Article Tags: Tom Bethell
I planned to write something about nuclear power—about how the U.S., after a 30-year delay, had better hurry up and restart nuclear power. Then came Climategate. It involved the release—it has been called a theft but more likely it was a deliberate leak—of e-mails from a “university” in Britain that has been promoting climate change fears in the guise of collecting climate data.
With that, a new public understanding of the realities of science today may begin to dawn. The new reality is this. For about a generation, the Western world has been coping with a politicized attack on science by the very people who should have been guarding its integrity.
The obstruction of further developments in nuclear power was only the beginning. In 1979, an accident at Three Mile Island, in which no one was hurt, brought the nuclear power enterprise in the U.S. to a halt. Fears were deliberately inflated. China was not intimidated, however, and today it is adding nuclear power on a large scale; 25 new reactors are under construction. Plainly, if this continues much longer, China will develop an unstoppable economic lead over the U.S. And it will be our fault.
China’s former catastrophe (Communist rule) now works to its advantage. In 1949, the nation’s intelligentsia seized power—for that is what Communism entails. They became socialist planners for 40 years and impoverished the country with famine and ruin. Since the late 1960s, our homegrown intelligentsia have felt deprived because they never had the same opportunity. They never could seize the power they believe is rightfully theirs. The amazing result? China is now immunized against the socialist disease, whereas the U.S. has still not been fully exposed. We remain susceptible, and keep on experiencing its maladies.
Source: spectator.org