by Walt Robbins

Created on: February 09, 2009

Nuclear Summer?

Some thoughts on the nuclear establishment's relationship with the global warming movement

February, 2009

Did the world nuclear establishment instigate the concept of global warming in order to insure its own survival and potential expansion?

Some may think "instigate" is too strong a word. However, the influence of the nuclear establishment on the development and perpetuation of the global warming-climate change movement during the 1980's and 90's to the present, certainly raises some serious questions about its role.

Prior to the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992 and the 1997 Kyoto assemblage, the world's nuclear establishment was sustained by financial "life supports" from governments and was facing imminent collapse. Since the 1970's, orders for new reactors had all but dried up. Even nuclear engineers were becoming an endangered species resulting from lack of new projects.

During the 1980's, the time was ripe for the nuclear establishment to escalate its efforts to assure its survival and to expand its horizons. Its actions suggest that its strategy was designed to achieve a "nuclear renaissance." The strategy appears to have coupled the growing world demands for energy with the idea of a human-induced world-wide environmental "meltdown" caused by greenhouse gasses. Nuclear was portrayed by its advocates as the ideal solution to this two-pronged energy and environmental threat.

However, it appears that the nuclear establishment had been working on this project for a much longer period of time.

According to former Australian National Environment Correspondent, Alan Tate, the nuclear establishment has been promoting itself as a solution to climate change for decades.

He points out that its representatives were in abundance during the 1988 climate change convention in Argentina.
"They inundated the international negotiators, including with what appeared to be a number of front groups like Students for Nuclear Power,"

Furthermore, in the UK during the 1970's, nuclear energy interests worked with Margaret Thatcher's government to use global warming as a way of boosting nuclear power.

A UK News, March 4th, 2007, article recounts a BBC Channel 4 documentary made by Producer Martin Durkin called 'Global Warming Is Lies.' It depicts how the global warming research drive really began when Mrs. Thatcher gave money to scientists to prove burning coal and oil was harmful, as part of her intense effort to stimulate the growth of
nuclear power.

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