Gar Smith is editor emeritus of Earth Island Journal, a Project Censored award-winning investigative journalist, and cofounder of Environmentalists Against War. He has covered revolutions in Central America and has engaged in environmental campaigns on three continents. He lives a low-impact, solar-assisted lifestyle in Berkeley, California. Ernest Callenbach is the author of Ecotopia, Ecotopia Emerging, Ecology: A Pocket Guide and was coauthor of EcoManagement. For many years, he edited film books and natural history guides for the University of California Press. Jerry Mander is Founder and Distinguished Fellow of the International Forum on Globalization and author of five books, including Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible. His latest book is The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System.
Kirkus Reviews-
An impassioned case against the use of nuclear power.
In his
debut, Earth Island Journal editor emeritus Smith gathers together
several arguments against nuclear power into a concise yet detailed
package. He forcefully asserts that nuclear power plants are not
only unsafe—with severe accidents at nuclear plants in the United
States, Russia and Japan serving to ‘illustrate the ultimate
insanity of the nuclear option’—but also polluting, costly and
inefficient. He gives several examples of nuclear-plant and
government officials downplaying potentially serious risks to the
public, and, in a compelling chapter, enumerates the failings of
what he calls ‘five of the worst U.S. reactors.’ He examines a host
of health and safety issues at plants all over the country,
including the much-criticized Indian Point plant north of New York
City. Smith concludes with several recommendations for
alternatives, advocating for heightened energy efficiency and
renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power.
The author comes at his subject from an environmentalist point of
view, with an explicit desire to ‘pull the plug on this dangerous
technology,’ and some readers may be skeptical of his concluding
vision of a ‘sustainable compassion economy.’ Many of the arguments
will also be familiar to veterans of the nuclear-power debate.
Nonetheless, Smith lays out an impressively researched narrative,
drawing on facts from a wide range of sources, and makes a strong
case that will be hard for even nuclear-power advocates to dismiss
out of hand. For casual readers, the book presents a well-written
introduction to the anti-nuclear-power position.
A penetrating
argument against today's nuclear age.
Choice- "Journalist Smith (editor emer., Earth Island Journal) has
responded to the Fukushima disaster with an avalanche of
condemnation of everything nuclear with zeal and sometimes
enthusiastic overkill. Nuclear power advocates will be challenged
and opponents will be encouraged by the documented hazards related
to nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Many major oversights
and bad decisions have contributed to health concerns and loss of
life. Smith vividly demonstrates that nuclear power plants require
NASA-type engineering and well-trained operators. He discusses how
the military's use of uranium-235 left a legacy of high-level
nuclear waste and a proliferation of plutonium for weapons. He also
addresses the problems of nuclear waste storage … . Summing Up:
Recommended. With reservations."
"It will be an auspicious start to our new century if we can
encourage a revitalized movement to stop all nuclear production and
immediately close down every nuclear facility-military and
civilian. Then we can dedicate our skills and resources to finding
true solutions to the real challenges of our time: evolving a
sustainable, energy-wise, and peaceful society."--from the foreword
by Jerry Mander
“Nuclear Roulette is an act of love and reason for Mother
Earth. We’ve had five decades of poisonous decision making in the
face of millennia of life. Now is the time to safeguard our
generations yet to come. Gar Smith’s powerful writing tells the
stories that inform our good work.”--Winona LaDuke, indigenous
rights activist and author of All Our
Relations and Recovering the Sacred
“Nuclear Roulette by Gar Smith is a timely and necessary book.
Nuclear energy is unaffordable by every measure—by the
measure of financial costs, of safety, and of the destruction of
democracy. We are witnessing this in India where the US-India
nuclear agreement is imposing a ‘nuclear renaissance’ by creating a
police state in Koodankulam and in Jaitapur. Nuclear
Roulette should be in the hands of everyone who cares for life
and freedom.”--Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya Research
Foundation for Science Technology & Ecology
"This powerful solartopian screed leaves no doubt that the
experiment with atomic energy is the most dangerous and expensive
technological failure in human history. Gar Smith writes with
extraordinary power and clarity on an industry whose failure
threatens the future of our species—ecologically, economically, and
in terms of biological survival. Nuclear Roulette is a
strong signpost pointing straight to a green-powered world, where
we get our energy cheaper, safer, cleaner, community-owned, and
quicker. Take this book with you next time you’re out shutting a
nuke or opening a wind farm."--Harvey Wasserman, author of
SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, and editor
of www.nukefree.org.
“A thoroughly brilliant work. Extraordinary! Gar Smith cuts through
the lies of the nuclear promoters to document the deadliness of
atomic power.”--Karl Grossman, professor of journalism, State
University of New York College at Old Westbury, and author
of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know about
Nuclear Power
"If ever there was a book that people need to read at this moment
in the history of the world it is Nuclear Roulette. Comprehensively
referenced, it is not only an encyclopedia of the nuclear age
related specifically to nuclear power, it is a potent warning of
the almost incomprehensible dangers that lie ahead, as well as the
damage that has already contaminated portions of our beloved planet
beyond repair. I highly recommend this wonderful book to all who
care about our children, future generations, and the thirty million
other species that cohabit this earth with us."--Dr. Helen
Caldicott, pediatrician, founding president of Physicians for
Social Responsibility, and author of Nuclear Madness and Nuclear
Power Is Not the Answer
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