Doomsday drivel: promoting nuclear paranoia

Fred Pearce, consultant

The Doomsday Machine, a sometimes mendacious and frequently anti-scientific book, has one claim to novelty. It combines hysterical opposition to all things nuclear with an equally deranged climate-change denialism. One wonders both why the publishers published, and who they imagine will enjoy it.

The authors argue that concern about climate change is largely a public relations exercise by nuclear power lobbyists to revive their fortunes. And that it is sustained by corrupted scientists at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in league with ?new nuclear romantics? and ?environmentalists [who believe] humanity deserves to be punished for its poor stewardship of the Earth.?

From this original vantage point, they apparently see no need to challenge the argument that low-carbon nuclear energy can help combat climate change. So instead, a chapter purporting to slay ?the myth that nuclear power is green? spends its time rehearsing ludicrous attacks on named environmentalists and climate scientists, such as Gaia inventor James Lovelock, for having the temerity to support nuclear power.

Other sections attack such straw men as the notions that nuclear energy is ?too cheap to meter?, and that ?nuclear radiation is harmless?. Since nobody has said such things for half a century, to attack them is puerile.

Of course, there are some serious drawbacks to nuclear power that warrant proper attention - as there are drawbacks to all sources of energy. In the real world, we have to make choices about how we power our world. But the authors fail to make any meaningful comparisons between nuclear and its rivals. Do they know, for instance, that burning coal is a bigger day-to-day radiation hazard than nuclear energy?

Martin Cohen is a philosopher, who characterises himself as standing beside Karl Popper against Al Gore. Andrew McKillop is an energy economist and past proponent of the idea of ?peak oil?, though here he appears to deny the proposition. I fear their starting premise that nuclear energy is a ?doomsday machine? rather unhinged their thinking.

Book Information:
The Doomsday Machine: The high price of energy, the world?s most dangerous fuel
by Martin Cohen and Andrew McKillop
Palgrave
?16.99

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1de6562f/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A120C0A30Cdoomsday0Edrivel0Epromoting0Enuclear0Eparanoia0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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