Document Type

Article

Department

English (Scripps)

Publication Date

12-25-2011

Disciplines

Environmental Health and Protection | Environmental Sciences

Abstract

It is one of the marvels of our time that the nuclear industry managed to resurrect itself from its ruins at the end of the last century, when it crumbled under its costs, inefficiencies, and mega-accidents. Chernobyl released hundreds of times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, contaminating more than 40% of Europe and the entire Northern Hemisphere. But along came the nuclear lobby to breathe new life into the industry, passing off as “clean” this energy source that polluted half the globe. The “fresh look at nuclear”—in the words of a New York Times makeover piece (May 13, 2006)—paved the way to a “nuclear Renaissance” in the United States that Fukushima has by no means brought to a halt.

Comments

Originally published by The Asia-Pacific Journal and the original article can be found here.

Rights Information

© 2011 Gayle Greene

Terms of Use & License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

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