Denuclearization starts at home
By Mikael on Friday 20 March 2009, 15:04 - Permalink
Counterpunch has published an excellent article by Harvey
Wasserman about the financial crisis of the French-European nuclear company
Areva.
"The myth of a successful nuclear power industry in France has melted into financial chaos" , Wasserman writes. "With it dies the corporate-hyped poster child for a "nuclear renaissance" of new reactor construction that is drowning in red ink and radioactive waste. Areva, France's nationally-owned corporate atomic façade, has plunged into a deep financial crisis led by a devastating shortage of cash."
In an earlier Counterpunch-article (Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power, 13-15 February) Wasserman reported that the American national grassrots No Nukes campaign has scored an important victory. On 11 February, 2009, a proposed $ 50 billion boondoggle for new atomic reactors was stripped out of the US federal budget. "The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve gobal warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly gree-powered earth".
In Europe, too, the nuclear issue is key to solving the present crisis, and a Europe-wide political movement for the denuclearization of Europe is badly needed. A European Union, which has rid the continent of weapons of mass destruction and decided to build upon decentralized, renewable sources of energy, may finally develop into a free and united democratic state. If, on the other hand, Europe disintegrates economically and politically, or if the EU is built as a nuclear power, the end result can only be chaos and war.
The ongoing production of new missiles and warheads in France (M51) and Britain (Trident) must be halted immediately, European nuclear disarmament must be inscribed in the constitutional treaty of the European Union, the present Euratom-treaty must be abrogated and/or re-negotiated: we need a European treaty on the gradual phasing out of the existing nuclear power plants. Let the babies of the nuclear renaissance, such as Areva's mismanaged and delayed project in Olkiluoto (Finland), die in their infancy!
An Austrian participant in the conference on Participative Democracy of the Forum de la societé civile in Florence, 20-21 February, made me a little gift: a pince with the characteristic sunny logo of the anti-nuclear movement, and the text: RAUS AUS EURATOM.
Start making a lot of these anti-nuclear pinces, please! And let the visionary Manifesto of Ventotene for a Europe free and united inspire your thoughts. The second world war had hardly begun when Rossi and Spinelli started writing it. It was, in a way, our last chance. Because, if a third world war breaks out, visionaries or visions will no longer be needed.
"The UK will begin to scale back its stockpile of nuclear warheads if Russia and the US agree to new reductions, the prime minister [Gordon Brown ]said yesterday [16 March; as reported in The Guardian 17 March], as he gave warning that Iran faces harsher penalties if attempts to enrich uranium continue". The hypocrisy of the players of the multilateral disarmament game, such as Brown and Sarkozy, has long since passed the border of criminality. The more they speak about peace and the climate, the more radioactive waste and plutonium they are piling up for our grandchildren.
"Iran is a test case", Mr Brown says. No, our test cases are Britain and France. Denuclearization starts at home.
Greetings from Finland,
- Mikael
"The myth of a successful nuclear power industry in France has melted into financial chaos" , Wasserman writes. "With it dies the corporate-hyped poster child for a "nuclear renaissance" of new reactor construction that is drowning in red ink and radioactive waste. Areva, France's nationally-owned corporate atomic façade, has plunged into a deep financial crisis led by a devastating shortage of cash."
In an earlier Counterpunch-article (Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power, 13-15 February) Wasserman reported that the American national grassrots No Nukes campaign has scored an important victory. On 11 February, 2009, a proposed $ 50 billion boondoggle for new atomic reactors was stripped out of the US federal budget. "The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve gobal warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly gree-powered earth".
In Europe, too, the nuclear issue is key to solving the present crisis, and a Europe-wide political movement for the denuclearization of Europe is badly needed. A European Union, which has rid the continent of weapons of mass destruction and decided to build upon decentralized, renewable sources of energy, may finally develop into a free and united democratic state. If, on the other hand, Europe disintegrates economically and politically, or if the EU is built as a nuclear power, the end result can only be chaos and war.
The ongoing production of new missiles and warheads in France (M51) and Britain (Trident) must be halted immediately, European nuclear disarmament must be inscribed in the constitutional treaty of the European Union, the present Euratom-treaty must be abrogated and/or re-negotiated: we need a European treaty on the gradual phasing out of the existing nuclear power plants. Let the babies of the nuclear renaissance, such as Areva's mismanaged and delayed project in Olkiluoto (Finland), die in their infancy!
An Austrian participant in the conference on Participative Democracy of the Forum de la societé civile in Florence, 20-21 February, made me a little gift: a pince with the characteristic sunny logo of the anti-nuclear movement, and the text: RAUS AUS EURATOM.
Start making a lot of these anti-nuclear pinces, please! And let the visionary Manifesto of Ventotene for a Europe free and united inspire your thoughts. The second world war had hardly begun when Rossi and Spinelli started writing it. It was, in a way, our last chance. Because, if a third world war breaks out, visionaries or visions will no longer be needed.
"The UK will begin to scale back its stockpile of nuclear warheads if Russia and the US agree to new reductions, the prime minister [Gordon Brown ]said yesterday [16 March; as reported in The Guardian 17 March], as he gave warning that Iran faces harsher penalties if attempts to enrich uranium continue". The hypocrisy of the players of the multilateral disarmament game, such as Brown and Sarkozy, has long since passed the border of criminality. The more they speak about peace and the climate, the more radioactive waste and plutonium they are piling up for our grandchildren.
"Iran is a test case", Mr Brown says. No, our test cases are Britain and France. Denuclearization starts at home.
Greetings from Finland,
- Mikael