Bite Me, Greenpeace

Staying on the whole one-planety theme, the thing I hate most about the modern environmental movement is, of course, any attempted interference with my right to eat animals. If pigs don't want to provide such a versatile source of sustenance that half a Denny's menu consists of glorious permutations of pork products, they jolly well ought to be less delicious. It's their own damn fault. Same goes for koala bears and dolphins.

But the thing I hate second most about environmentalists is their utterly irrational fear of all things nuclear. Nuclear power, in all its varied manifestations, has never hamed anyone.¹ Nuclear weapons programs provide jobs for thousands of hard-working physicists and engineers, particularly in rapid-growth sectors like Iran and North Korea. If these jobs disappear, those scientists may well be forced to build orbital death-rays, or an army of invincible robots. Nuclear power plants generate the electricity that powers our better-funded schools, maintains our homes at a comfortable 60^o when no one's home during the day, and protects our freedom through the shocking of terrorists' genetalia.² Plus, they hardly ever undergo catastrophic meltdown. And no, Pennsylvanians, close doesn't count! In fact, did you know that your body contains countless millions of individual nuclei? That if all those nuclei were suddenly removed, you would die?

Of course, anti-science organizations like Greenpeace don't want you to know that. They hate nuclear power, and want to stop the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the next big step³ in controlled nuclear fusion, and a possible prototype for future power plants. Their explanation is about as coherent and scientifically sound as a Flat-Earth Society memo.

"With 10 billion, we could build 10,000MW offshore windfarms, delivering electricity for 7.5 million European households," said Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace International.

That's super. Exactly how many households are there in Europe again? And 7.5 million wussy little European households are equivalent to, what, maybe half a million red-blooded American households? How exactly are we going to afford several wars and a windmill farm the size of Canada?⁴ Let's instantly halt all research into feasible solutions!

Advocates of fusion research predict that the first commercial fusion electricity might be delivered in 50 to 80 years from now.

Er, no. Total crap. I'm about as pessimistic an "advocate of fusion research" as they come, and even I think 50 years is on the pessimistic end, with 30 years on the optimistic side.

Fusion energy - if it would ever operate - would create a serious waste problem, would emit large amounts of radioactive material and could be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons.

Codswallop! A reactor using deuterium-tritium fuel (currently considered the likelist candidate) will likely produce orders of magnitude less (and less dangerous) radioactive waste than nuclear fission plants. The main byproduct of this fusion reaction is helium. Now, helium may well cause moderate brain damage in children's birthday party celebrants, but no one has yet figured out a way to weaponize it.

Yeah, I know, picking on Greenpeace, an organization so inept it was successfully attacked by French special forces, is like arm-wrestling a quadriplegic. What's frustrating is that environmental groups can only possibly achieve progress by making public appeals using rational argument. Every public debate over global warming, for example, has to contend with the "well, I haven't noticed any problems" side, by citing studies and climate models and whatnot. When you hurl a load of anti-scientific fusion-bashing crap like a pissed-off orangutan, you'd better be ready for people to ignore you when you choose to make rational arguments on other subjects. Yes, I know that hypocrisy works for the intelligent-design crowd, but that's because they're just trying to sway a bunch of illiterate numbskulls. You have to do better, Greenpeace.

Still, the fear part is kinda fun. I've always wanted to work at a nuclear power plant, just so that, every so often, I could round up a bunch of employees at lunch time, put on our hazmat suits, and run screaming away from the plant down Main Street in the nearest town. Good stuff.

1 Who didn't have it comin'.

2 And those of other foreign-lookin' brownish sorts.

3 A misstep counts as a step.

4 Or Delaware or something. You like wind power so much, you calculate it.