Two articles in the Toronto Star on March 18 caught my attention.

“Mood lukewarm on nuclear here, global poll finds” and “Chernobyl impact on animals greater than thought, study says.”

After the nuclear industry has spent millions on its advertising campaigns it is significant that about half of Canadians still object to nuclear power.

Full page ads in the Toronto Star and on television proclaiming “Clean, Safe and Cheap” have actually alerted Canadians to the political power, ample money and willingness to lie, that our nuclear industry epitomizes.

In a tiny item in the same paper we read about the lower numbers of bumblebees, butterflies, spiders, grasshoppers and other insects in the fallout areas even 22 years after that horrendous accident in Chernobyl. The film “Chernobyl” showed how all the surrounding people were rushed onto buses and evacuated with three hours to pack up and leave, never to return. The cleanup, which is really a hasty burial of still radioactive material, cost billions. A huge covering “sarcophagus” had to be built and now needs extensive repairs. In fact it may not have been the Cold War that bankrupted the USSR so much as the accident at Chernobyl where 500,000 loyal Russians were exposed and still suffer. Rosalie Bertell led an enquiry into the health and environmental effects which is available in book form from IICPH.

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were considered among the safest nuclear reactors in the world. Our own reactors are aging and even when operating well they emit radiation into the air, water and soil. The nuclear waste problem cannot be solved, now or ever as President Obama is about to find out as he searches for an alternative to burial at Yucca Mountain in the US. The only sane response is to phase out all nuclear reactors and then monitor the waste virtually forever.

According to the survey, levels of acceptance of nuclear power in other countries are: 81% in the US, 76% in the UK and 91% in China. It seems along with our CANDU exports to China we have exported an enthusiasm for this toxic, unmanageable, costly form of energy.