It wasn't that long ago that George Monbiot was accusing Stewart Brand of
running the most insidious and subtle exercise in corporate propaganda I have yet encountered.
I thought it was a tad hyperbolic. But that was then. It turns out that both of these environmentalist icons share remarkably similar views on nuclear power, coal, and renewable energy. For example, in a current interview with Foreign Policy, Brand says,
The main event, the century-size problem we're looking at, is climate change. But frankly, if climate were not an issue by now, I would still be saying we need to go nuclear because it is the alternative to coal -- and coal is all by itself such very large-scale, long-term bad news.
Here's Monbiot in this week's column for the Guardian:
the energy source to which most economies will revert if they shut down their nuclear plants is not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuel. On every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power.
Ah, the bonds that tie. Both Monbiot and Brand are now members of the Lonely Hearts nuclear fan club for greens.
