"He informed us
that they were the Keepers of Lake Eyre and
that they were protecting the lake and mound springs from WMC on behalf of the Arabunna
people . . . We were told that radiation had seeped from the tailings dam into the Great
Artesian Basin and that the mining company had displaced the traditional owners from their
land. What's more, the Bubbler mound spring used to fountain water three feet into the air
but now, since the mining company was taking water, the bubbles barely broke the surface.
It was too much. I
blew our anonymity and said that I had been regularly visiting the Bubbler for over ten
years and that our records showed that the current water flows were the highest they had
been for a decade . . . The quasi-hydrologist authoritatively pronounced for all to hear,
'He's shittin' us'.
'Excuse me,' I
interrupted; 'but who's shittin' who?"
Good question. This prompted
John to start researching the nuclear industry and its environmental effects as a whole,
with interesting results.
"If it were not
for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear energy could well be viewed in a very
different manner. The waters became even murkier following the weapons tests and Maralinga
and the inexcusable recent atrocities at Mururoa Atoll. and other contemporary 'atom bomb'
test sites. Chernobyl remains the most tangible link between the modern nuclear industry
and a large scale environmental and safety disaster. This antiquated Russian power plant
with pathetic safety systems has got as much relevance to the operations of the modern
nuclear industry as chamber pots have to the management of modern sewer systems."
Attitudes of society change
again and again. We now fund restoration projects to replant areas that, years ago,
we spent huge amounts to clear. The radioactive Paralana Hot Springs in the north of South
Australia were opened to the public in 1924 as a 'health spa'. These springs are the site
where frog expert Mike Tyler found nearly one third of the frogs were
deformed in some way!
However the energy produced
by radiation - a natural process of decay taking place all over the planet all the time -
can still be put to use, hence the creation of nuclear power plants.
But is nuclear power
'cleaner' than the use of traditional fossil fuels? Reg Sprigg, geophysicist,
paleotologist and ecotourism pioneer, once forecast a huge environmental catastrophe
caused by the exclusive use of fossil fuels to generate power. Are we perhaps facing a
future filled with activists fighting for the use of nuclear power instead of
fossil fuels?
Perhaps only time will tell,
like the erroneous tree-clearing of the past, maybe the correct decision will only be seen
in retrospect. But isn't it vitally important to make sure we are in possession of all the
facts? One problem is the practices known as 'brown-washing' and 'green-washing'.
"Green-washing is
the trumped-up or exaggerated claim by industry or government that environmental issues
are being addressed proactively and satisfactorily, when perhaps this isn't the case . . .
most activists are preoccupied with the opposite of green-washing.
"Brown-washing is not
just pulling out the dirty laundry for all to see, it usually involves chucking mud on the
clean stuff as well."
Neither of these represent
the truth, which is what we're looking for to make balanced decisions regarding safe
generation of power. At the end of the day, bringing an end to brown-washing and
green-washing may be the only way to see the solution clearly.
