The answer from yesterday, no Lara, not Harry Potter, but Rubbish! by Richard Girling. A fascinating and scary look at the problem we face with our national pastime of trashing our little corner of the world. We, as a nation, seem to like nothing more than to throw stuff out, whilst the government happily signs EU directives on waste management and then does absolutely nothing to comply with them. Well, it’s far more interesting to fight a stupid war in the Iraq or mess about with the education system (again). The pages I photographed yesterday were indeed about Wriggly’s gum (well done Ric) Gum creates a huge problem for local authorities who have to clean the stuff off the streets, something which the average gum chewer is oblivious to.

Tonight’s chapter is far more serious, especially given the sh*t Mr Blair and his cronies have been spouting this week. The subject? Nuclear power. Although Girling’s book is very up to date, it was written before Blair decided that nuclear power was part of our future. The reasoning is that if we are to combat global warming and climate change, then burning fossil fuel is a definite no no. Therefore nuclear is the green alternative. But only, Mr. Blair, if you’re on some sort of medication that makes you stupid. The nuclear power stations than are going off line in the next few years will take approx 100 years to decommission. The radioactive waste that they have produced, along with that which is a product of the decommissioning will be incased in concrete. In about 100,000 years it might be safe. As Girling says:

“Literally, on pain of death, for a span of time exponentially greater than the entirety of recorded human history, we have committed our decendants to stewardship of a pent-up force which, were it ever released would cleanse the planet of it’s most irksome species.”

The pro nuclear lobby would have us believe that nuclear power is both clean and safe. I saw a politician actually claim that the problem of nuclear waste has been solved. Hardly. As I type, Sellafield still pumps low level nuclear waste into the irish sea. The US Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts claims the nuclear waste as Sellafield is “one of the world’s most dangerous concentrations of long-lived radioactive material.’ There have been so many radioactive leaks at Sellefield they had to change it’s name (from Windscale). I worry that Monte Burn’s power station in the Simpsons is too close to the truth.

So, if we can’t burn fossil fuel, and nuclear is just too dangerous, the answer must lie in renewables. Wind, tidal and bio fuels must be the way forward. And if we can’t get enough from them, then we just have to use less energy. Simple as that.

Right, rant over, just go buy the book and read it. Rubbish! by Richard Girling, Published by Eden Project Books, ISBN 1-903-91944-4