It would be unfair to suggest that the unattractive alliance between environmentalists and dull populists driving Germany’s exit from atomic power is in a league with genocidal fiends such as the Communists and Nazis. My point is merely that, like those movements, they are responding to irrational sentiments like fear, envy and insularity; the dreaded German word, Sonderweg, springs to mind.
That the earthquake and tsunami disaster in faraway Japan should send a majority of Germans, whose country rarely experiences seismic tremors of a magnitude of minor itches, into mass hysteria, and that their center-right government now responds to this frenzy in the manner of populist Pavlovians, is a disturbing development indeed. It seems no less alarming than Chancellor Merkel’s and Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s flip-flop policy of breaking solidarity with Germany’s partners in NATO and the European Union in the Libyan crisis, thus catering to the mushy pacifist mindset that has taken hold of the German people since World War II.
The spectacle of the world’s most successful economic power succumbing to its people’s angst seems unbecoming, all the more so as there is no European nation more dependent on electricity that Germany, and none with more open borders; Germany has 10 immediate neighbors, all with nuclear reactors whose radiation clouds, if there were ever to be a disaster, would not ask Berlin for permission before traversing German territory. Thus it is fallacious Schwärmerei to assume that a nation of 80 million surrounded by ten other nations could be turned into a nuclear-free land of bliss.
Not that concerns about atomic power lacked legitimacy; particularly the issue of what to do with the nuclear waste remains unresolved. But it surely makes no sense to act according to the motto of “stop the world I want to get off.” By all means let’s accelerate the search for alternative energies, but in the meantime build the safest reactors imaginable, which is precisely what German manufacturers have been doing thus far.
It seems sad that the German genius to which my country owed its postwar success has evidently deserted the political arena. But at least it is still present in the economy and in industry, where imaginative minds will doubtless find a response to the mess our latter-day Schwärmer and populists are currently causing. This is of course a statement of faith of sorts. Would it be that I could be as confident about my country’s future leaders!
Uwe Siemon-Netto, the former religious affairs editor of United Press International, is conducting a lecture tour related to the 50th anniversary of the erection of the Berlin Wall, which he covered as a young reporter of The Associated Press. For information, contact: uwesiemon@mac.com . He has been an international journalist for 54 years, covering North America, Vietnam, the Middle East and Europe for German publications. Dr. Siemon-Netto currently directs Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life in Irvine, California.
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Comments
Please stop uncriticaly repeat that nonsense that "issue of what to do with the nuclear waste remains unresolved". There's no such thing as "nuclear waste" — it's simply a fuel for the next generation reactors; this "waste" is in fact a valuable resource. And exactly that is the main reason nuclear companies are so reluctant to bury it for good. This myth of waste is just another green lie made true — ask Goebbels — by repeating it once too much — and then one more time again.
For the rest — you hit the (green) nail square in the head.
Predrag Raos, Croatia
2:00 p.m. / Saturay, July 23, 2011
It would be nice if there were a radical solution to the energy problem. But life depends on energy supply and all green methods cannot replace central, high powered basis from where high-voltage lines deliver consistantly to towns via low-voltage distribution networks. Otherwise no constant supply can be secured. Talking about an "intelligent" network means loosing all power in multiple switch-works. Solar panels with 10% Cells giving just 100W/hr/day and that transformed into alternating current cannot supply enough energy for distribution with all its losses due to change to alternating current. It is a utopia to try supplying an industrialized country via so-called "intelligent" networks. Germany sees the result already and is getting electricity from French nuclear stations.
H.F.mataré
8:31 a.m. / Sunday, June 5, 2011
German Political Genius has not deserted you; Angela is an example of that.
No sensible person believes the pestilent Greens will have there way. This is a mere sop to them and once they have served Mrs Merkel's interests, you will all return to the Age of Reason powered by nuclear fuel.
Ian McKenna
4:57 a.m. / Saturday, June 4, 2011
The view of what is happening in Germany is as alarming as it is depressing – and because of the precise reasons set out by the writer. What a pity that self-proclaimed objective commentators (I am thinking in particular of the influential "Spiegel Online") have thus far practically ignored this aspect of the debate.
Wildberry
7:37 p.m. / Friday, June 3, 2011
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