Spring Calls For Your Action

Spring is slowly returning to Vermont. 
Fairewinds Energy Education needs your help to blossom.

Photo from VermontVacation.Com

Demystifying Nuclear Power Blog:
By Ben Shulman-Reed & Maggie Gundersen

As the weather warms again, we are reminded how much our health and happiness are impacted by our natural environment. Most Vermonters relish the outdoors, and spring is the perfect time of year to appreciate the beauty of the new growth, especially for those of us cooped up indoors by a heavy dose of winter weather in northern climates!

[Ben] Each year I look forward to revisiting my favorite natural areas, watching as the color returns to the landscape, bringing with it a renewed sense of hope and energy. I always rejoice, along with most of my neighbors and friends, when flowering trees return to our neighborhoods. Here in Vermont, we tend to take for granted the ease of access to our natural areas as a place we can escape to and lift our spirits.

Springtime in Japan welcomes the cherry blossoms that are world renowned for their vibrant flowers and deeply rooted symbolism: representing the fragility and the beauty of life.

[Maggie] Welcoming spring was a joy shared by many people in Japan before the triple meltdowns of the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plants. Now, that spring ritual is forever changed by the radioactive legacy of Fukushima Daiichi.

Since the 2011 atomic power disaster, many people from Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture are still refugees who have lost hope that they will ever return to ancestral lands and homes due to the remaining risks to their personal wellbeing even though the government claims it is safe to return. Less than 20% of the area's refugees have moved back to the prefecture because the risk is so high. Finally, many refugees will never ever be able to return to their homes and communities due to the high levels of radioactivity that will continue to haunt the decimated land for thousands of years to come.   

Even the return of spring with the bloom of beautiful cherry blossoms cannot ease the uncertainty and fear constantly confronting those whose lives have been devastated by radioactivity. As a species, we must honestly consider the legacy we leave behind for generations to come, and the impact of our actions today.

As Fairewinds said before, and we need to reiterate now, our energy choices for today will set the tone for future generations to come.  For us to ensure a vibrant and healthy world for our children and grandchildren to inherit, we must move away from atomic energy that leaves behind waste that will outlast countless generations to come.  

[Ben] At my age, I remain hopeful that time is turning the tide of our human perspective on the natural world. Each spring continues to bring an abundance of sunlight that will bring energy to our human and natural worlds for many years to come.

[Maggie] The work the Fairewinds crew does gives me hope. While we do focus on the real environmental and health risks of atomic power plants, we also look at the real economic and human costs of producing an adequate energy supply.

The atomic industry claims its power is safe, clean, and green, so why give up nuclear power for good?

Look at Fairewinds site and see why.

Check out our Smokescreen animation and learn that the true cost of powering less than 20% of the U.S. economy with nukes is $8.2 Trillion USD. These costs don't factor in any decommissioning, disaster cleanup, permanent long-term waste storage, or the environmental devastation of uranium mining!

Every time I release these figures, pro-nuclear trolls start bombarding us with questions about how we got this data and where is it?

Five University of Vermont interns, two PhDs (one energy economist and one geology professor) worked with the Fairewinds Crew for more than 18-months to do the full research and bring the unvarnished facts to you our followers

We have issued a paper, and presented this topic at several major universities and forums, and we wanted to make it more accessible to people throughout the world. Truthout published Arnie Gundersen’s summation of this project in a news analysis entitled: Nuclear Power Is Not “Green Energy”: It Is a Fount of Atomic Waste. We also have a podcast in which we discuss the data and the findings with the research team of University of Vermont Interns.

Every bit of Fairewinds’ effort takes money.

We need your support now to continue our scientific research.

Please help us financially, 
so that we can collect the data, conduct analyses, and produce the newsletters, videos, and podcasts you depend upon!

Thank you!

We will keep you informed.