Radiation kills. That is a fact, established by scientific bodies like the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and incorporated into government-established laws and regulations across the world intended to reduce one’s possibility of receiving unintended radiation exposure. It is a fact recognized, for the most part, even by the world’s nuclear power industry, which generates…
Civil society finally broke through with a loud voice yesterday at the COP 21 global climate summit. For a week-and-a-half, activists and independent energy and environmental groups had been relegated to the sidelines–literally. The only place where anyone could hold anything resembling a protest is on the side of a walkway between exhibit halls, and…
Last Saturday, December 5, two NIRS staff arrived in Paris and joined anti-nuclear colleagues from across Europe for the United Nations climate conference. Officially, this is the 21st Conference of Parties on climate, or COP 21 for short. All year, we have been working as part of the Don’t Nuke the Climate coalition, preparing to…
If you think you’ve been seeing a lot more pro-nuclear propaganda in the media than usual in the past couple of weeks, well, it’s not your imagination. The nuclear industry and its champions are out in force, publishing articles and appearing in the media wherever and whenever they can in what may be a last-ditch…
Every successful campaign for social change causes reaction. After all, if the campaign weren’t hitting at vested interests, weren’t causing disruption for some entity, then there would be no need for a campaign–its goals would simply be adopted by acclamation. Indeed, campaigns that don’t generate reaction are campaigns that don’t succeed: that means they haven’t…
This post first appeared on Power for the People, a blog focused on energy issues in Virginia, the home base of Dominion Resources–a company that is an industry laggard when it comes to renewable energy issues, and is still pursuing the possibility of building a third nuclear reactor at its North Anna site despite its…
November 13, 2015 Dear John, Thanks for the e-mail yesterday from your PR firm, notifying me of the press conference you’re planning on December 3 in Paris, in conjunction with the COP 21 climate negotiations. Though I have to admit I was a little surprised to receive it, seeing as how you never responded to…
Imagine it’s October 2017. A young conservative, let’s say Marco Rubio (because the idea of the other young conservative in the race, Ted Cruz, is just too odious), has been elected President. He and his new energy secretary and new treasurer decide what the U.S. needs more than anything is some shiny new nuclear power…
It’s no great revelation to say that the mainstream media, fractured though it may be these days, holds great power. It’s not direct power; the media can’t make actual decisions. Rather, the media grabs a theme–a meme if you want–and holds on to it, and repeats it, and provides slight twists to it so it…
There are some questions that are simply unanswerable; for example, how is it that Donald Trump’s approval rating is not zero? What defect in the U.S. educational system has resulted in some actual adults, with actual grade school, high school, and perhaps even college degrees, believing that an egomaniacal, perennially publicity desperate billionaire has anyone’s…