Columnist Deroy Murdoch has already figured out what environmentalists are against. But what he can't figure out is what they might actually be for:
If Albert Gore, Jr. is right and global warming is genuine, grave, and the fault of mankind, why do he and so many environmentalists oppose measures that would reduce those pesky carbon-dioxide emissions? Power sources that could cut atmospheric CO2 rarely seem good enough to satisfy the greens.Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Environment, Electricity
Unlike oil and coal, nuclear power does not generate CO2. It may be the most practical, atmosphere-friendly power source now available. And yet the former vice-president seems unimpressed.
"I’m skeptical about it playing a much larger role,” he said in London’s Guardian newspaper last May 31. “I don’t think it’s going to be a silver bullet.”
True, nuclear plants produce radioactive waste that must be stored somewhere. Despite an impressive safety record in America, where nuclear power meets 20 percent of energy demand -- and even more so in France, where 75 percent of power is nuclear -- the potential remains for catastrophic accidents or sabotage. But as Gore and his pals should understand, life involves trade-offs between low-risk options and clear-and-present dangers. If global warming truly is the unfolding horror show that environmentalists say it is, then why do they consider atomic energy even more dangerous?
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Environmentalists seem to think conservation, ethanol, and perhaps attractive-but-costly solar power can halt global warming in its tracks. That’s dubious. If this supposed problem truly is the imminent planetary death sentence that global warmers say it is, they should grow up and fight CO2, not the tools to lasso it.
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