1989
Clamshell Alliance against the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant
We marched along the roadside in tiny Seabrook, New Hampshire to protest the construction of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. Some people climbed fences and committed civil disobedience. Some were arrested. Some of us posted bail. We went home to engage our neighbors, our politicians, the state regulatory boards. Then we headed back to the streets.
It was but one moment among the many shared by people around the world who knew nuclear power was dangerous and risky. The consequences of a nuclear accident should have stopped this technology in its infancy. But, of course, it did not.
Earlier this week, I was brought back to this fight over ethical and safe energy when Entergy Corporation announced it will decommission the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vermont. By the end of 2014, the Vernon, Vermont station, one America's oldest and "most controversial" nuclear plants, will stop due to financial reasons.
Vermont Yankee has been the target of protests from day one. Over the past several years, there have been a series of radioactive tritium leaks into the ground and water at the Vernon plant. "No risk to the public", they said, and I wonder who dares believe such lies.
Corporations like this have no legitimacy, no credibility. They are tarred by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, as well as the thousands of "incidents" we the public have never heard of.
Consider this: In 1989, we did not have a solution to the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants. Now, 24 years later, we still have NO SOLUTION and NO PLACE to put things like spent fuel rods.
So, I gain only a measure of satisfaction from closing Vermont Yankee. I am more disgusted and concerned that radioactive materials and residues will continue to poison that site in southern Vermont.
I'm disgusted these decisions are based on money (and shareholders) instead of what's "safe" or "right" or "ethical".
I wonder why people go nuts when one person catches West Nile virus from mosquitos, but overlook the specter of radiation leaks from aging nuclear plants and ineffective storage/containment practices.
Do you live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant? I bet you do.
Entergy helps me be more hopeful that this financial disease will spread and we'll read about a decision to decommission the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire sometime soon.
Vermont Yankee has been the target of protests from day one. Over the past several years, there have been a series of radioactive tritium leaks into the ground and water at the Vernon plant. "No risk to the public", they said, and I wonder who dares believe such lies.
Corporations like this have no legitimacy, no credibility. They are tarred by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, as well as the thousands of "incidents" we the public have never heard of.
Consider this: In 1989, we did not have a solution to the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants. Now, 24 years later, we still have NO SOLUTION and NO PLACE to put things like spent fuel rods.
So, I gain only a measure of satisfaction from closing Vermont Yankee. I am more disgusted and concerned that radioactive materials and residues will continue to poison that site in southern Vermont.
I'm disgusted these decisions are based on money (and shareholders) instead of what's "safe" or "right" or "ethical".
I wonder why people go nuts when one person catches West Nile virus from mosquitos, but overlook the specter of radiation leaks from aging nuclear plants and ineffective storage/containment practices.
Do you live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant? I bet you do.
Entergy helps me be more hopeful that this financial disease will spread and we'll read about a decision to decommission the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire sometime soon.
No matter what, I'll keep advocating for ethical energy resources -- resources that do not deplete and poison the earth nor kill or maim life in any form.
We've tried the other way -- big, exclusive, greedy, dirty and destructive -- and we've reaped a big, dirty, greedy and destructive system.
It's time to think very, very differently. More humane. Sustainable. Think about affordable, local energy sources. Think equity. Work with natural cycles, not in spite of them. Think "big picture" and "long term".
It's time to think very, very differently. More humane. Sustainable. Think about affordable, local energy sources. Think equity. Work with natural cycles, not in spite of them. Think "big picture" and "long term".
A saying from past years:
"Humans aren't the only species on the planet; they just act like it."
How about?
"Humans aren't the only species on the planet -- to go extinct."
Author's Note: I dedicate this last saying to the Climate Change Deniers, the current Congress, palm oil and soybean mono-plantations in Borneo, Brazil, and in rainforests around the world. Giant oil and mining corporations, agribusiness, Monsanto gets a special rating. Gold mining with mercury in the Madre de Dios River (Peru), members of the illegal animal trade throughout the world, people who run modern slave markets, sweat shops, racists and bigots... perpetrators, dictators, despots + misogynists... and finally to those good, quiet folk who sit in silence and say nothing, not even when they know what they see is wrong.
