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Opinion | Why nuclear power must be part of the energy mix for climate fight to succeed
- Every renewable energy source must be aggressively pursued across the globe, be it wind, solar, hydro, tidal or geothermal
- Nuclear power has long had bad press, but the urgency of the climate crisis and its safety relative to other power sources make it worth another look
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Why you can trust SCMP
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The continued burning of fossil fuels, and even its growth in some countries, threatens us all. The evidence of human-induced global warming and climate change is incontrovertible to any scientist, with the debate shifting to the need for drastic action and how to limit the scale of the changes which are becoming more evident every day.
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Last November’s UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow was merely the latest global talk fest and call for drastic action that seems to have petered out barely after the ink was dry on the signed agreements.
This is against the backdrop of damaging floods, more violent and frequent storms, drought and wildfires across vast swathes of the United States, Canada, Russia, Australia and even Europe.
We are in the Anthropocene era, where human activity has become the dominant force on our climate and environment. We are also in the associated extinction event where many species are suffering, declining or disappearing across the planet as human numbers grow, resources and habitats are consumed and the environment is trashed over what, in geological timescales, is the blink of an eye.
We are witnessing unprecedented summer temperatures, rain falling on the North Pole, melting ice caps and retreating glaciers, rising sea levels and disappearing island nations. Climate records are being broken somewhere nearly every day. A graph of global climate record-breaking events as a function of time would be a powerful image.
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Is the problem simply too big to solve, human behaviour too entrenched, and vested interests too pervasive to change course and make a real difference in time? For all our sakes, I hope not.
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