http://greens.org.au/node/787

and the way members of the movement understand (or rather don’t understand) the political process.

I am simply against faith-based politics. I think that joining green forums or the party is pointless as I believe that wouldn’t make any difference.

http://www.physorg.com/news165643839.html

I would be extremely happy to confront some of the views on an external forum though because there is no easy escape route if somebody is pinned down by arguments.

The best example of how The Greens in Europe screwed up on the climate change front is the policy of closing nuclear reactors promoted by the Senior Fig Leaf For Foreign Affairs Joshka Fisher serving under Gasprom’s Chancellor Schroder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schroder

“Democrat Tom Lantos, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, likened Schröder to a “political prostitute” for his recent behaviour.”

They managed to increase the dependency on the Russian gas and brown coal-fired plants but got rid of the reactors. Well done comrade Shredder. Your support comrade Fisher should also be commanded.

By the way they both were the greatest “friends” of Poland delaying joining the EU by several years.

Do you think that The Greens in Australia are less naive? The roots of the anti-nuclear attitude are in the political struggles of 1970-80-ties (when I was locked up on the other side on the Iron Curtain). Then the total misunderstanding of the Chernobyl disaster played a predominant role in shaping the policies.

The current economical crisis is an effect of applying the faith-based neoclassical economics to the reality. It cannot be solved by another faith-based system.

Also if for example somebody invents cheap organic solar panels and cheap energy storage – why not? But this is a big “if”. Otherwise nuclear technology is available right here and right now however to be safe it has to be expensive.

So back to economics – there is no escape…

Obviously I agree that conserving energy is an obvious solution but going back to the dark ages is not an option. (By the way – what do you think about personal carbon trading?
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/carbontrading/ )

Regarding my voting preferences I think that pure idealists screwed up enough in the country where I was born (and in the neighbourhood – Europe) that’s why I have to vote for the pragmatists even if they are a bit not fresh (the Labor).

wow, that seems like a pretty irrational position to take. How much do you agree with the party you do vote for? I vote for the greens and I’m pretty confident I would agree with them less than 95% of the time. I would have thought that if you agree to such a high degree with the green movement that you might consider it worth your time to try and raise the discussion from within instead of just writing them off altogether. It could be considered analogous to what we are trying to do in our economics departments I think.

May I ask, are you open to the possibility that nuclear power should not be a part of the solution? You don’t appear to be, and if thats the case I would argue that your position is as much based on dogma or ideology as the anti-nuclear position you portray.

I’m involved with the Young Greens and I can tell you that with a number of members studying sustainable energy engineering (with the pro-nuclear Barry Brook) there has been quite a bit of debate amongst ourselves at least, and continues to be.

My point is that there are serious concerns about nuclear power that are yet to be allayed, and there is the potential for the costs to far outweigh the benefits in the long run. Condemning it because it is mad and bad sounds pretty logical to me. I don’t know what other reasons you’d have to condemn anything.

p.s. I’d still love some suggestions about the economics stuff, thats why I’m here after all

I don’t consider nuclear energy as the solution of the climate challenge. I simply don’t subscribe to the view that it cannot be a part of the solution. Maybe it can just generate 10% of the energy we need in Australia? But condemning it just because it is mad and bad smells like another kind of religion to me.

I have no problem in continuing the debate but I agree that this is not the right place.

If you wish I can move to the place you think is more appropriate provided that my views will not be censored.

I had a quick look at the Friends of the Earth site. Unfortunately the attitude they have I think is simplistic.

Just take the following argument they are using against nuclear power:

“The weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no threshold below which ionising radiation poses no risk.”

However there is no consensus and the scienticfic opionion which holds for FOE may be just an unproven theory:

“Whether or not there is a threshold (i.e. “safe”) level of radiation is a controversial subject. Because this topic has yet to be settled scientifically, regulators have decided to take a conservative approach and assume that there is no such thing as a 100% safe level of radiation. Rather, in the case of low-level radiation it is assumed that the risk of developing an adverse effect (such as a cancer) scales proportionately with the amount of radiation. In other words, doubling the amount of radiation is assumed to lead to a doubling in the chance of developing an effect.”

http://www.environment.gov.au/ssd/faqs/radiation.html

So the regulation is based on an assumption rather than consensus. I consider the following article to be more balanced as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

And even if
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
holds water the number of people contracting cancer due to building nuclear power plants in our country is neglectable. How many people will get 100 mSv dicussed there?

