As far as this observer knows the Greens and the SNP are definitely against building nuclear power stations in Scotland. Perhaps someone out there knows the other parties official line on nuclear power (and can provide links to manifesto statements etc)? Anyway, you might think Japan is a long way away but a regular gurnite sent a link to an alarming article:
"Europeans warned to avoid drinking milk or eating vegetables due to high radiation levels"
That headline is spin on advice from a French independent organisation CRIIRAD and for expectant mums, kids etc and another site has a more measured take on the advice: "The risks related to prolonged contamination among vulnerable groups of the population can no longer be considered "negligible" and it is now necessary to avoid "risky behaviour," CRIIRAD claimed." Just how serious do you take that information? Bearing in mind the UK Foods Standards authority stated on the 7th April:
"Following reports that radiation from Fukushima has been detected in the UK, the Food Standards Agency can confirm that levels are far too low to cause any concerns over the safety of any food in the UK.
There is a possibility that minute levels of iodine-131 could land on grass and be consumed by cows - but at these levels there is no food safety risk. Minute amounts of iodine-131 could also settle on the surface of vegetables but this will not cause any food safety concerns and will soon decay or be washed away."
Regular readers may have seen the link to one of Green Dad's articles recently:"By George, He Hasn't Got It!" Green Dad wrote about a talk given by environmentalist/journalist George Monibot in Findhorn. George has had a road to Damascus conversion to nuclear power and now supports it as the least ugly way out of our date with runaway global warming that still lingers just around the corner. I suppose Nuclear George is doing us a favour in pointing out the real deep mess we are in but there's no way this observer is convinced that nuclear power is safe. George reckons the green movement has misled the world over radiation. Now this observer is not a scientist but neither is George, he is a journalist. Yes a journalist that has done a great deal of research and read a lot of papers but then so have others, here's Helen Caldicott who beleives the Nuclear Apologists have misled the world over radiation.
Citizens, we have to find a way out of the mess we are making for ourselves but as food article linked above indicates, if we want safe food to eat in the future then we'd better stop building nuclear power stations and think of ways of making the existing ones safer. It might help, if you feel so inclined, to vote in May for parties that are against expansion of nuclear power in Scotland.
UPDATE: got the following information about SLAB and Scots Tory nuclear policy from HighlandSNP on twitter:
@GurnNurn Tories p.26. "we will end the policy of current Scottish Government of refusing to consider replacement of existing nuclear power"
@GurnNurn Labour manifesto page 15: "Any application for consent to new nuclear capacity will be considered on its merits"
