PM denies nuclear inquiry linked to big business

From ABC News (Aust)

This article discusses cronyism surrounding managing the climate change problem.

Our Prime Minister, John Howard, was a climate change denier until just before the Walk Against Warming last year (2006). Our group organised the Brisbane (Australia) event for this. It was held on November 4th, a very rainy day. Howard called the news about climate change "sensationalism" or similar. The pressure was too great, especially after the walk was held and he had to change his view to admit that it is true. The difference is that he may understand it to be true, but he doesn't believe it. He is not sincere to the changes that will come about due to it and the changes that need to be made to manage it. A very conservative man.

The so called world leaders started banging heads trying to tackle this problem and they amazingly decided that nuclear energy is the way to go. Howard is fully behind it. The article this links to talks about how Howard launched an inquiry into a nuclear powered australia and it just so happens that a mate of his has put together a plan on building a nuclear energy infrastructure in Australia. How convenient.

I agree that in many places in the world there are no valid alternatives, but in Australia we have oodles of sunshine, excessive amounts of wind, a giant coastline with lots of waves, geothermal power from hot rocks and so on. Nuclear does produce energy greenhouse gas (GHG) emission free, however the process also includes these nasties:

• Mining of uranium takes enormous amounts of energy (producing GHG from fossil fuels to drive vehicles and coal) and always results in the poisoning of the local creeks, rivers and watertable;
  
• Uranium processing also takes a lot of energy (GHGs mostly from coal that provides 80% of Australia's energy needs);
  
• Transportation of the ore takes large amounts of energy (GHGs through fossil fueled engines)
  
• In the 50 years that the world has had nuclear energy, NO SAFE METHOD OF DISPOSAL has been found, and the danger from the radiation lasts hundreds of thousands of years
  
• The world is so fearful of terrorists. Surely a dirty bomb that uses nuclear waste is one of the scariest terror mechanism that terrorists could use
  

People need to understand ALL the facts before deciding what they want. I think if ALL the information is given to enough people, then nuclear power will never become a reality in Australia.

Read the article.