Greenpeace hippies were arrested in Courtice, Ontario yesterday for delaying hearings on new nuclear reactors for the province.
…nine members of Greenpeace stood in front of the joint review panel on stage holding banners reading “No nukes are safe. Stop Darlington.” Some had tape over their mouths, others chained themselves to the table. Greenpeace spokesman Shawn Patrick Stensil said there was nothing stopping the panel from proceeding with the activists silently standing in front of them. “They’re just bearing witness to the fact that these hearings are moving forward while ignoring one of the greatest threats to future generations of Ontarians – that is, a Fukushima-scale accident,” he said.
Except there was no ‘accident’ at Fukushima. Not in the traditional sense of a technology failure or human error. The Japanese plant was rocked by a 9.0 earthquake and then smashed with a huge tsunami – yet the reactor cores remain contained and every indication is that leaked radiation remains low and manageable. Not to minimize the frightening reality on the ground for local people, but this could have been a whole order of magnitude worse if the plant had not been so robust.
Even deep greenie George Monbiot underwent a conversion after witnessing how tough Fukushima is:
I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry. Yes, I would prefer to see the entire sector shut down, if there were harmless alternatives. But there are no ideal solutions. Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.
Take a moment to assimilate that – George Monbiot, a pro-nuke convert. The reason for his change of heart/mind is simple, he recognizes a simple truth that Greenpeace denies – the modern world cannot function without affordable energy:
…how do we drive our textile mills, brick kilns, blast furnaces and electric railways – not to mention advanced industrial processes? Rooftop solar panels? The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment at which you fall out of love with local energy production.
I’ve written about Greenpeace the energy deniers before:
The question is what Greenpeace would replace our current energy with, but beyond sweeping generalizations; it has no answer. It’s not enough to simply deny us the means of living a civilized life while claiming that the sky is falling. They need to get out of the way and let the world generate the power it needs, preferably with nuclear plants that emit no pollution; real pollution, that is, not harmless but demonized CO2.
The hippies that delayed the nuclear hearings for five hours are no-solution, anti-human activists only interested in getting their faces in the papers and drumming up more money for Greenpeace. The organization exists only to raise money and pursue its misanthropic agenda.
Here’s a challenge for Greenpeace, put up or shut up.
In my other life as a writer, the unforgettable rule of telling a good story is to ‘show, not tell’. It’s time for Greenpeace, the NRDC, Sierra Club et al to do just that – stop preaching and show us that what you demand for the rest of us is possible.
Design and build a small town that relies only on your approved energy sources. Populate it with as many thousands of well-meaning hippies you can find and show us all how life is under the Big Green thumb. Even on a small scale, say a few thousand people in a few hundred homes, for a couple of years. Big Green could raise the cash to undertake such an event – organizations like GE and others might throw free tech at the idea just for the publicity. If it works, you get to point to Hippieville and say “see, it’s possible, we did it.”
I realize that such an idea is radical in that it means actually doing something other than inconveniencing people or climbing things that don’t belong to you, but that’s my challenge to the hippies. Show us, or get out of the way.
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[...] GREENPEACE doth protest too much …. [...]
Excellent!! a challenge for Greenpeace and all other Misanthropic groups, “PUT UP OR SHUT UP”
That room must smell awful after those hippies got in.
Try bleach, cleans, deodorizes and sanitizes all at once.
The Fukishima nuclear plant in Japan survived an earthquake 7 times stronger than it was designed for, and a tsunami 3 times higher than the sea wall designed to stop tsunami’s.
Lets go to an alternate universe for a bit:
In today’s news, a 747 with 400 passengers attempted a landing at 1400 km per hour. It survived the landing, but ended up in 14 meters of water.
All passengers and crew survived. A small amount of jet fuel was released to the environment.
The jet is expected to fly again, but two of the engines will need to be replaced.
When interviewed on the way to an UN sponsored anti-airplane meeting in Bali, Bill McKibben and members of Greenpeace were horrified by this incident.
Said McKibben, of the “0 ft.org” activist group: “This just shows why man is not meant to fly!”. He then burst into tears, before boarding his plane, along with Greenpeace members. The sounds of “Kumbaya” were heard coming from the plane, as the doors closed.
[...] Greenpeace doth protest too much [...]
just a reminder, on march 26th, at 8:30 PM, please turn ON all of your lights, electronics…everything that runs on electricity, to protest the hippies.
I have become a staunch skeptic. It was these age old single site thermometer records that really converted me. Not so much their hidden-in-plain-sight existence but the fact that the alarmist side of a great debate didn’t even pay attention to them!
http://i49.tinypic.com/rc93fa.jpg
For the record, this post actually caught my eye since it reminded me of my background. From age 13-17 it was ‘The Whole Earth Catalog’ that was my youthful bible. I read through *all* of Bucky Fuller’s work, including Synergetics 2. I’m still inspired by the better writings of Dr. Leary. My hippie cred is well established! So is my punk cred. And the punk side of me demands that I attack a corrupt establishment.
Look what that establishment did to the global average: http://i49.tinypic.com/2mpg0tz.jpg
Excellent points. Greenpeace could easily put together a model town of 20,000 or so (it should do with it’s budget running into hundreds of millions). This would provide a useful real-world exemplar of the eco-loon life.
I can’t wait to see “Hippieville” after the winters we’ve had recently. Frozen, stationary bird choppers, photovoltaic panels covered in snow. How soon before the “New Inuits” ask granny to take the Captain Oates long walk in the snow…
One of the best posts I have yet read on this blog other than the ones injected with your humor.
“Put up or shut up”…….perfect!
BMW
Thanks Jeff.
That some projects have been tried before and struggled is exactly why I propose this challenge. Unless hippies can prove it works on a micro scale, why should we retool our economies based on a green dream?
Like I said, it’s time for them to put up or shut up.
I do think this is your best article yet. “stop preaching and show us that what you demand for the rest of us is possible.” cannot be more true and tech tie-in would be advertizing gold. Only thing is have not all of these ‘pods’ not gone belly-up in the past?
Arcosanti anyone? “Having begun construction in 1970, the town is still very much a work in progress. The population varies between 50 and 150 people, based on the number of students and volunteers on the site…At present, the town is primarily an education center, with students from around the world visiting to attend workshops, classes, and continue construction. It is also a tourist attraction with 50,000 visitors a year.[3]
Some of the funding for Arcosanti comes from the sale of metal and ceramic bells that are made and cast from bronze on site. Additional funding comes from donations and fees for workshops which run up to five weeks long. Much of the present construction at Arcosanti is done by workshop participants and volunteers.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti
Without ‘outside world’ assistance it’s no more than a ’70s ghost town… 1870′s.
All the best…. Jeff