It may not be freezing yet, but it's surely getting a little chilly in hell. One of the co-founders of Greenpeace now says, in a Newsweek interview, that perhaps nuclear energy isn't quite the evil it has been depicted:
ZAKARIA: At Greenpeace, you fought against nuclear energy. What changed?
MOORE: My belief, in retrospect, is that because we were so focused on the destructive aspect of nuclear technology and nuclear war, we made the mistake of lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons, as if all things nuclear were evil. And indeed today, Greenpeace still uses the word "evil" to describe nuclear energy. I think that's as big a mistake as if you lumped nuclear medicine in with nuclear weapons. Nuclear medicine uses radioactive isotopes to successfully treat millions of people every year, and those isotopes are all produced in nuclear reactors. That's why I left Greenpeace: I could see that my fellow directors, none of whom had any science education, were starting to deal with issues around chemicals and biology and genetics, which they had no formal training in, and they were taking the organization into what I call "pop environmentalism," which uses sensationalism, misinformation, fear tactics, etc., to deal with people on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level.
As Moore points out, alternative sources such as wind and solar power can be a factor, but never a major one. If we want an option other than fossil fuels with the potential to supply our world's growing need for energy, nuclear is the best bet.
