Atomic Show #260 – Pro-nuclear voices from COP23 in Bonn. Not a warm welcome
This episode of the Atomic Show is a conversation among five clean energy advocates who attended the COP with the goal of sharing what they know about the ways that nuclear energy can help reduce global emissions while also providing a growing amount of reliable power.
With more power, more people will have a pathway to prosperity.
Guests on the show include:
Kirsty Gogan, a co-founder and the current Executive Director of Energy for Humanity, an NGO based in London that is focused on abundant clean energy
Dr. Ben Heard, founder and Executive Director of Bright New World, an NGO based in Adelaide, South Australia. Bright New World is aiming for an improved world powered by energy that is plentiful, clean and affordable.
Eric Meyer, Founder and the Executive Director of Generation Atomic.
Wolfgang Denk, a campaigner for Energy for Humanity
Iida Ruishalme, author of the blog Thoughtscapism, who has recently become an increasingly active nuclear advocate based on her own personal journey through the available information. She is a member of the Ecomodernist Society of Finland.
Getting this geographically dispersed group together proved to be a bit of a challenge, but Ben was gracious enough to agree to participate even though we began recording at 1:30 am Adelaide time.
Kirsty kicks off the conversation with a summary of the official rejection of the World Nuclear Association’s offer to spend nearly $70,000 for a Gold Sponsorship of the Sustainable Innovation Forum (SiF) a business-focused event that occurs alongside the COP. Ben described the way that atomic advocates decided to respond to that decision and use it as a rallying point for increased dedication to effective communications.
Iida provides a moving description of how she and Eric Meyer openly infiltrated an antinuclear gathering. They received a rather harsh reception in response to their attempts to communicate. A more detailed version of the story is posted on Iida’s blog.
During the show, Eric provides us with an operatic highlight with the chorus of an original pronuclear song.
In contrast to the negative manner in which nuclear advocates were treated by officials and people who were part of organized efforts to silence nuclear information, each of show participants were able to share stories about positive encounters with more curious and open-minded attendees at the event.
The stories that the group share about their experiences deserve a close listen and probably some follow-up action.
Included among the actions will be an increasingly assertive effort by people that favor nuclear energy to make ourselves heard in peaceful and calm ways. It promotes our cause to be able to respond with grace and creative genius when others resort to pushing and shoving.
Near the end of the show, I issued a call to action for people to make financial contributions to the organizations represented on the call so that they can begin accumulating the resources required for an even larger effort to attend COP 24 in 2018.
Here are the donation links for each organization.
Energy for Humanity
Generation Atomic
Bright New World
Ecomodernist Society of Finland
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How refreshing to hear Rod remind those pro-nuclear climate change activists who found a rough welcome in Bonn that doing the exact same thing to coal, oil and natural gas has been the standard treatment provided to people like Alex Epstein!
I am really amused to hear the stories from Bonn, as if those who claim to be “environmentalists” would really care about humans having access to cheap, plentiful and reliable energy.
Surprise, they don’t.
They don’t care about energy for humanity one bit, all they care is to disrupt modern society, and turn the dream of a worldwide central planning into reality.
They have now found that the best path to achieve control on the population at large is to scare them with all sorts of panic about something, before it was the “population bomb” but it did not work, before again it was the “silent spring” but it did not work either. But they now see that with the “climate change” scare tactics and the resulting policies, which are mostly anti-human, they can achieve something.
This is precisely the same tactics they use against fossil fuels.
And this is why reading Alex Epstein’s “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” has broadened my view from nuclear to a much broader perspective, that of finally understanding that there are many people who want to take away OUR freedom to do what we think it’s best for us and for the planet.
And this is why I myself have been booted off from the “nukes” Facebook group a couple a couple of years ago, by people using the same exact fascist tactics used in Bonn by those who were attacking the podcast guests and telling them they were fascists…
What goes around comes around. And this is precisely why I have left the pro-nuclear movement the moment they all painted themselves “climate change believers”, which is precisely the same thing that Dr. Patrick Moore did.
A great show indeed, with lots of food for thought. Hopefully.
Bye, Luca
Lausanne, Switzerland
I’m with you on this Luca – and I suspect many nuclear supporters have the same dilemma with regard to AGW.
I support nuclear because it has the ( proven ) potential to be the cheapest, least polluting and safest way of generating electricity. That current regulation in Western markets ( along with consequent lack of volume build ) , has made its capital price and time-to-deploy a serious obstacle, does not negate its other benefits.
You raise an interesting and important point !
What a wonderful podcast. That is one for the archives. Or for history for the book on the movement as Ben said.
So your guests on the show were committing blasphemy against the anti-nuclear religion.
Seriously the response they got reminds me of tales I’ve read about what happens in the Bible belt when someone says ‘I am an atheist’. It’s not as bad as dissing Mohamed in eg: Pakistan (or even being accused of dissing Mohamed)
Anyway that was an excellent episode.
Fantastic podcast! Thank you, Rod and all your guests!
Great discussion. Rod. Your five guests reported well. The issue of blind activism and hypocrisy from the extremists is perhaps the stark message we need. The idea that we can embarrass them into converting with facts and figures is quite far fetched. We can try attending 24 but it seems that to change minds it will be more important to show up in Bonn the rest of the year when the extremists are less present.
The interesting thing about the anti nuke shouting “fascist” at Eric Meyer is his fascist behaviour. Fascists don’t allow their opponents to talk. The extremists that show up at rallies and events like these are pushing their views from a top down model. In other words they don’t have a foundation. The representatives from the pronuclear side share their views from a bottom up model. Like comparing a “house of cards” to a fortress. Picking other events that allow more rational exchange might be a better strategy than fighting at Cop24. Trump maybe was onto something when he pulled out.
As you might expect, Rod, the behavior of the anti-nuclear people was no surprise to me. I’ve been in Brattleboro. I don’t need to go to Germany to be harassed. I can be harassed right near my home. Saves on airfare. 😉
Great podcast! Also, I liked the way that the Bonn participants described so many of the things that I write about in the chapter “Getting ready for their rally” in my book. The strong bonding between the pro-nuclear people that participated in the counter-rally. The fact that the anti-nuclear *organizers* won’t talk with you, but individual participants may talk to you and actually be interested in what you have to say. It was great to hear all this confirmed, once again, from the people who went to Bonn. https://www.amazon.com/Campaigning-Clean-Air-Strategies-Pro-Nuclear-ebook/dp/B01MA5GU9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476806189&sr=1-1&keywords=angwin&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin:618073011
Rod, thank you for getting this podcast together. Without this sort of podcast, pro-nuclear people are flying blind, because the mainstream media are not going to do a big report on pro-nuclear activity. We have to document it ourselves. Thank you.