Nuclear?

Some have trouble pronouncing it; some can't even think it.

Jerry Taylor at The Corner links to a piece by David Owen (no relation) at The New Yorker, "Economy vs. Environment." Taylor: "[E]conomic growth is the enemy and a return to the pre-industrial age is answer." The recurring refrain of the Deep Greens. Owen goes on and on about how energy prices must be made higher, never mind the hardship that would result. He does have the sense to say

American dependence on fossil fuels isn’t going to end any time soon: solar panels and wind turbines provided only about a half per cent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2007, and they don’t work when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Replacing oil is going to require more than determination.

But the word "nuclear" is nowhere to be found in his effusion.

We have a safe source of power that does not emit carbon. Can we use it, please? The refusal of the Greens (including Obama's science advisors) to admit that nuclear power is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, even as they are trying to shut down fossil fuel production, shows that what they really want is widespread misery. Prosperity is the enemy. Or as David Owen says in conclusion,

The ultimate success or failure of Obama’s program, and of the measures that will be introduced in Copenhagen this year, will depend on our willingness, once the global economy is no longer teetering, to accept policies that will seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss.

Oh, yeah, those policies, what about them, that only "seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss"? I would say that's no seeming, it's an actual nudging, or even a shove.

Compare the discussion in comments about the Tata Nano.