Free Events on the Dangers of Nuclear Power, Old and New
Photo: Beyond Nuclear
Sources: Beyond Nuclear, Clamshell Alliance, and Mass Peace Action
Two safe energy events, one in-person and the other virtual, will offer a clear-eyed look at nuclear power: author Linda Pentz Gunter presents her new book, NO TO NUCLEAR, in Belchertown on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and a national webinar the following evening, Sept. 9, will discuss “The Legacy and Resistance to Reopening” a reactor at Three Mile Island, PA, site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.
Author talk by Linda Pentz GunterTuesday, September 8, 7:00-8:00 p.m. Clapp Memorial Library,
19 South Main Street, Belchertown, MA. The event is moderated by Sharon Tracy
In her new book, NO TO NUCLEAR: Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress And Provokes War, Linda Pentz Gunter exposes nuclear power’s “ugly reality of greed, criminality, and a callous disregard for human life and welfare.” The well-researched and clearly-written work follows the path of “nuclear injustice” from uranium mining on Indigenous lands at home and abroad to the long-lived radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors.
No to Nuclear makes clear nuclear power’s intimate connections with nuclear weapons, including the real reason for research on nuclear fusion. Linda Pentz Gunter will offer 10 reasons to reject nuclear power, including the nuclear industry’s threats to democracy and inextricable links with authoritarianism and colonialism.
Linda Pentz Gunter is founder and Executive Director of the US-based nonprofit Beyond Nuclear and launched its news platform, Beyond Nuclear International. A former journalist with Reuters, she currently writes for the Morning Star (UK) and Ralph Nader’s Capitol Hill Citizen.
Event moderator Sharon Tracy is a longtime energy and anti-nuclear organizer, recently retired as executive director of Quabbin Mediation.
NO TO NUCLEAR will be available for sale and signing at the talk.
Wednesday, September 9, 7:00-8:30 p.m.: Online Public Forum: THREE MILE ISLAND: Legacy & Resistance to Reopening
Three Mile Island, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was the site of the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history. Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 and has been shuttered ever since. However, Unit 1 is now slated to reopen in late 2027 to feed the voracious energy demands of Microsoft’s AI data centers. Join us for a discussion with central Pennsylvania activists and researchers who are challenging the proposed reopening of Unit 1: Eric Epstein, Patricia Longenecker, and Aaron Datesman. Moderated by Joseph Hunt of the Clamshell Alliance and Mass Peace Action.
This online event, sponsored by the Clamshell Alliance, Beyond Nuclear, and Mass. Peace Action, will be held via Zoom on Wednesday, September 9, 7-8:30 pm and will be recorded. For more information on the speakers, click here. Attendance is free but advance registration is required. To register, click here.
A Little History
By the end of the 1970s, thanks to the grassroots anti-nuclear movement and the disastrous accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 plant near Harrisburg, PA, the word was out that nuclear power, whether for electricity or atomic weapons, was a danger to the public.
Plans for new nukes were canceled across the country. But, like radioactive waste, the nuclear menace did not just go away. Now a new nuclear era looms, with government-subsidized plans to fast-track ‘new’ nuclear reactors, old ones slated for restart, radioactive waste stored in closed nukes, as in Rowe and Plymouth, MA and Vernon, VT, and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey pushing for repeal of Chapter 503, which required voter approval for any new nuclear power in MA (See Citizens Action Network at www.nukebusters.org/). Before Governor Maura Healey hosts other New England governors on Sept. 30 to advance a pro-nuclear agenda, these experts and activists will explain why, far from resolving our climate, energy, or economic crises, nuclear power would only make them worse.