about antinuclear activism in South Africa elicited this response from a reader:

“South Africa’s main indigenous source of energy is coal and the mining and extraction of it is definitely not doing anything to help marginalized communities, and definitely causes more deaths than the nuclear plant(s) being created. Even in the highest estimates of the impact of Chernobyl, a horrendously managed catastrophe that will never replicate itself given the safer plants of today, the impact of that disaster is nothing compared to just a few years of coal mining in emerging economies.

What would you have a nation like South Africa do in response to the Japanese crisis — revert to coal?”

This kind of argument surfaces frequently in national and international contexts, and it’s important for those of us who think nuclear power is too dangerous an option (putting aside the intractable issue of waste storage, even if the probability of an accident is low, the consequences are catastrophic) have to come up with good responses. We can begin by rejecting the trap posed by the so-called choice of coal or nuclear. Of course, it requires commitment to fundamental changes in our way of life everywhere, but we can’t get there by promoting nuclear in the name of equity.