RADIOACTIVE WASTERS

A few weeks after a number of turncoat ‘leading’ environmentalists came out gay pro-nuclear power, a timely reminder why flawed humans playing god with such elemental forces is such a bad idea (let alone the astronomical costs or the perils of creating waste so toxic if you look after it well it’s still lethal hundreds or thousands of years later, and if you look after it badly, can kill or bring birth-defects and disease on a large scale for generations.)

Last week saw the 24th anniversary of the Chenobyl Disaster – the world’s worst ever civil nuclear accident. (SchNEWS 71). Half a million people at least are thought to have been effected by the fall out with doctors as far away as the Ukraine and Belarus seeing “highly unusual” rates of cancers, mutations and blood diseases.

As part of an international weekend of action to mark the date, and highlight the craziness of government plans for ten new nuke generators, twenty plus activists from Stop Nuclear Power Network descended on Sizewell – one of the locations earmarked for further development – to hold a weekend protest camp.

Actions included a demonstration at the gates, a public meeting in nearby Leiston and info/campaigning workshops on the beach, and also took in a tour of the flood-prone lands where EDF plans to build the new Sizewell C.

Participants also led a silent procession to pile pebbles decorated with messages and symbols into a cairn in memory of the victims of Chernobyl and the nuclear industry. A banner was held that read “CHERNOBYL – 26 April 1986 – NEVER AGAIN”

*See www.stopnuclearpoweruk.net