On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Andrew Hund wrote:
> Wrong!
>
> In the best possible world "we" would not have any nuclear weapons or waste
I'll give you this, but I don't have a problem with nuclear
power in general. It is a problem however tht there are so
few reprocessing sites; there should be more of them (and
perhaps inspected more stringently than they currently are).
I suspect the fact the Japanese send their wastes halfway
round the world for reprocessing has little to do with the
actual perils of doing so domesticaly and much to do about
the all too understandable Japanese horror of anything that
brings nuclear weapons to mind.
>
>
> They (the people attempting to dispose of toxic/nuclear waste) are always
> looking for places to put it--perhaps you could write them and ask to have
> it reprocessing center in your town--preferably next to your current
> residence.
I used to live within a mile or so of one of the EPA's most
horrendous Superfund sites, out in Riverside county, so I
don't have quite the problems envisioning this that you
might expect. <g>
>
> Just think of all the jobs it would create. What a great capitalists
> venture. Oh, yeah there would also be an increase in cancer therapy and
> research jobs in about 10 to 15 years. Right!
There'd be environmental risks if the stuff was poorly handled,
true. But there are risks if quite a lot of other things--
chlorine gas, say-- are mishandled, and we live with it. We
have close to six billion people on this planet, many of them quite
poor, and we would like to increase everyone's standard of
living. I don't think we can do this and restore the world
wide environment to our hazy recollections of what it was like
in 1840 or so, before the industrial revolution really spread.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ms44278@huey.csun.edu
Mike Shupp
California State University, Northridge
Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology
http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/index.htm