Instead of saying – “I would accept the nuclear power generation provided that issue A is addressed and issue B mitigated (and for now the issues are not addressed so I am against)” – the Friends of Earth say NO and then desperately try to look for arguments.

This is what I call dogmatism.

This is also the reason why despite the fact that I may agree with 95% of what the Green movement stands for I will never vote for the Greens nor donate a single cent to them.

1. Using Th232/U233 rather than U235 and U238/Pu239 might be a better idea

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1616391.htm

and we have a plenty of it

http://www.ga.gov.au/minerals/research/national/thorium/index.jsp

2. Proliferation happens because countries see benefits in having nukes which are rather obvious not because they have access to low-enriched fuel or reactor technology. Building a crude nuke is not such a big problem.
http://www.nci.org/k-m/makeab.htm

3. Storing nuclear waste is more a political “not in my backyard” problem than a technical one as a substantial amount of waste has already been produced and we haven’t heard about serious practical issues.

4. Yes we have to burn coal or oil to mine uranium and enrich U235 but the total amount of CO2 released is substantially smaller.

5. The number of people who died mining coal in Poland, Ukraine and China exceeds the number of people who died in Chernobyl or other nuclear reactor incidents/disasters. New reactors are safer than the infamous RBMK design.

to be continued…

Warwick’s critical review certainly provides some inspiration but I am nowhere near as well read on it all as he apparently is. I was thinking about trying to make up some flyers that summarise some of the more obvious flaws (with references for further reading) but there are just SO MANY. I would really appreciate some ideas on how to start this debate?

The biggest problem is, as someone already said, most students just dont care. Going around the class in my first micro tutorial the lecturer had everyone explain why they wanted to do economics…theres no prizes for guessing that the reason was only ever a variation on money/good job…except for myself of course. Unfortunately my passionate monologue on the priveledged and powerful position of economists in shaping society probably just made everyone think I was a bit weird.

My theory is that, strangely enough, you are less likely to find students eager to engage in this debate in the economics/commerce department then in others. Most economics and business students want to be clones, it’s good for their job prospects and it feels oh so grown up to wear that suit to all your classes (I’m joking, theres only a few losers who do this). But I don’t expect many at all come into the course with any desire to be critical, mainly because, as I am finding, it takes a lot of extra work!

Others at uni like some of the political groups and environmental groups I expect (and in my experience are) more interested in the criticisms of neoclassical theory, but theres the problem…You need to know the absurd assupmtions and theories of neoclassical economics before u can study their failings. Trying to explain the faults of neoclassical economics to someone who hasn’t studied is difficult in large part because you have to explain neoclassical theory first and in the process it is easy for people to assume that you just don’t undestand it properly yourself or are warping it to fit your agenda etc…

so where to begin?….

To ak (off-topic):

Opposition to nulcear power has nothing to do with dogma, there are serious unresolved issues regarding nuclear waste, proliferation and safety but most important to me is that the nucelar cycle from mine to power plant to waste storage is highly carbon intensive. Some have suggested so much so that it almost negates any benefits. What reason is there for having nuclear power if it can’t halt greenhouse gas emissions?

Theres also the issue of water required and many other things that I cant think of at almost 3am. The real kicker is that if the kind of investment that would be required for nuclear power was instead put into energy saving strategies and renewable energies we wouldn’t need nuclear power….oh, and uranium is finite, radioactive waste isn’t, meaning our great-great-great-great-great granchildren will still be spending there ever more limited resources on looking after our mess.

I’m sure if you support nucelar power you will have some counter arguments, obviously what I wrote here isn’t very academic, but I’m just trying to demonstrate that current oppostion to nuclear power is founded on real and serious concerns and has nothing to do with 80′s ideology or dogma.

Q. Are the students revolting?

A. Yes the students are revolting, yuck!