Er. Say what now? France is a model society?

Generally speaking, that is. Of course in terms of nuclear energy you might consider it a model. Although as an inhabitant of a neighbouring country, I do want to suggest you take a look at the map of where precisely they chose to build their nuclear plants... oh, many of the biggest plants are right at the border, including one surrounded on three sides by Belgian territory? What a coincidence!

Mind you, our northern neighbours would immediately reply that Belgium doesn't have much room to talk on that score, having its largest reactors remarkably close to the Dutch border.

Have to say I can't take these conspiracy theory 'marxists needed a new enemy so they picked nuclear reactors' parts very seriously.

This article does conspicuously ignore the topic of where to get the uranium for all these nuclear power plants... not to say I don't agree with the general idea, but I could do with a somewhat more neutral analysis that doesn't gloss over or ignore every downside of nuclear power.


I've made the same comparison to a Santa letter myself - the GND isn't an actual plan or deal in any serious sense of the word. And while you could argue that you need to start with getting people on board to achieve ambitious environmental targets and only then look at how to get there, it was still completely idiotic to present said ambitious targets in the same breath with a long and utopic left-wing wishlist on mostly unrelated topics like wage equality, so as to guarantee that no Republican could take the GND seriously. It made it harder, not easier, for Republicans or centrist Democrats to prioritize the struggle against climate change.

Though considered from an international context, the GND may be a blunder, but it's a domestic American one which isn't really relevant for climate change efforts elsewhere and you can't dismiss the whole global Green movement based on that.

Not to mention increased highly-polluting plants and entire villages being removed to make way for their new coal mining.

I agree, but nuclear power and renewables are not an either/or story, it should be both. If at some point in the future nuclear fusion becomes technically and economically feasible, the calculations might change again, but in the meantime, nuclear plants do still have environmental and geopolitical implications because of the uranium required for them, while solar and wind energy are truly inexhaustible.