A while back I mentioned a great article by Diane Farsetta about the nuclear industry's big PR push and the gullibility of the journalists covering it. Now there's a similar piece in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, from Amanda Witherell, and it contains this delightful tidbit:
A survey by Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy, came across 302 recent articles mentioning [Patrick] Moore and nuclear power as a possible option for mitigating the effects of global warming.
Only 37 -- a mere 12 percent -- said he's being paid to support nuclear power by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a national organization of pro-nuke industries that's hired Moore to front its nuclear renaissance.
Worth reading the rest.
Relatedly, check out this story about David Fenton of Fenton Communications, a progressive PR firm that's mobilizing to push back against the onslaught of nuke shillery.
Two senators push to ramp up nuclear energy
Nuclear companies face reactor design problems, ethics questions
Will South Carolina become the nation’s new Yucca Mountain?
Comments
View as Flat
GRLCowan Posted 2:35 am
05 Jun 2007
Progressives don't oppose nuclear energy.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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SustainableGreen Posted 3:24 am
05 Jun 2007
"Progressives don't oppose nuclear energy."
Bullshit lying propaganda by love slaves of the Corporate Oligarchy, Nuclear energy lobby branch. Grows out of the branches Big Oil and Big Coal. Pretty much clones of the other. Their source of life and sole reason for being is pure greed.
Nuclear shills DO lie.
Nuclear power is not sustainable, never has, never will be.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:45 am
05 Jun 2007
You do have to admit Patrick Moore is a lying bastard.
Infact he's a professional greenwashing consultant for dirty industries.
And then there's money. Even 18 years after he left Greenpeace, Moore's business relationships with polluters and clear-cutters elicit disgust from his erstwhile comrades. "He'll whore himself to anything to make a buck," says Paul George, founder of the Western Canada Wildlife Committee. In an email, former Greenpeace director Paul Watson charges, "You're a corporate whore, Pat, an eco-Judas, a lowlife bottom-sucking parasite who has grown rich from sacrificing environmentalist principles for plain old money."
Moore admits he's well paid for his speaking and consulting services. He won't say how well, avowing only that his environmental consultancy, Greenspirit Strategies, has been "very successful because we know what we're talking about and give good advice."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/moore_pr.html
I wouldn't believe for a second that he even gives a damn about reducing CO2 emmisions.
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Karen Street Posted 10:38 am
05 Jun 2007
It's also fair to point out that some environmental groups traditionally depend on opposition to nuclear power as a fundraiser, even if occasionally -- or often, for that matter -- facts are wrong.
A friend who belongs to mainstream environmental groups said that it was only after Gore's movie came out that climate change became the lead article in the magazines.
Back to the article in question -- mistake after mistake after mistake. Why not mention them? The concern about toxics in San Luis Obispo from the nuclear plant -- the other alternative was a coal plant with a trainload of coal every day. What toxics are building up in SLO from nuclear? Weapons grade plutonium from commercial nuclear power?
And to cite Caldicott on fallacious -- some people I know stopped listening to her when the Y2k meltdown failed to occur; almost everyone else I know stopped listening to her in the 1980s. Remember her promoting the idea that the shuttle program would destroy the ozone layer?
I am not paid by the nuclear industry.
A Musing Environment
Karen Street
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