Partly due to new year ennui and of course, indolence, posts have been few and far between. As this is the first of '08 and I've not been particularly inspired of late I thought Id start the year with a rant about the stupidity of the UK governments stance on nuclear power.
Really! So its sensible to put short term economic issues ahead of long (very!) term pollution risks. Well, if thats so then let the chairman of BNF or indeed the Cabinet or at least Mr Darling bury all the radioactive shit in their back gardens.
Of course, theres a business opportunity here. If the waste lasts for hundreds of thousands of years this could be your chance to immortality. Hows about a trade in personalized radioactive waste then those in 30,000 AD will be able to irradiate themselves and point a finger and say - gee that G. Brown, what a tosser!!!
On second thoughts, China probably already has an industry doing just that.
2 comments:
But lets think about this for a moment. Options - hippy windfarms and solar powered toilets - a non starter (in macro terms anyway). Oil and energy derivatives (gas, diesel, paraffin (is it a derivative) etc. China/Russia/USA unscrupulously scrabbling to sign up every last organic morsel (and let us not talk about the ensuing blood shed - see Iraq, Afghanistan, and most probably Iran for starters). Biofuels - mmmnn interesting - a cheap energy source from organic matter - surely the economics of biofuels must like solar and wind and other renewables rest on a simultaneous consideration of resource conservation - which goes against everything the free market stands for. The issue unfortunately is one of survival, immediate survival be it as a family, a civilisation or global community. Capitalism has won. We can no longer guarantee a rosy future for our children. We've successfully de-civilised ourselves to the point that we're more vulnerable than our Neanderthal forefathers. The nuclear path is fraught with significant problems but as a survival tool it might just let us enjoy what we have for a little longer (if what we have is really worth handing down to our children). Schumacher's 'Small is Beautiful' is over 30 years old - there's our real answer.
Unfortunately by the same logic the nuclear path inevitably leads to this .
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