Sunday, January 13, 2008

Who Watches the Watchers?

I really wish that I could do some good by editing this thing.

I was dismayed when I found it, as it is a blatant editorial piece masquerading as an impartial assessment of the ability of nuclear power to address climate change. It concludes, on the basis of a few dozen regurgitated anti-nuclear talking points, that:
Past experience, and current experience in Finland, suggests that new reactor programmes may even struggle to meet the carbon reductions expected of them. And in future carbon emissions from the nuclear life-cycle may climb to unacceptable levels. Clearly nuclear power is one of the worst, if not the worst way of tackling climate change.
Unfortunately, when I went to see who wrote it, it turns out that the entire thing was penned by the editor of SourceWatch, Bob Burton. This wouldn't be worthy of a response, except for the supposed editorial policies of SourceWatch:

Be fair
Propagandists engage in selective presentation of evidence. Articles written for SourceWatch should strive for a higher standard, by summarizing all evidence and points of view on a subject accurately and thoroughly.

Somehow I doubt that this standard will be upheld if I try and rewrite the article so that it actually acknowledges the existence of a pro-nuclear point of view, much less admits that such a position is worthy of consideration. I'm too timid to try (and I'm behind with my class reading about the history of the medieval Rus'), but I'll invite braver souls than myself to take a crack at editing the editors own work so that it upholds his own policies.

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