Page "James Lovelock" Paragraph 19

In The Revenge of Gaia ( 2006 ), where he puts forward the concept of sustainable retreat, Lovelock writes :" A television interviewer once asked me, ' But what about nuclear waste?

Will it not poison the whole biosphere and persist for millions of years?

' I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world ... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife.

This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States ' Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of the Second World War.

Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets ...

I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide.