Do you go nuclear over nukes? Then this is a meeting you should plan to attend!
Note: The original title of this post suggested that this was a Sierra Club event. While many Sierra Club nuclear activist will be attending, the program is being developed by C.A.N., the Coalition Against Nukes.
The No Nukes Activist Network Team is excited that C.A.N. – the Coalition Against Nukes – is hosting a series of events in Washington DC on Sept 20, 21 and 22.
It’ll be an inspiring three days of rallies, panels, Congressional briefings, educational and social events and networking. Sierra Club activists won’t want to miss out on these important three days!
According to the C.A.N. website, the three-day grand event is meant to:
1. focus attention on the medical effects of radiation exposure.
2. call for an immediate phase out of nuclear power in the United States beginning with our Mark 1 and Mark 2 boiling water reactors and any reactors with serious glaring concerns or located in a seismic/tsunami prone area; and
3. heighten the focus on the continuing catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan and especially in regards to irradiated fuel pool in the number 4 Reactor which will hopefully still be intact by September.
As you know, the Club has many long-standing policies that oppose nuclear power and describe how nuclear power is not an energy source to be encouraged, that reactor licenses should not be renewed, oppose loan guarantees, and urge repeal of Price-Anderson liability limitation.
Sarah Hodgdon, the Club’s Director of Conservation, talks about the Club’s dedication to a nuclear-free energy future in this June 2012 blog in Treehugger.
As a grassroots organization, it is important for Club Chapters to urge closure of particular existing reactors based on local circumstances and to alert their friends and neighbors of the dangers of continued operation of a reactor. Fighting nuclear power generation is still a case by case fight that must involve folks immediately affected. We believe this grassroots campaign organizing should be energized by the lessons of the Fukushima disaster which is still unfolding.
The Club formally endorses the hardened, on-site storage (HOSS) principles. These principles urge that high-level radioactive waste, as soon as possible, be stored in hardened dry storage and moved to a less dangerous place as near as safely possible to the site of generation, in order to distance it from bodies of water, fault lines and storms. Fuel pool number 4 at Fukushima has shown that the indifference of reactor operators and regulators to the dangers of overcrowded pools must be addressed immediately.
There’s a lot of work the Club can do right now, and our volunteers are spending a prodigious amount of time and expertise working toward an energy future free of nuclear power and its deadly legacy.
The No Nukes Team supports the C.A.N. event as a good ally working in the same direction, but we are cautious about expressing a formal position on the categorical closure of reactors without understanding and planning for the consequences of doing that. We urge the immediate formation of a timeline of an energy replacement plan that relies on efficiency and clean renewable energy, so that no new nuclear power is developed and the dirtiest and most dangerous nuclear power plants are promptly retired. Instead of nuclear, resources should be spent on invested in efficiency and clean replacement power.
Here’s looking forward to a great 3-days in DC, zeroing in on the nuclear-free future that we are all passionate about.
No Nukes ActNet Core Team
Susan, Jane, Brian, Steven, Diane, Pat, Leslie and Linda
For more information contact Gail Payne at gailpayne@coalitionagainstnukes.org
