12 Minerals Council of Australia Box 1 Environmental support for nuclear James Lovelock originator of Gaia Theory has been quoted extensively supporting nuclear energy and by extension uranium He is an enthusiast for nuclear power which makes him unpopular with many greens Im a scientist and an inventor and it is absurd to reject nuclear energy he says It all comes from the religious side They feel guilty about dropping atom bombs on people Here was this extraordinary gift given to humans a safe cheap source of power and it gets horribly abused right at the start W ere still playing out the guilt feelings about it But its sad because we in Britain could now be having cheap energy if wed gone on building nuclear power stations Nuclear waste It isnt a problem he insists Sandy and I were invited to F rance and we stood on 25 years of nuclear waste at La Hague I had my own handheld monitor to check whether they were bullshitting me about it and it was showing about the same reading as I was getting in this room It was completely safe The Swiss did a study of the number of deaths per year in all the various power systems and nuclear beats everything What about the meltdown at F ukushima in 2011 Thats the most amazing collection of lies ever known he says There is virtually no wildlife damage anywhere near F ukushima Levels of radiation are much too low Nobody was killed nobody was even hurt so what was all the fuss about Its all propaganda P eople badmouth nuclear so nobody dares use it Stephen Moss 2014 James Lovelock Instead of robots taking over the world what if we join with them The Guardian 31 March 2014 Similarly Stewart Brand editor of the Whole Earth Catalog has argued The dangers of nuclear power have been systematically exaggerated while its benefts have been ignored Nuclear power is the only other form of power generation that is as harmless to the atmosphere as hydro and hydro is largely maxed out Fission reactors especially the new smaller and safer designs should be deployed rapidly particularly in the U S China and India where the greatest power demand is University of W ashington Conservation Magazine Environmental Heresies 29 July 2008 Stephen T indale former Executive Director of Greenpeace UK said I spent 20 years campaigning against nuclear then decided Id been wrong and said so Nuclear power is not the whole answer to the climate threat Energy effciency renewables and carbon capture and storage are needed too But nuclear is part of the answer Stephen T indale Why W e Should Support Nuclear P ower Ecologist 8 April 2014 While some environmentalists remain ideologically opposed to uranium mining and nuclear power in particular many prominent environmental and conservation scientists have spoken in favour of nuclear power in recent years