This argument is the starting point for Jason Mark in a long piece in The Utne Reader which looks at the tension within the green movement over the role of nuclear energy in an era when climate change is the greatest threat to the planet: The argument over nuclear power reveals a long-standing tension in the environmental movement between those who say there are technical fixes to the greenhouse gas challenge and others who believe that we need a wholesale restructuring of society if we are to avoid global meltdown.... And so we find 'greenies' like Stewart Brand, he's the guy behind the Whole Earth Catalog, a After decades of decline, the nuclear industry is on the upswing, cheered along, oddly enough, by green activists who once fought the industry but now say that nukes are better than coal given the global threat of climate change.

As Canadian politicians, including Environment Minister John Baird and Liberal Stephane Dion, make their to key climate change meetings in Bali, Indonesia next week, a new report (PDF, 765 kb) from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) tracks renewable energy use:

Renewable energy is increasingly being used as a mainstream ...   more »