Dear Mr Cameron
We write because we believe you have been misled by four prominent environmentalists who contacted you recently about nuclear power. This quartet – Jonathon Porritt, Charles Secrett, Tom Burke and Tony Juniper – were all in the past directors of Friends of the Earth, an organisation which also put its official seal of approval on the letter sent by them to you on 12 March 2012.
We believe their advice to be wrong both in fact and interpretation, and feel that if you act on it without further consideration of the alternatives, you risk threatening both the energy security of the UK and our climate-change targets.
As writers and thinkers who are interested in and concerned with environmental issues, our job is to assess the technological and policy options on climate change as objectively as possible. Independently of each other, we have all reached the conclusion in recent years that the gravity of the climate crisis necessitates a re-examination of deeply-held objections still shared by many in the green movement towards nuclear power, including, until recently some of our own number. Needless to say, none of us has any financial or professional relationship with the nuclear industry whatsoever.
We find the 12 March letter objectionable on several counts. Firstly, we are disturbed by the jingoistic tone the authors adopt towards our closest neighbour and EU partner, France. The letter insinuates, and the accompanying press release states in its very first sentence, that having French companies involved in delivering a substantial portion of the UK’s energy supply is somehow a threat to our national security. We are sure you will agree that countries working together irrespective of nationalism must be the best way of tackling both climate change and energy security. More
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