ATTENTION: Lisa Clausen. habitat@acf.org.au
Dear Lisa,
Kelly O'Shanassy [CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation] says in her latest Letter from the CEO that [ACF magazine] Habitat "never stopped advocating for change" and that it understands "how story-telling can help shape our world to be a better place".
May I (i) tell a story and (ii) advocate for change?
I first became an ACF member in Canberra in 1969. My membership lapsed overseas, and I rejoined recently. I've long been interested in conservation and how to mitigate climate change. I have here in Hong Kong, a whole roof-top of solar panels; we don’t own a car; our CO2 footprint is negative, we fight to protect local flora and fauna.
But that's not the story. It’s just setting the table.
(1) This story is about France and Germany.
To develop its economy and give its residents reliable power, France decided early to go a nuclear route. Germany initially decided the same, but U-turned, largely as a result of pressure from its Green parties. This year it shut down its six remaining nuclear power stations.
The result is a sad story, at least for Germany. As a direct result of its anti-nuclear policy, Germany has nine times the intensity of CO2 emissions in grams per kWh generated as France does (see chart above) and has electricity costs three times more than France's. These costs are regressive, hitting the poorest Germans hardest.
That's all because of policy — in German Energiewende, its "Energy Transformation". It is because of policy that Germany has more CO2 emissions and more expensive electricity than France. It did not happen by accident.
Different decisions about nuclear power. That's the story.
I could add a story about my visit to the Da Ya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, back in 2008 with the Classic Car Club of Hong Kong. It was a wonderful experience, which changed my views of the safety, security, reliability and cleanliness of nuclear energy. Da Ya Bay is just over the border in mainland China. We in Hong Kong get nearly half of our electricity from it and nearby Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station. reactor. The result is that in Hong Kong we emit less than one third of Australia's CO2 emissions per capita. [Reference].
Again, that's a story of policy; of different choices.
More parts of the story: 33 countries have nuclear power and more are planning to build nuclear power stations. Australia by contrast has legislation banning nuclear power! We ban it because of the lobbying by the likes of your "Nuclear Free Campaigner" David Sweeney.
Either Sweeney is right and all those 33 countries are wrong. Or those 33 countries are right and Sweeney is wrong. Which is it? They cannot both be right.
75 years of experience suggests that it's those 33 countries which are right and it's Australia (Sweeney et.al.) that's wrong.
Is it that likelihood that keeps the ACF from discussing the issue? The fear that they may be wrong? And have been so all this time? Is that the story here?
(2) The advocacy for change flows from the story: it is advocacy to the ACF: to make itself open to change based on the science. The ACF claims that it's a science-based organisation. It surely ought to be. Or has it been captured by a coterie of "nuclear free campaigners" and can no longer discuss nuclear power? Is it off limits?
Why not allow, indeed why not advocate — in the pages of Habitat — a diversity of views? At least on the nuclear issue. What's to be scared of, if the arguments against it are so sound? If you, and Sweeney, are right, you ought to be able to account for we wrong folks very easily. Isn't that what our wonderful democracy is about? To be able to discuss issues in public? Or is that just a story? Is that just a fantasy tale? Can you just toss out this email, and be done with it? And still feel your rectitude?
Just give me, or someone like Zion Lights, a page to make our case. That's all I advocate for. A page you might call "Dissent". Or just a Letters Page. There is no such thing as a singularity, or a single correctness, on an issue as complex as the climate crisis.
A recent ABC QandA poll asked "Should Australia invest in nuclear energy?". To my astonishment, 62% of respondents says "Yes". That's hardly a right-wing audience. Can you ignore such polls?
I suggest — I advocate — that Habitat open its pages to more stories that are outside the "bounds" of what the ACF currently allows (give up all fossil fuels; build solar and wind everywhere; save the platypus… and noooo nuclear!)
Pf, etc....
