The Witchtower Magazine

Gaia, Gaea or Ge was the ancient Greek earth goddess and mother of the Titans. I have just heard on the news that our Government has decided to give the go ahead for a new generation (pun intended) of nuclear power stations. I feel that this is a mistake. OK - I'm probably biased; I've belonged to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth for many years and been involved in environmental campaigns since the late 1960s.

In January 1972 the Ecologist magazine was full of "A Blueprint for Survival"; a primer for a post industrial society. It said "The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable. Its termination within the lifetime of someone born today is inevitable, unless it continues to be sustained for a while longer by an entrenched minority at the cost of imposing great suffering on the rest of mankind. We can be certain, however, that sooner or later it will end (only the precise time and circumstances are in doubt) and that it will do so in one of two ways: either against our will, in a succession of famines, epidemics, social crises and wars; or because we want it to - because we wish to create a society which will not impose hardship and cruelty upon our children - in a succession of thoughtful, humane and measured changes." At this time there was talk of spaceship earth and the stupidity with which we, its passengers, were unplugging essential life support systems, wrecking our chances of survival.

Regrettably we seem to be on the brink of the first outcome with climate change bringing about even more disasters than would otherwise have occurred and wars over oil, water and other resources becoming more likely in the future.

Where does nuclear power fit into this? Well recently James Lovelock, a scientist who proposed the Gaia theory in the 1960s, has said that he thinks nuclear power may be necessary to help us reduce carbon emissions and control climate change.