Pro-Nuclear Greens to meet at Bryant Park

Photo: Chief ED scientist Dr. Bill Chameides

It has come to the attention of Green Nuclear Butterfly that pro-nuke greens in Manhattan are going to be speaking at Bryant Park.

Word for Word Author Series: Focus on the Environment Wednesday, Aug 8th. 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Bryant Park Reading Room 42nd Street side of the park - under the trees - between the back of the NYPL & 6th Avenue. Look for the burgundy and white umbrellas. Rain Venue: Barnes & Noble Booksellers at 555 Fifth Avenue & 46th Street.

Talking with the director of the event, GNB was told that: "We'd rather that the nuclear issue not be discussed, but that the event is open to the public, anyone can attend to make their feelings known."

The panel will be hosted by Dr. Bill Chameides, Chief Scientist at Environmental Defense, an organization which turned pro-nuke. Its founder Fred Krupp introduced Paul Newman to Entergy which gave the actor a grand tour of Indian Point, in exchange for a glowing review on its security, favoring its relicencing.

After numerous calls to Environmental Defense, inquiring as to a position paper on the nuclear issue, not a single call was returned... in other words, endorsement by omission. (update: a nuclear power position statement was emailed to GNB a few minutes after this post went up... which now sits above. EDF's official position is that it does not support a nuclear relapse unless or until certain preconditions are met by the nuclear industry. It makes no mention of old plant relicensing.)

On the panel will be Lazy Environmentalist Josh Dorfman, born and raised in Weschester county, who has expressed to this writer his support for the relicensing of Indian Point.

Also on the panel will be Ben Jervey, author of the Green Apple Guide, who after numerous attempts to have Rock The Reactors or Green Nuclear Butterfly, or so much as the Indian Point issue mentioned in his newsletter, has refused to bring it up with his readers.

I don't know how the last two panelists, Eugene Linden (The Winds of Change) and Andrew S. Winston (Green to Gold) feel about the nuclear issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if they too, were supporters of IP relicensing.

It saddens me that after so many years in the environmental movement, I would find myself pitted against those who in fact should be allies in this fight... yet these people and organizations, do not even have the courage of their opinion, express their support for the relicensing of Indian Point by their abject silence.

It's cowardly, trying to render the nuclear issue into a non-green issue, a sell-out to the Bush administration. None of their Green works will amount to anything if there's an accident at the plant, let alone the long term health consequences of radioactive isotopes right now leaking into the water table.

The fact that these young greens are too wet behind the ears to understand the immensity of their ommission, ignoring the elephant in the room, destroys me emotionally, I don't know how to deal with such lack of connection to our earth they claim to care so much about. Would it be possible that the only green they see, is the color of money?

For more information on the event, contact the organizers directly:
Bryant Park Corporation
500 Fifth Avenue Suite 1120
New York, NY 10110
212-768-4242

HuffingtonPost and the Edison Electric Institute

Edison Electric Institute is a major advertiser for the HuffingtonPost. EEI is just a front for the nuclear industry...and the oil and coal industry...these are the same people who for thirty years have used every dirty trick in the book to keep energy alternatives like solar and wind from entering the marketplace...and they are still using the same slogan..."Do you know where your electricity comes from?" & "ensure that electricity is there for us when we need it" which are slogans I came up with, when I was still naive enough to trust real change was coming, when I was doing research for Solar Age and Photovoltaic International magazines in the early 80's.

I wrote the commercial these slogans came from... the PSA was to be a little kid asking: "Where does electricity come from?" and the answer was "the sun!" with 20 seconds of solar projects, as a PSA for the solar industry. I submitted the PSA pitch to NorthEast Utilities's marketing office when it was in Norwalk, Connecticut. They loved it so much they came back, and said we want to use it... Two months later, on TV, I see this ad with this little kid... and the kid says: "Where does electricity come from?" and then this hand reaches for a light switch and a paternal voice says: "Don't worry, all you need to know is that it's there when you need it!" Next day I went back to the marketing office... and as I reached the door, all the people who worked inside, ran away to hide, and wouldn't let me in.

This is the same sick puppy progenity you're dealing with here... who thirty years later, it's still the same brew, the same mentality who will talk to you green fields of dreams while cashing in their nuke paycheck... They're still using the same rethoric against the solar industry as they did in the 70's... it's still all about centralization of electrical production. They use alternatives like solar and wind in their ads, as a feel good greenwash, but if you look at their pie chart renewables are still only 3% of their total energy sources!!! Except now they call it "diversity" and use National Security as an excuse for their planetary trashing.

It's been a losing battle against the utilities for 30 years, and it's got to STOP! For every dollar they spend on reinforcing the oil, coal, nuke infrastructure, we could be gearing up mass production of solar gear, wind turbines, and battery farms... This is what the Tesla Motors company will bring us, Arnold... Earth Communications Office, Bonnie Reiss, Hollywood! This is the possible future Harvey Wasserman talks about in his new book Solartopia. This is what ALL the anti-nuclear activists and solar advocates have been talking about for years, and because the "enemy" used to have all the money, because they sell you the "electrons" and they won't let go, they're dragging us and the planet down with them. But now we have TED, and IT billionaires, who know the score, and won't sell out!

The Arianna Huffington's of this world. are just a party to it, by accepting dirty money, and if you don't speak up, so will you be. So this time, there's no quarter... we yank it away from them, and it's not going to be pretty, it's not going to be nice, it's war! It's all going to boil down to Indian Point.

HuffingtonPost refused to post my comments below to this post about Josh Dorfman's endorsement of green power in New York state.

"The whole "green energy" thing in New York is dubious, as Entergy, the company which owns the Indian Point nuclear power plant North of Manhattan on the Hudson is funding 3000Mw of wind energy in the state, through ACE-NY, in "addition" to nuclear energy, not "instead" of, as NY Governor Spitzer promised. So where could all this "green" energy possibly be coming from, since the company selling you the green energy credits, CommunityEnergy, is owned by Iberdola. In recent years Iberdrola has downplayed its connections with the nuclear industry, by referring to itself as the largest operator of renewable energy in the world, but it is a member of a consortium, which won the contract to expand and modernize Mexico's only nuclear plant at Laguna Verde. In its favor, Iberdrola recently bought out ScottishPower's renewable energy division, while casting ScottishNuclear aside, since renamed British Energy. We are not certain yet if Iberdrola's purchase of ScottishPower means the utility will or will not join other UK utilities in lobbying for a nuclear renaissance."

So from now HuffingtonPost is on my s*** list.