Anti-nuclear movement
Anti -nuclear movements Social movements in some countries which are against civilian use of nuclear energy.
- 3.1 United States
Europe
Germany
In Germany Joachim Radkau According to 1975 have driven at a not to be underestimated, but in Germany itself purely hypothetical risk of nuclear power, the anti-nuclear movement. This in contrast to Japan, where significant chemical poisoning and heavy metal contamination had affected the local early environmental movement.
According Radkau the anti-nuclear movement in Germany was thus a rational response to concerns that arose from a combination of many observations and information. He makes reference to theories of a standard work on reactor technology from the fifties, which were later only to see the anti-nuclear literature. The initial atomic exaggerated euphoria of time previously had been discussed openly at that time, the high risk associated with nuclear energy as well. Radkau attributes the success of the environmental and anti-nuclear movement in Germany the United States against their low recognition in Japan (see Michiko Ishimure ) less technical than social causes back.
The dynamics of the German and American environmental movement was created in 1970 from the interplay between administrative elites, initiatives from academia and the media. It relies thus on a broad base of fortifying themselves citizens, parliaments and institutions and for the upwardly relatively open elite.
Successes of the anti-nuclear movement to prevent the regional level, such as in the southern Baden Wyhl provided there reactor block were much easier to achieve in Germany than about centralized France.
France
In France, the anti - nuclear movement reached its peak back in the 1970s. The first demonstration against a nuclear power plant took place in Fessenheim on 12 April 1971. By the middle of the decade, nuclear opponents allies of Germany, France and Switzerland, to protest against power plants Fessenheim, Wyhl and Kaiseraugst. Also, to the fast breeder Superphénix was formed massive resistance. At a demonstration in Malville with 60,000 participants took place on July 31, 1977 to considerable riots in which one protester was killed. The network Sortir du Nucléaire founded in 1997 in connection with the closure of the Superphénix.
Unlike in Germany did not succeed in the anti -nuclear movement in France to bring about a broad social consensus against nuclear power. She could not prevent the nuclear power in France was systematically developed into the most important source of electricity in the country since the 70s and now accounts for over three-quarters of French electricity production therefore.
Australasia
The nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, as well as incidents involving the use of nuclear energy have been the subject of public debate in Australia. The roots of the movement are also in dispute over the French nuclear tests in the Pacific. Australia operates until today (2011 ) is not a nuclear power plant and built so far no nuclear weapons. Australia has significant uranium deposits. The last failed attempt, a nuclear power plant - nuclear power plant Jervis Bay - to build, took place in 1970. The current (2011) ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP ) Julia Gillard is against the construction of nuclear weapons and for the construction of a fourth uranium mine, which the National Conference of the ALP decided by 2009.
America
United States
The anti -nuclear movement in the United States (USA) is part of a protest movement of some 80 groups that first turned mainly against the production and use of nuclear weapons. In terms of their opposition to the military use of nuclear power, this group has a long tradition. The movement reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, caused among other things by the accident at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Iceland, south of Harrisburg ( Pennsylvania) in March 1979. On June 12, 1982 around one million people demonstrated in the Central Park of New York against nuclear armament.
Among the internationally known figures in the movement include John Gofman, Amory Lovins and Linus Pauling.