Collaborative Proposal Creation
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Proposal text
Be it resolved that the Green Party of Canada long conflicted between the horror of nuclear weapons and the need to support reliable and clean nuclear power,
• will adopt a view of nuclear power that is consistent with the best scientific knowledge and practices, and
• will advocate for the continued development of nuclear power technologies, extraction technologies, nuclear waste disposal, and alternative nuclear fuels.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
The GPC has a longstanding public position of preferring renewable power generation instead of nuclear power generation. Yet not one policy currently addresses the beneficial effects of nuclear power. All policy references to nuclear are to the prevention and control of nuclear weapons.
The objective of this policy is to establish a new policy that addresses the benefits of the use of nuclear power generation in a changing environment that urgently needs reliable power generation.
- Whereas the policies of the Green Party of Canada are to be based on scientific principles, and
- Whereas we now know how to build nuclear power plants that are far safer than our current operational designs, and
- Whereas nuclear power generation can be demonstrated,
- to be the least polluting of all electricity generation technologies, in terms of CO2 production per MW of capacity,
- to have the smallest footprint in terms of station size, acres per MW of installed capacity,
- to have the lowest volume of waste production in terms of tons per MW,
- to require the least input of scarce resources in terms of tons per MW,
- to have the best safety record of all generation facilities in terms of loss of human life per MW of installed capacity, and
- Whereas we do know what to do with spent nuclear fuel to ensure safety.
This policy will complement and expand the policies of the Green Party of Canada, making them more appropriate in an intellectually honest way.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
This is new policy. All existing policy addresses various aspects of the undesirability of nuclear weapons. It does not in any way reduce the relevance of those policies.
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
1. Jack Devanney, The Two Lies that killed nuclear:
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-two-lies-that-killed-nuclear
2. Jack Devanney, Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop:
3. Cleo Abram, The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzQ3gFRj0Bc
4. Burning Nuclear waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u44skO-nMo
5. IEA on Nuclear Power:
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/nuclear-power
6. Our World in Data, Death Toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima:
https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima
7. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, LNT:
https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/linear-non-threshold-model/index.cfm
8. Original text of this proposal: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j5bvh4dagagllrhus59h9/GPC-Nuclear.docx?rlkey=8ozj24vcajsvofrtgtpy9pt85&st=uvmsga8g&dl=0
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
There are many in the party and outside, who consider Nuclear Power to be so dangerous as to be categorically denied as a solution to our future power needs. This policy reverses that perception of Nuclear Power. It is likely to alienate such people in their support of the party.
There is also likely to be an adverse reaction from the Global Greens, which would need to be carefully managed, though it is to be hoped that this motion will start a greens-wide reassessment of their positions on nuclear power.
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal is being evaluated
Posted on the Continuous Motion Development Vote tab for member review prior to the all-member vote.
Amendments (3)
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Created at
24/05/2024 -
- 0
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Created at
05/07/2024 -
- 0
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Created at
10/07/2024 -
- 2
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I can't reply directly to you Evan, but yes, I can empathize with the victims of nuclear tragedies, of course.
I also do something unusual, and that is, I care about numbers. Tremendously.
An evil man once said "a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." Sometimes evil speaks true. Not sure if he was saying how he got away with killing millions or what. But the point stands: empathy can care about one person very deeply. It can't care 100 times as much about 100 people, let alone a million times more about a million.
One of the modern philosophers I follow made a simple video I love very much.[1] He said:
"Numbers matter ethically.
"What i mean by this _isn't_ that there is some philosophical theory that tells us that killing more people is worse than killing few people, that utilitarian philosophies argue for this, no. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that killing 10 people is a crime 10 times worse than killing one person. What I'm saying is that ethically we have to insist, and it's politically constructive for us to insist[...] that when the Russians kill a thousand Ukrainians that's a crime ten times worse than the crime, the appalling crime, of killing a hundred Ukrainians."
"This is because every human life is real and every human life matters equally."
I watched with horror as the Ukraine conflict unfolded over the last two years. I estimate over 200,000 Ukrainians and Russians have been killed -- yet Putin's unspeakable crime continues. I wanted to give to Ukraine aid. I even gave $1,000 in 2022. But EOY 2023 when I decided to give $10,000 to charity at the end of the year, I didn't give it to Ukraine. I gave it to the Against Malaria Foundation. And why? Because numbers matter. Charity evaluators estimated I could save about 1.5 children's lives with $10K (easily one of the most effective lifesaving methods statistically known). I couldn't find an efficient way to save lives in Ukraine. I didn't empathize with malaria sufferers, I empathized with Ukrainians. But as per GWWC rules[2], the numbers won.
I'm told it's exhilarating to save a life. Statistically I probably saved a life, but it doesn't feel that way, so it's not exhilarating. That's the sacrifice of giving far more to faceless Africans than to people I know like Denys Dadydov, Anna and NFKRZ. (see [3] for more philosophy.)
So if you want to argue morals, fine. But my moral argument is that morality is downstream of facts, numbers and evidence. The evidence must lead to the verdict and not the reverse. So you cannot appeal to morality to show that TMI was deadly, or to empathy to show that Fukushima is worse than the Banqiao collapse.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eHetWKCHic
[2] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge
[3] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately
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