And those who raise the alarm about climate change oppose nuclear energy, the largest source of zero-emissions energy in developed nations. Why is that?

Here are some excerpts from his article. But be sure to read to entire article.

"It is not an academic question for me. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an energy expert for 10 of them. I was adamantly against nuclear energy until about a decade ago when it became clear renewables couldn’t replace fossil fuels. After educating myself about the facts, I came to support the technology.  As many of you know, Over the last five years, I have campaigned, as founder and president of my small and independent nonprofit research organization, Environmental Progress, to expand the use of nuclear energy. During that time our main opponents have not been climate skeptics or even the fossil fuel industry but rather other climate activists. 

This is the case around the world. It is climate alarmist Democrats and Greens who are seeking to shut down nuclear plants in the US and Europe. Greta Thunberg last year condemned the technology as “extremely dangerous, expensive, & time-consuming,” which is false. And Green New Deal architect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has advocated closing the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York, which is now being replaced with natural gas. 

In nearly every situation around the world, support for nuclear energy from climate activists like Thunberg and AOC would make the difference between nuclear plants staying open or closing, and being built or not being built. Had Thunberg spoken out in defense of nuclear power she likely could have prevented two reactors in her home nation of Sweden from being closed. Had AOC advocated for Indian Point rather than condemned it as dangerous, it could likely keep operating, for at least 40 years longer.

That’s because the main problem facing nuclear energy is that it’s unpopular—and far more among progressives than conservatives, and far more among women than men. There are no good technical or economic reasons that nations from the US and Japan to Sweden and Germany are closing their nuclear plants. Center-left governments are closing them early in response to the demands of progressives and Greens—the very same people who are claiming climate change will kill billions of people.

Trying to understand why that is set me off on the journey that led me to write my new book, Apocalypse Never, which HarperCollins will release soon. I had originally envisioned the book as focused narrowly on nuclear. But after Thunberg, AOC, and Extinction Rebellion activists made their widely-publicized claims of climate armageddon, I decided to expand my book’s focus to go through the evidence and separate science fiction from scientific facts. 

There are a lot of pro-nuclear people in the West who have largely given up hope for the technology, pointing to stubborn resistance from the public, particularly the Left. Britain shows why we shouldn’t do so. A consensus has grown in the UK among Conservatives and much of Labour that it needs nuclear not just for climate change but also to reduce its dependence on imported natural gas. And now nuclear has Zion Lights on its side.

Over time, I believe, the contradiction between preaching climate apocalypse and opposing nuclear energy will become increasingly untenable. The claim that renewables can substitute for fossil fuels in high-energy societies has been repeatedly falsified for more than a half-century. Thunberg, AOC, and Extinction Rebellion leaders will eventually need to admit that we need nuclear, or face a loss of credibility and relevance."