The case for nuclear energy

Former greenik says nuclear power will change the world, and province poised to capitalize.

Published Saturday February 9th, 2008
Appeared on page A1

Dr. Patrick Moore crisscrosses the continent with a plan tucked under his arm that suggests how he would allow the economy to thrive with minimal impact on the environment.
The chief scientist of environmental consultant firm Greenspirit Technologies, known by its critics as an industry lobby group, envisions a new world where people drive hybrid cars and live in homes powered by the sun.
Commercial goods, under Moore’s plan, would be shipped by ethanol-fuelled vehicles, and the prevailing sources of power generation would be hydro-electric and nuclear energy.
This is the idealistic vision of a man who is viewed with suspicion and distrust by the mainstream environmental movement in Canada. Moore was a founding member of Greenpeace, but today speaks on behalf of private-sector groups that are at odds with the now-international activist organization.
“Patrick Moore is an industry lobbyist with an axe to grind,” says Bruce Cox, executive director with Greenpeace Canada. “He attacks Greenpeace and its policies, but he would be worthless if he couldn’t tell people he helped found Greenpeace.”
But just this week, Moore assumed his pro-nuclear energy stance before crowds of university students in Saint John and Fredericton.
Speaking on behalf of the special interest group North American Young Generation in Nuclear, he told the Telegraph-Journal editorial board that a complete switch to nuclear power is the only option available to New Brunswick to significantly reduce its environmental impact.
Moore argues he is not a lobbyist, and his support for nuclear energy flows from a genuine concern for the environment, rather than the private-sector interests he represents.
He says he left Greenpeace because he became disenchanted with what he calls a confrontational form of politics. The activist group, he says, offers no room for different perspectives on how governments and businesses must balance economic and population growth with environmental concerns.
“When I left Greenpeace, it started to become too rigid in its ideology where you couldn’t have a conversation anymore,” he says. “You had to toe the line or get out.”
The prevailing philosophy of “environmentalism,” Moore says, is that economic development necessarily destroys the earth, and it must be stopped. But the born-again green advocate says there is a middle ground — there is a way to manage industry’s environmental impact.
“We have no choice but to extract our needs from the environment,” he says. “But we do it while repairing the damage we make and limiting the damage we make.”