Zion Lights provides fascinating insights into the hyperbolically named Extinction Rebellion and much-needed insights into changes needed in environmentalist strategies. One important lesson is the simple fact that such a brilliant and well-meaning person could have been so badly misled by such a righteous left movement claiming to be based on science. This should be a warning to all of us.

As to nuclear safety, Chernobyl eventually killed tens of thousands. But that was a 45-year-old design, run by the Soviet bureaucracy without passing its mandated safety test. The Mark 1 Fukushima reactor was an equally old design located in the path of a 40-foot tsunami. About 440 nuclear plants are now producing 10% of the world’s power with about 50 more under construction.

The US is finally investing in 4th generation nukes which are far safer and likely much smaller. Safety is achieved not so much through elaborate controls and procedures, but with designs that are not pressurized because they use molten salt which does not boil, instead of water that needs 2,000 pounds per square inch to keep it from boiling. Also, they just quit working if they melt down — instead of going critical (the China Syndrom). And some can actually burn spent fuel from the current reactors.

Since China, India, Russia, and who knows, will keep building, the safest course is for the US to help produce the safest possible designs, so that those are built. US emissions are now small potatoes, but nukes would be a huge help with going green faster.

Note that Lorna Salzman’s complaints are both fact- and evidence-free. And, her accusation that “using climate change to defend nuclear power has its origins in the climate denial movement,” is a baseless smear.

James Hansen, the #1 environmentalist climate scientist, has long considered nuclear power an essential part of the solution. You can read this in his book, Storms of My Grandchildren. Everyone knows he’s completely honest and dedicated.

Also, I had the privilege of working extensively with the late David MacKay, starting when I was consulting for the British Dept. of Energy and Climate Change and he was their Chief Scientific Advisor. He was a brilliant, vegetarian, bicycle-riding, Cal-Tech physicist — just the nicest person you could ever hope to meet. And totally dedicated to stopping climate change. In his well-loved book, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, which analyses every alternative energy source, he concludes that England will have to use nuclear or huge solar arrays in North Africa, of which he was quite skeptical.

This brings me to the one idea that David, I, and about a dozen top climate economists (Stiglitz, etc.) put forward in Global Carbon Pricing: The Path to Climate Cooperation. The idea is novel. A global carbon price is needed, not so much for economic reasons, but because the real climate problem is not technical or even the climate deniers, the huge problem is international cooperation. That requires an “I Will if You Will” agreement and a single price is the best starting point for that. (Google: nature.com MacKay)