Greenpeace Speaks

Greenpeace made some statements yesterday regarding the new Chernobyl report released by the U.N. They accused the IAEA of "whitewashing" the impacts. Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Jan Vande Putte said:

"As we approach the 20th anniversary of the world worst nuclear accident, the victims of Chernobyl deserve more than this shoddy, incomplete and contradictory science. What they need is real science and real solutions to the continued suffering and ill-health brought about by the Chernobyl disaster.

She also said that blaming consequences of the accident on stress and irrational fear is unjustified and misleading. I couldn't agree more. According to Greenpeace's assessment, the report is incomplete. Many areas affected by the fallout, including some of the local population surrounding the reactor and parts of Europe, were not included in the report. Apparently the report only considers the liquidators involved in the immediately clean-up of the site.

Putte believes, as do I, that this report is just a timely attempt to convince people that even when a nuclear plant isn't safe, it's still not as unsafe as we'd all feared:

"It is a deliberate attempt to minimize the risks of nuclear power in order to free the way for new reactor construction."