Japanese activists: Nuclear power is not the answer to global warming

One month after the horrifying earthquake and tsunami hit Japan the country is considering raising the severity level of its nuclear crisis to the highest level available. This would put the Japanese nuclear crisis on a par with the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago, the worst nuclear power disaster in history.

Since the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant unfolded there have been raging a heated debate over the future of nuclear energy. Such as the debate between George Monbiot and Helen Caldicott over at the Guardian.

In this presentation (below) from 2008 Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the Kyoto-based NGO Green Action, talks about how nuclear power can’t fight global warming. Over the next decade there will be ZERO additional contribution from nuclear power in the fight to combat global warming, she says. Other flaws with nuclear energy is the fact that the construction takes too long, and that the costs are rising. She says that nuclear power is unreliable for fighting global warming due to accidents, mismanagement and earthquakes. Watch it:

Other news from Japan: 17,500 gather for Tokyo rallies against nuclear plants, Kyodo news agency report.

”We’ve learned that nuclear plants cannot be controlled by human power,” said photographer Gentaro Todaka, 34, among the participants. ”We hope to halt the Hamaoka plant which is said to be the most dangerous, and the campaign to halt nuclear plants will spread elsewhere.”

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Simon Leufstedt is the editor of Green Blog. Simon has previously studied Global Environmental Justice and is currently studying Human Ecology and Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. Simon is also blogging over at the Swedish 350 website and working with the Swedish TckTckTck organisation. You can follow Simon on Twitter and on Google+.
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