It’s probably unfair to expect high-flown rhetoric and complex ideas from a presidential candidate’s speech. They’re designed to get the candidate’s ideas and policies across to potential voters in the most simple and shortest way.
That said, you can take the simplicity too far. Take John McCain criticising Barack Obama’s stance on nuclear power…
You know, the other night in a debate I said his eloquence is admirable but pay attention to his words […] We talked about nuclear power. Well, it has to be safe, environment, blah blah blah. […] Nuclear power is safe. We ought to do it now.
Pay attention to Obama’s words, says McCain. What about McCain’s words? Blah, blah, blah? Is that an ‘admirable eloquence’? Sure, the arguments around nuclear power and safety can be complex. They often need to be simplified so that people who aren’t nuclear scientist can understand then, but blah, blah, blah? Do the workers cleaning up at Hanford, the most radioactive place in America regard nuclear safety as blah, blah, blah, do you think? John McCain is 72, as if we needed reminding, not 7.
And ‘nuclear power is safe’, says McCain. Really? If it’s so safe why is McCain on the record as saying he would not want nuclear waste being transported through his home state of Arizona? Is it safe or is it not, Senator? If it’s as safe as you say, let’s see you call for nuclear waste to be trucked through Arizona. Let’s have a straight answer and make it a little less simple than blah, blah, blah. We’re intelligent enough to understand.
(Originally published at Nuclear Reaction.)
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Indeed.
I suppose, over the past few months, we have gotten used to McCain constructing his policy in step with his goals.
In one breath he’s the most stringent supporter of W (when courting the GOP nomination), and in the next (when trying to capture the hearts of America en masse) he’s emphasising his differences with Bush 43.
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On the wider issue, I’m unsure about nuclear power. If it really was the super-safe panacea to all our energy needs, why does the nuclear industry spend so much trying to mislead us?
I’m unsure about nuclear power. If it really was the super-safe panacea to all our energy needs, why does the nuclear industry spend so much trying to mislead us?
It seems to me that the nuclear industry and the anti-nuclear industry are more concerned about what furthers their respective agendas than our energy needs.
The problem is that if nothing is done we will lose 30% of today’s electricity generating capacity within 15 years. The difference between the two sides is that the nuclear industry has an answer.
In what sense? If none of the next generation of nuclear plants are going to be up and running before 2023-ish (with a complete replacement of current capacity not being possible before the second half of the 2020s), how is building them going to help the shortfall which will exist “within 15 years”?
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