Earthlife Africa welcomes the Nuclear Summit

Press Release 2 Feb 2004

Earthlife Africa welcomes the opportunity to participate in the forthcoming nuclear summit to be hosted by the SA parliament in February 2004.

The nuclear summit is an opportunity for those of us who have been campaigning against nuclear energy to speak out.  Affected communities and organizations like Earthlife Africa have tried to participate in official processes such as the Environmental Impact Assessment for the proposed PBMR, and the new radioactive waste policy but with the odds stacked against us.

Organisations like Earthlife Africa are mostly staffed by volunteers, and cannot hope to compete with megalithic structures such as Eskom.  From our back of the envelope calculations, Eskom used up more than our entire budget for the year just to produce full page advertorials claiming that nuclear energy is great!

The challenges are enormous.  The subject is highly technical and community concerns are largely ignored.  In our view, the nuclear industry is a relict of a bygone age when the environmental degradation counted for nothing.  Even high flying businessmen like Clem Sunter are advocating a new road where profit is not the prime motive for business.  The World Summit on Sustainable Development committed the world to sustainable development - development which occurs within the limits of the earth's recovery systems.  Long lived nuclear waste (over 240 000 years before it is safe) produced by nuclear reactors is not sustainable development.  The billions of rands being poured into nuclear industry will benefit who - certainly not ordinary South Africans.

The nuclear summit provides organizations like us with a platform to put our views, and should enable technical experts to provide information to counter the nuclear propaganda put out by the nuclear industry. 

We believe that if any rational parliamentarian listens to all sides of the story, there is only one conclusion they can come to - nuclear power is not for South Africa - and our country is not to be used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.