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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 2015)
December 9, 2015 Page 7 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. O PINION Dipping Toes in a Big Fat Radioactive Lie Nuclear power no magic cure for climate change government forge a “plan to fund and prototype the new reactors that we badly need.” In other words: What does a guy like me with only $2.2 billion to my name gotta do to get my cor- by e mily S ChWartz g reCo porate welfare Not long ago, no billion- handout? aire worth his cufflinks would Bill Gates is be caught dead without hurl- also advocating ing bales of money at our na- heavy public tion’s educational system. They investment in novel designs that bankrolled charter schools, high- these nuclear cheerleaders swear stakes testing, and the splintering of big high schools into smaller academies. Their failure to make American kids learn more scuffed the luster on this enduring philan- thropic fad. Billionaires have landed, there- fore, on a new mission. As Don- ald Trump might say, they want to make nuclear energy great again. “If we are serious about re- placing fossil fuels, we are going to need nuclear power,” PayPal co-founder and Facebook me- will be safer and cheaper than the ga-investor Peter Thiel crowed in 391 reactors that now generate a New York Times op-ed shortly about one in 10 watts around the before negotiators from 195 na- world. tions gathered in Paris to seal an As the Paris climate talks international climate pact. got underway, the Microsoft Thiel, who personally in- co-founder launched an unprece- vests in nuclear energy, made the dented multibillion-dollar “clean” self-serving demand that the U.S. energy fund, backed by the U.S., Chinese, and Indian governments, as well as other billionaires and some foundations. Don’t be sur- prised if it’s nuclear-friendly. The crowd of rich men with tech cred dipping their toes in these radioactive waters also in- cludes Amazon titan Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen, Gates’ fellow Mi- crosoft co-founder. But there are many reasons why governments, including our own, should resist their call to pump more tax dollars into nuclear energy. Namely: Reac- of safeguarding nuclear waste and cleaning up abandoned ura- nium mines. And nuclear power takes too long to crank up. Remarkably, five of the 62 reactors under construc- tion worldwide have been in the nuclear pipeline for three decades. It’s too slow to stop the climate crisis. Besides — to a much greater extent than solar and wind power — nuclear energy emits its own carbon pollution. Those green- house gas emissions come largely Remarkably, five of the 62 reactors under construction worldwide have been in the nuclear pipeline for three decades. It’s too slow to stop the climate crisis. tors are expensive, they’re very difficult to shield from terrorist and other security threats, and they’re prone to catastrophic ac- cidents that have created ghost towns in Japan and the former Soviet Union. Furthermore, there are still no solutions for meeting the daunting challenges through the use of fossil fuels in activities like reactor construction, waste transportation, and uranium mining. More importantly, successful businessmen ought to be able to spot an uncompetitive industry when they see one. Here’s what Lazard, an in- vestment bank with $180 billion under management, has to say about today’s top energy options: Utility-scale “wind and solar are much cheaper than gas and coal, and less than half the cost of nu- clear.” Renewable energy’s compet- itive edge makes it no surprise that generation from solar power is now growing exponentially and wind power has been expanding by more than 20 percent annual- ly for the past seven years around the world as nukes have fumbled. The total amount of global nuclear energy remained well below 1996 levels in 2014. A total of four new nuclear re- actors in Georgia and South Caro- lina are at least three years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. That bodes badly for the save-our-nukes billionaire class because (sorry, guys) those power stations were supposed to be models for ramping up nuclear energy quickly without cost over- runs. I wonder what they’ll choose as their next losing battle. Columnist Emily Schwartz Gre- co is the managing editor of Oth- erWords, a non-profit national ed- itorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords. org. Syrian People Did Not Choose to be Refugees Surely we can extend a welcoming hand m ajd i Sreb , m.d. Forty-six volunteers went on a medical mission to Jordan to help the disadvantaged Syrian refugees and to restore their faith in humanity. The mis- sion drew together an amazing group of peo- ple who validate the existence of those who are suffering -- through medical care, psychosocial sup- port, food, clothing and most im- portantly, human empathy. Many of us spent days in the Syrian American Medical Soci- ety clinic in Zatari camp, the sec- ond-largest refugee camp in the world. There were always many beautiful and playful children outside our clinic. These children have suffered and witnessed a tremendous amount in their short by lives. Their happy childhoods have been stolen from them and replaced with a bleak present and future. Many of them came with a single parent and some were even born in Zatari. In 2011, a group of Syrians started a non- violent, democratic uprising against the in- justice and lack of po- litical liberty imposed upon them by the As- sad regime. They were met with brutal, violent force. Unfortunately, some started carrying weapons to defend themselves. Many neighboring countries with blessing from major world powers added fuel to fire by allow- ing foreign fighters to enter Syria unchecked. ISIL was, therefore, formed. It is crucial to know that, to the majority of Syrians, both the Assad regime and ISIL are the en- emy. Many see them as two sides of the same token. Since then, more than 10 mil- lion Syrians are internally or ex- ternally displaced, and more than 50 percent of them are children. They are fleeing the violence in- flicted upon them by the regime and ISIL. Since the beginning of the up- to be refugees. They are not try- ing to take away anyone’s job nor live on welfare. They are not coming to steal our freedom. They are pursuing freedom and safety themselves. They do not war so that they can go back to their towns and homes. These people have suffered enough for almost five years in the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II. The Amer- Many neighboring countries with blessing from major world powers added fuel to fire by allowing foreign fighters to enter Syria unchecked. rising more than 250,000 people were killed, mostly by the Syrian regime. Every day, civilians are victims of both indiscriminate and targeted aerial attacks. In addition, hundreds of thousands of civilians live in areas that have been be- sieged by the Syrian government since 2012. Syrian people did not choose seek to impose Islam or sharia law on anyone. They are simply looking for a pursuit of happiness, and an op- portunity to earn a living and have their kids go to decent schools without discrimination, away from bombs, arrests and siege. If you ask many of them, they would rather the world help them end the ican people who were generous enough to accept about 760,000 Vietnamese refugees, and many Bosnian refugees are surely able to extend a welcoming hand to less than 0.01 percent of the dis- placed Syrians. Majd Isreb, M.D. is an immi- grant from Syria and lives in Van- couver.
