This narrative holds only so long as one completely disregards the potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima. The simple fact of the matter is no technology exists to adequately and safely address the worst-case failure scenarios. We would do better to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst reversing deforestation during a transition to solar than to build even one more nuclear plant.
The Fukushima incident is very far from potentially extinction level. You provide no numbers just do the usual empty nuke-bashing. Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. I guess when it will turn out that pumping more CO2 wasn't the best idea it will also be nuclear industry's fault.
>Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green.
In case people are curious about this claim the reason Germany's "renewable energy" releases so much CO2 is because a large portion of their 'renewable energy' is burning wood.
Most tree farms don't let trees grow 100 years either.
>Based on consumption trends in our region, using wood to generate power here or to make fuel pellets for power generation in Europe is projected to produce higher levels of atmospheric carbon(300%) than fossil fuels for 35 to 50 years. After that time, carbon levels will begin to fall as regrowing forests absorb CO2 from previous combustion, but it is likely too late to avoid irreversible effects on the climate system.
Ad hominem much? Try doing your own research rather than casting aspersions. Mutant fish turning up in the Pacific. Japanese fishermen unable to catch fish. Deleting that food source has very strong repercussions for the survival of the human race, let alone a highly radioactive payload that is god knows where and likely in the water table.
There was nothing ad hominem in my previous post, but now here is some: I'm talking about nuclear industry, but it seems you are talking about captain planet or teenage mutant turtles...
Mutations happen regardless of nuclear spills. They are a driving force of evolution.
Now more seriously:
The human race would easily survive without seafish. Maybe in smaller numbers, but for example in the inlands people eat much less seafish, as they don't have seas nearby ;) A century ago not much seafish was available in the inlands, yet the European inland population was comparable in numbers to the current population.
Radioactive materials were in the ground already, and have been solved into water, which people drank, and had comparable life expectency (shorter, but also due to numerous other factors).
Poisoning the wells and ocean is not very good, especially for business, as many people are irrationally afraid of radiation, and even suspicion of possibility of radiation hurts just as much as actual hazardous contamination to the sales of a product. Apart from that it would truly cause large economic problems, as large areas would have to be excluded from agricultural use, yet nothing like extinction would happen. Even after Chernobyl some people are still alive in Eastern Europe. Even animals live mostly happily in the zone...
>The human race would easily survive without seafish. Maybe in smaller numbers, but for example in the inlands people eat much less seafish, as they don't have seas nearby ;)
If you really want to go down that route then the human race can easily survive without clean air, water, ground or any animal life on this planet. Why would we need any of that? We, at least a few of us, could just as well be living in sealed underground bunkers powered by thermal energy while eating mushrooms all day and recycling our pee and sweat. Doesn't that sound like a lovely future? ;)
>A century ago not much seafish was available in the inlands, yet the European inland population was comparable in numbers to the current population.
They didn't need seafish because they did have enough land for agriculture, many other places, especially insular nation states and Asia in general, did not and do not have that luxury. I also doubt that current European inland population numbers are in any way comparable with the population numbers of a century ago, back in 1900 global population didn't even break 2 billion, now we are at over 7 billion.
Some local contaminations (Chernobyl, Fukushima) are not going to contaminate the whole planet, at most few hundred thousand square kilometers each. This is not in any way a desired event, and if nuclear technology would be developed, and not demonized, its probability could be far smaller, as many technologies are already available to avoid such accidents, which have all happened on old power plants.
The German population is about 30% larger than it was 100 years ago. The industrial revolution resulted in a population boom, which has had most if its effect already in Europe by that time, that is why I referred to Europe. On one hand the world wars have resulted in many lost lives, yet the population boom since then happened mostly in the developing world since then.
Now while this is not a desired development in human history, but inlands of continents could support life in large enough numbers to have civilization(s) survive, even if the net number of humans would be smaller than currently.
Please rest assured, we will not be forced to live in bunkers because of Fukushima, and even if another such tragedy would happen, we could mostly keep out lifestyles, until the global warming caused problems would cause much more changes in it.
Many a little makes a mickle, as such those "some local contaminations" can add up very quickly to a very large scale, especially considering how long these contaminations last.
> This is not in any way a desired event, and if nuclear technology would be developed, and not demonized, its probability could be far smaller, as many technologies are already available to avoid such accidents, which have all happened on old power plants.
There are still hundreds of these "old power plants" active, you want to replace them all with the magical new wonder power plants which never fail and are immune to human error? How is that supposed to work, considering the costs for decommissioning and long-term waste storage?
>Please rest assured, we will not be forced to live in bunkers because of Fukushima, and even if another such tragedy would happen, we could mostly keep out lifestyles, until the global warming caused problems would cause much more changes in it.
I never claimed that we'd be all forced to live in bunkers because of Fukushima. I merely took issue with your flippant statement of "humans can survive without seafish" because that's as much of a slippery slope as it can get, thus the "surviving in a bunker just eating mushrooms" example. Humans might be just fine without eating seafish, tho the rest of this planet's ecosystem (on which we still depend to function properly) probably wouldn't. As such I don't consider the "let's just poison the oceans because humanity can survive without seafish" approach as viable.
> potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima
That's an exaggeration. Even if containment were to fail completely on all reactors at Fukushima, the release of radioactive products would make some area uninhabitable and cost a lot of money, but won't lead to even a large loss of life, let alone extinction.
