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With Pollution On The Rise, Will Europe Resist Germany's Dirty War On Nuclear Power? Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel Over the last few years, Germany has taken actions that have damaged its reputation as an environmental leader. Its emissions <http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/01/24/germany-announces-carbon-emission-rise-second-year-row/>have flatlined, thanks to its replacement of nuclear power with fossil fuels <http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/1/13/breaking-german-emissions-increase-in-2016-for-second-year-in-a-row-due-to-nuclear-closure>. It recently bulldozed an ancient forest <https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2017-11-28-germany-ancient-forest-coal-mine>, village <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-shadow-of-germanys-climate-conference-a-village-disappears-to-make-way-for-coal/2017/11/11/82deb030-c18b-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html?utm_term=.13dea7dc10ba>, and church <https://www.thelocal.de/20180110/historic-church-demolished-to-make-way-for-brown-coal-mine> in order to mine for the coal underneath. And, as one of the most coal-dependent nations in Europe, Germany exports deadly air pollution <http://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/dark_cloud_report.pdf> to its neighbors. Now, heedless of its negative environmental impact, and in the grip of a darkly romantic national ideology, Germany is on the march to raze nuclear plants all across Europe. “Germany has decided to phase out nuclear power,” the nation’s new environment minister said before visiting Belgium <https://www.bmu.de/en/pressrelease/bundesumweltministerin-svenja-schulze-zum-antrittsbesuch-in-bruessel/> last month. “We would like to see our neighbouring countries following our example.” That’s putting it mildly. In truth, Germany’s approach has been to pressure nations <https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-nuclear-energy-belgium-doel-tihange-targets-the-atom/> to close nuclear plants and end nuclear programs — at a potentially great cost to their citizens and the natural environment. They have done so by fear-mongering about foreign nuclear plants, threatening to cut off German nuclear fuel supplies to foreign plants in Belgium and France that they claim are dangerous, divesting from foreign nuclear companies, and by proposing to amend the 1957 Euratom treaty to reduce state support for nuclear power. Whether or not these actions will have a direct impact — most nuclear plants, for example, can buy fuel from other suppliers — they put pressure on nuclear-operating nations to bend to demands made by Germany, the largest economic and political power in Europe, to phase out nuclear and phase in renewables, even when it means maintaining or increasing dependence on fossil fuels. Full: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/06/26/with-pollution-on-the-rise-will-europe-finally-resist-germanys-dirty-war-on-nuclear-power/#38f17af36769 _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
