HELEN CALDICOTT SPEAKS OUT

Dr. Helen Caldicott, major force in the anti-nuclear movement of the late 70s and early 80s, spoke out on energy recently.
Helen Caldicott: Fuel plan beset by fossilised thinking
John Howard and Kim Beazley are sending the wrong energy message, says Helen Caldicott
By Helen Caldicott, July 25, 2006 (The Australian)

- AUSTRALIA is perfectly placed to be the real energy superpower: the instigator and global leader in renewable electricity production. A country bathed in sun and ferociously windy in many locations, Australia could, with political will and vision, usher in a safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free future.
- Instead, both Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition leader Kim Beazley seem fixated on the continued mining and burning of coal: a strategy which, at this juncture in the world's history, is environmentally contraindicated. Anyone who has seen Al Gore's extraordinary film An Inconvenient Truth will realise that the world must, urgently, stop burning fossil fuel…

- …for the first time in human history, all electricity can be generated by a combination of renewable carbon-free and nuclear-free technologies. But the forces opposing these promising developments are very powerful…
- We need, above all, politicians who are scientifically and medically knowledgeable, not just lawyers, business men and former humanities academics who seem not to comprehend the immensely dangerous problems threatening the survival of our children, descendants and 30,000 other species that cohabit this planet.