I believe the argument is that it may be the lesser of many evils, not that it's harmless. I think it's a matter of evaluating our remaining realistic alternatives. Like:
1) Re-embrace nuclear power, do our best to safeguard the waste, knowing that someday (50? 100? 10,000 years?) from now, it will be an issue we'd have to deal with. It may be at a local, national, or global scale... hard to say. Could leak naturally, from unexpected disasters, terrorism, warfare, whatever. But it buys us some time, and can help slow down climatic impacts so the world has a few more years to adapt. It still won't be pretty.
2) Pretend like the world is suddenly going to get behind renewables and clean energy and drastically cut emissions AND recapture much of the carbon we emitted already. One, this isn't going to happen, and two, it's already too late. Best case, this makes the future decades a bit better for first world countries, but it's already too late for most of the rest of the world.
3) Do nothing: The mostly likely outcome, with or without more nuclear power. Life carries on, many humans will perish from climate change domino effects (draught, floods, desertification, habitat loss, whatever) and the resulting international instability. Many more other species will perish. The remaining life will adapt and carry on, and the world keeps going, but it's gonna be a painful few decades/centuries and our kids will hate us, but on the plus side, we've been saying that for decades now so it's already an intergenerational norm. Each generation leaves the world a little worse for the next, until enough humans die off, the planet recovers a little, and we do it all over again.
Arguably embracing nuclear power is the least evil of these realistic remaining options, though it's highly unlikely enough people and nations could be convinced. People in the aggregate are phenomenally bad at evaluating risk, especially long-term, whether it's nuclear or climate impacts, so absolutely nothing will get done.
But the advocacy isn't wrong in and of itself... nuclear is a measure of last resort, especially now that the IPCC has proven completely ineffective at persuading countries to take other meaningful measures. Nuclear can't save us, but it can lessen the pain to come a little bit, kinda like hospice for the planet.
> I believe the argument is that it may be the lesser of many evils, not that it's harmless.
If it's not harmless, perhaps you can point me to some legitimate harm it caused?
Everyone, at this point, defers to predictions someone made decades ago that never panned out.
If the reactor saves thousands of lives a year, and kills on average less than one half of one person in its operating span, then it's better than harmless, it causes negative harm
Yes, nuclear power actually is better than harmless, statistically speaking
Safeguarding the waste is neurotic nonsense that's talked about by people with no medical backgrounds who want to show how wise they are.
People bathe in the stuff with no harm, to show how safe it is.
If you can't name a single human being who's ever been harmed by it, then it's time to stop safeguarding it. The safety theater has extremely serious negative effects.
All this fake safety discussion is why nuclear power didn't solve climate change in the 1980s.
Really, genuinely, stop pretending a risk exists. Not a small one, not a comparative one, nothing.
It really does not.
I know it can be hard to accept, but you literally cannot show a single person in human history being harmed by this stuff.
It's safer than bread.
It's time to stop the theater. The planet is dying. Put down the fake wisdom.
1) Re-embrace nuclear power, do our best to safeguard the waste, knowing that someday (50? 100? 10,000 years?) from now, it will be an issue we'd have to deal with. It may be at a local, national, or global scale... hard to say. Could leak naturally, from unexpected disasters, terrorism, warfare, whatever. But it buys us some time, and can help slow down climatic impacts so the world has a few more years to adapt. It still won't be pretty.
2) Pretend like the world is suddenly going to get behind renewables and clean energy and drastically cut emissions AND recapture much of the carbon we emitted already. One, this isn't going to happen, and two, it's already too late. Best case, this makes the future decades a bit better for first world countries, but it's already too late for most of the rest of the world.
3) Do nothing: The mostly likely outcome, with or without more nuclear power. Life carries on, many humans will perish from climate change domino effects (draught, floods, desertification, habitat loss, whatever) and the resulting international instability. Many more other species will perish. The remaining life will adapt and carry on, and the world keeps going, but it's gonna be a painful few decades/centuries and our kids will hate us, but on the plus side, we've been saying that for decades now so it's already an intergenerational norm. Each generation leaves the world a little worse for the next, until enough humans die off, the planet recovers a little, and we do it all over again.
Arguably embracing nuclear power is the least evil of these realistic remaining options, though it's highly unlikely enough people and nations could be convinced. People in the aggregate are phenomenally bad at evaluating risk, especially long-term, whether it's nuclear or climate impacts, so absolutely nothing will get done.
But the advocacy isn't wrong in and of itself... nuclear is a measure of last resort, especially now that the IPCC has proven completely ineffective at persuading countries to take other meaningful measures. Nuclear can't save us, but it can lessen the pain to come a little bit, kinda like hospice for the planet.