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Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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So… climate change deniers want to delay action on climate change. So they push for nuclear because it has long lead times and that forestalls action?
Come on man. That’s a pretty ridiculous theory. Climate change deniers are out there yelling “drill baby drill” not going undercover as nuclear advocates.
I won't profess to know for sure what their reasoning is. I suspect it's a bit of that, and also a bit of hope/expectation that the fossil fuel industry will be well-situated to pivot into nuclear in a way that they can't as easily do with renewables. The more centralised nature and heavy reliance on large-scale resource extraction is very similar. But they actual explanation isn't what's important.
What's important is the simple fact that the biggest climate change deniers are now trying to promote nuclear. If you want to refute the claim, you need to explain that better than I can.
I’m not very familiar with Australian politics or leaders so I can only go with what I see in those articles. First, I don’t see any climate change denial. I see a debate about renewables and nuclear
Why are conservatives against renewables:
They can’t meet our total energy needs.
Wind and solar products are predominantly made in China and conservatives don’t want to feed the Chinese economy or increase dependence (one thing I do know about AU is that Chinese influence is quite heavy and a cause of great concern there).
Why are conservatives pro-nuclear:
It provides baseload capacity that supports wind/solar where they are weak.
It has military applications.
It creates large infrastructure spending within AU and supports mining industry.
They believe it will rankle liberals.
Maybe you have a point that conservatives who are dead-set against renewables will throw nuclear into the conversation as a distraction which they know will not go anywhere. But as an outside observer who doesn’t have built up associations with these characters, I honestly just see rational inclusion of nuclear in the energy mix. This all seems healthy to me.
Yeah, that was precisely the point I was making. It's no longer politically viable to be an outright climate change denier. First they retreated to suggesting it's not manmade, but that's no longer viable either. There are a few different strategies they've fallen back on now, including "oh well, it's too late to do anything now", "climate change might be good actually?", and "our country is so small that nothing we do could make any difference compared to America or China". All nonsense, of course. But "renewables are bad actually. Nuclear is the best." is one strategy that's become particularly popular this year.
Some points on Australian politics for context. The three articles I posted focused on Peter Dutton, David Littleproud, and BHP.
Peter Dutton is the current leader of the opposition (think: the minority leader in the House + the non-incumbent presidential candidate all in one, in American terms). He's a member of the Liberal Party*, which despite the name is actually Australia's leading conservative party. They're the Republicans. They've had a longstanding opposition to action on climate change, from refusing to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol to running a major campaign to actually revoke the climate-focused legislation we had from 2010–2013 which saw Australia's only period of decreasing carbon emissions. And Dutton has been high in the ranks since that time period.
David Littleproud is the leader of the National Party. They're a separate party from the Liberals technically, but in practice they act in lockstep. The two parties have a coalition agreement that has been in effect uninterrupted since 1946, to the point that in most contexts they're thought of as one party. Littleproud is, effectively, the Vice Presidential candidate as well as second-in-charge of the minority party in the House. The Nationals are even more extreme in their social conservatism than the Liberals, generally speaking.
BHP should, I hope, need no introduction. They're a massive multinational mining conglomerate, headquartered in Australia. The mining sector wields a lot of political power in Australia. Many mining and other energy-related companies are actually getting more and more into renewables themselves, and even BHP has said renewables need to be part of the mix. But their rhetoric has consistently been that it's got to be a slow and careful transition so as not to harm their coal mines.
I think here you're trying to get at the notion that renewables are bad for so-called "baseload" power. The thing is, studies suggest that baseload power is actually just not needed. That's a fact that's been known for at least a decade now, and which was called out as a "dinosaur" over half a decade ago. People carrying on about baseload power in 2023 are largely ill-informed, probably in no small part because of deliberate misinformation from vested interests.
It's fundamentally untrue. Renewables can meet our energy needs, if we have the political will to make it so.
* Note to any Australians: I know this is technically not true, but he's a Queensland LNP member who sits in the Liberal Party room, so it's close enough without getting too into the weeds for a non-Australian audience.
Okay thank you for raising these points which were not all on my radar. I’ll be looking out for conservative nuclear excitement (haven’t seen much in the US so far). I will also take another skeptical look at baseload, but I might need more convincing on that.
Thanks for saying this. It's the exact same thing in Denmark, and I just don't get how people don't realise this tactic when it's so fucking blatant.
Oh interesting. Thanks for sharing that detail, because I was beginning to wonder if this tactic might have been unique to conservatives in Australia.
He's completely right, and I don't get why more people don't see that. As an example, here in Denmark, the leader of the far right populist party is both the one saying climate change would be a good thing since it means warmer summer weather as well as constantly bringing up nuclear energy any single time someone starts talking about climate change. It's honestly so transparent. I used to see the same thing all the time on Reddit, and now I guess it's Lemmy's turn for this shit.
Yes in dialogue with him here I learned a lot more. I have never learned a thing before about how this goes in Denmark or his native Australia.
If nuclear is brought up to derail and distract I guess that makes sense. It is a political bog and anyone sent into that big is going to get slowed down or trapped.
This is a little different than purposely leaning on the long plant construction lead times to forestall impact, though, which is the way it was first stated.