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CLINTON ADMINISTRATION GLOBAL WARMING PROPOSAL TAKES ORWELLIAN "HEAT"

Letter to the Editors
October 27, 2000

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION GLOBAL WARMING PROPOSAL TAKES ORWELLIAN "HEAT"

To the Editors,

"WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

If George Orwell were alive today, he'd add one more to his infamous list: NUCLEAR POWER IS "SUSTAINABLE."

This is the Orwellian contention that Clinton Administration negotiators presented at the September global warming emissions meeting in Lyon, France; and which they'll repeat at the November 13th COP-6 global warming emissions meeting in the Hague, Netherlands.

And it is absurd.

Few environmental issues are more urgent than the issue of Global Warming. The recent report issued by the International Panel on Climate Change no longer leaves this in doubt.

For years, safe-energy proponents have called for an aggressive move towards more sustainable, renewable energy resources, and increased energy efficiency as the primary way to halt and reverse the potential damaging Global Warming effects caused by addictive fossil fuel consumption. While small steps have been taken, these resources have not been expanded nearly enough to counter predicted Global Warming impacts. The technology isn't lacking; the political will is.

Now, U.S. negotiators dare to propose that nuclear power plants receive credits for global warming abatement through the "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) program.

Under this proposal reactors would be treated like genuine "sustainable" energy resources -- like wind and solar power. If this deception succeeds, it would be the green-light to build more nuke plants worldwide as an officially sanctioned means of combating global warming. Such reactor sales may fall under the conditions of international globalization treaties like WTA and GATT, making legitimate local environmental opposition impossible, and insuring that truly renewable energy and energy efficiency programs again receive only token consideration, even though they are cheaper, quicker and more effective means to reduce Global Warming than is nuclear power.

Many Third World countries oppose this pro-nuclear proposal. They see it as a form of "nuclear neo-colonialism." Cash-strapped Third World countries would be saddled with all the attendant problems nuclear power brings (nuclear waste, proliferation threats, plant security, high costs, dependency on foreign imports for fuel, accidental and routine radioactive releases), on smaller budgets than those available in developed nations. Many would prefer smaller-scale, de-centralized projects based on local renewable energy resources and improved energy efficiency, and said so at the Lyon meeting.

Nuclear non-proliferation activists don't want this either. They've seen that everywhere the so-called "peaceful atom" has gone, the pursuit of nuclear weapons is sure to follow.

This Orwellian nuclear doublespeak -- that nuclear power is somehow "sustainable" -- must be stopped. People should contact President Clinton, demanding that he tell his Global Warming negotiators to remove the proposal to consider nuclear power for CDM credits; and to aggressively promote true renewables and energy efficiency programs as meaningful and more effective ways of combating Global Warming.

Gratefully,

Dave Kraft
Director

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