Thursday, February 28, 2019
But Nuclear is Natural
Michael Shellenberger (several links omitted):
Ordinary people tell pollsters they want renewables for the same reason they buy products labeled "natural": they are in the grip of an unconscious appeal-to-nature fallacy.Read the whole thing: The Real Reason They Hate Nuclear is Because it Means We Don't Need Renewables.
The appeal-to-nature fallacy is the mistaken belief that the world can be divided into "natural" and "unnatural" things, and that the former are better, safer, or cleaner than the latter.
In reality, solar farms require hundreds of times more land, an order of magnitude more mining for materials, and create hundreds of times more waste, than do nuclear plants.
And wind farms kill hundreds of thousands of threatened and endangered birds, may make the hoary bat go extinct, and kill more people than nuclear plants.
But because of our positive feelings toward sunlight, water and wind, which we view as more natural than uranium, many people unconsciously assume renewables are better for the environment.
I'm sure a few progressive politicians actually understand that wind and solar can't possibly replace fossil fuels, but they won't dare try to explain it to their ignorant leftist base.
Labels: party of science
