it's pronounced nu-cle-ar

i often read a lot of left-leaning blogs and websites in my spare time; because i find them interesting and informative, but, also, because the majority of the political positions seemingly adopted within them are ones that i largely agree with.

one area in which i have found myself in near-constant disagreement with fellow progressives, however, is over the merits of nuclear power.

now, it can be very hard to hold an opinion on a controversial topic when you are only about as informed as the average person and the topic in question in an exceedingly complicated and scientific one. ideally you need to be careful to avoid tendering too great a claim (as without any greater understanding of the issue you can't reasonably support your points), and above all else, it is crucial to avoid seeming like a that person who lectures on a topic about which they are criminally under-informed

that being said i feel hopeful that here, on this personal blog i set up explicitly for the purpose of indulging in highly-personal opinion giving, i might be forgiven for offering an opinion on a necessarily expert-dominated industry of which i am most definitely not an expert.

and so with that caveat out of the way i return to my earlier point: nuclear power.

ask an average "progressive" or "environmentalist", "green", "leftie", "liberal", "hippy" or whatever label you wish to use, what they think about nuclear power and they'll tell you: it's bad.

it's not just bad: it's literally the worst. within the popular imagination anything nuclear is considered to be so potentially destructive that literally any other course of action is preferable to the nuclear option

see: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/environment/nuclear-power-the-doomsday-machine/

yep: doomsday machine

you can read the article yourself because it's pretty short, but basically the author loves a book recently released as it is highly critical of nuclear power, a position which he endorses in his piece but essentially asks us to accept as a matter of trust (or, more likely, common sense)

the author's endorsement of the book's central message is somewhat offset by his rejection of the suggestion that wind or solar power are unlikely to play "a significant part" in how our future energy needs are met. the author of the IA article cites increases in efficiency as evidence that solar and wind technologies will be viable alternatives, some time in the future

the article finishes with a clip from dr strangelove, with i think is telling. rather than an argument based on evidence (albeit unprovided), the author uses a cultural knee-jerk reaction to enforce his argument: nuclear is bad, the exclusive the domain of the oligarch and the warmonger, to be utilized at our peril.

one look at our historical context and this position is completley understandable. for literally every person older than myself the possibility of annihilation by nuclear weapons at any given moment was very much a real one. that's the kind of thing that can mess you up for life

additionally, the fevered imaginations of hollywood directors and militarist and pacifist authors alike compounded and intensified that fear to a level that im pretty sure i will never properly understand by virtue of my place in time

the unique place that anything nuclear holds in the global imagination can be evinced in the special treatment the topic seems to receive throughout the entire generic political spectrum: it is remarkable that when it comes to nuclear power monocle-wearing fat cat oil tycoons are in furious agreement with their dreadlocked inner-city detractors about the foul evil that is nuclear anything

the 2011 tohoku earthquake, despite claiming about 20000 of the world's most affluent citizens, is remembered around the world primarily for it's nuclear disaster component, and "chernobyl" has just about become a bona fide adjective for total disaster.

but, as you can see here ( http://theconversation.com/pro-nuclear-greenies-thinking-outside-the-box-with-pandoras-promise-18941 ) the popular interpretations of both fukushima and chernobyl are largely incorrect. although both very much worst case scenarios, the impact of these disasters in popular imaginings far exceed the reality

indeed even the cherished nuclear narrative book-end conclusion to the second world war is largely false: the commonly accepted story that the government of japan sued for peace only after coming face to face with nuclear annihilation is untrue; the end results of the hiroshima and nagasaki bombings were indistinguishable from those of a conventional bombing raid, which the cities of japan had already been subjected to for months, and the roads and communications of japan were in such a dire state by the final stages of the war that the imperial government was not even informed of the nuclear attacks until after negotiations for an unconditional surrender had already been initiated.

in reality it was the entry of the soviets in to the eastern theater of war and the clear prospect of imminent communist invasion and occupation which compelled japan to finally throw in the towel to the americans. the nuclear-finale story was begun originally and has continued to do so well because it suited, and continues to suit, the imagined war narratives of both japan and the usa.

regardless of the reasons for the initial deception the result is the same: the terrible status of nuclear technology in society approaches the mythic as stories and facts based in ideology, not facts, become the accepted reality

because, as the above article makes clear, opposition to an exploration of the alternatives offered by nuclear power is idiocy, based more often than not on pure ideology.

if we take the argument to it's most basic: nuclear undeniably offers low-emission, reliable electricity but has its downsides, while fossil fuels kill a big chunk of all who come in contact with them, and will certainly destroy the planet, but technologically are more basic, and do not hold the same status in popular imaginings

so in the end there is no argument at all. to steal a neat phrase-- humanity's check engine light is on.

the recent ipcc report makes that explicitly clear, and we already knew it well enough anyway. either we get serious about it -by abandoning long-held cultural beliefs that don't square with facts- or many of us will die and the remaining will suffer

the second, better article, which i strongly recommend reading, emphasizes that the way in which the narrative is told is essentially the story itself.

a week or so ago i heard about how a truck carrying petrol in sydney overturned on a highway and ignited. two men following in a car did not have time to stop or to turn, drove in to the inferno, and were burned. this story was of course presented as a road tragedy when, in reality, it is a fossil fuel disaster plain and simple

and so, to a laymen like myself, the nuclear power debate presents itself thusly:

you can die in agony from radiation, and exposure could give you cancer. but you will die from resource depletion and the accompanying carnage, or maybe even before then, coughing up toxic air or accidentally strolling in to some surprise inferno.

both, to me at least, seem equally undesirable; so why not play the odds?