I saw a poster on campus today, posted by the Kevin Barry Cumann (or rather, Fianna Fail Youth, UCD chapter) regarding an anti-Sellafield protest. That’s the kind of thing that studenty political types get up to so I didn’t really take much notice until I saw the end of the bill, in bold lettering, a phrase to the effect of ‘SELLAFIELD MUST BE CLOSED IMMEDIATELY!!!’.

Now that made me stop and think for a minute. It is obvious that Sellafield isn’t the safest of Britain’s nuclear plants - that has been well documented in recent years, but it only seems to cause uproar over here because it’s the closest to our ‘nuclear-free’ shores. So say, for instance, a plant in Scotland like Chapelcross was attacked by the Taliban (which everyone seems to be expecting, so it seems to me) - according to these anti-Sellafield people, Sellafield is the only nuclear plant that exists, so I can infer from that that a nuclear holocaust in Scotland wouldn’t have any effect on us. Right.

And another thing. Just say, for instance, BNFL fell to their knees, renouncing their wicked ways and closing Sellafield, begging the Irish for forgiveness. What do the workers do? What do their families do? Sellafield isn’t a monster factory - it puts bread on the table for a lot of real people, people earning a living. Not lazy arsed self-righteously indignant students, a lot of whom don’t earn anything.

I don’t like nuclear fission. There are cleaner and safer ways available to boil water. But I’m not gonna go out and protest against something unless I have all the facts.

Students piss me off royally.

Mon 05 Nov 2001 at 22:57   ·