What we're up against
A short, rather laughable tirade over at BAUT.
The toxic wastes from atomic power systems will poison planet Earth for
thousands of years to come. Our soil and water are being poisoned by the
widespread burying of nuclear waste on land and sea! Atomic energy is always in
conflict with all Life, because the very nature of 'atom-splitting' is
destruction not construction. For this reason, it can never be used for peace or
peaceful activities. How can peace be achieved by that which is by nature
unpeaceful? Splitting atoms disrupts the flow of force through them.
Never mind the tired regurgitation of blatantly misleading hyperbole about waste and pollution at the beginning. What's really interesting is the pseudo-scientific tone of the rest of it. Nuclear fission is apparently bad because splitting atoms is "in conflict with all Life" because it is "destruction not construction".
Now, what the hell does that have to do with anything?
Natural radioactive decay, the kind of decay, which fuelled the primordial vents from where life first sprang, is the destruction of atoms. Metabolism is the destruction of all sorts of molecules.
This really sums up the quasi-religious core at the heart of many environmentalists. Allusions to vague concepts such as "the flow of force" through atoms are as far removed from really scientific basis as you can get. And yet this particular guy is basing his nuclear opposition on that.
In a scientific debate, we can run circles around your average environmentalists. But if they fuel their position with this New Age, junk science rubbish, how are we supposed to tackle them. If nuclear must be opposed because splitting atoms disrupts the flow of force through them, given that the statement is nonsense, how can we argue against it.
You show an argument is nonsense, when that is what it is meant to be from the start.
3 comments:
I think you've just about got the situation pegged.
I don't worry a whole lot about that yahoo making inroads in the scientific community, basically because his/her butt was kicked from here to Timbuktu. It really shows how much work we have to do in the non-technical world to get nuclear power accepted. And I'd really prefer to know the real reason--which is apparently what we see there--than go on a bunch of wild goose chases, answering questions that are really just a facade for a reactionary agenda.
I find that young people today are much more familiar with the way technology is developed than any generation before, due to the relative openness of the process of software engineering (even when the code per se is proprietary). These young people, even non-technical young people, are looking for a reason to support nuclear power--because they haven't heard anything good, and what they have heard doesn't jibe with their experience of how a technology is developed. This combines with a tendency to smell a phony a mile away to leave them extremely skeptical of anti-nuclearism, and our response needs to be geared to addressing them with candor and respect, so we can organize them (especially non-technical students) into active supporters instead of passive participants. See also my record of a talk from a while back.
My ear is as close to the ground as I can consistently keep it, and I've found that the anti-nuclear groups who have revealed their response have come to the same conclusion: if we convert this opportunity into real support, they're toast. But we've got to actually do it, and act like a counterculture for it to work.
Is this your experience?
This incident is certainly going to find its way into the Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day; I'm probably going to try a different tactic--comparing it with creationism--to try to feel out some more soundbites for a "science counterculture."
Does the poster in question use electricity (to access the Internet perhaps)?
Electrons untimely ripp'd from their comfortable orbits, tossed about on sea of churning magnetic fields...
Do they cook their food?
Proteins writhing, dying in a furnace of destructive coagulation...
If you cut them, do they bleed and then clot?
A titanic struggle, white blood cells beating back the bacterial foe, killing, engulfing, dismembering...
If drivel like this was the best that they could come up with, then we'd have nothing to worry about.
The more damaging lies are the subtle FUD about safety and the costs that are multiplied by demanding that nuclear power meet standards higher than almost any other human endeavor.
More damaging are the lies that foster the image that wind and solar are comparable in scale, creating the illusion that it is a equal choice.
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