December 9, 2015
Page 7
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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.