Interview
not only to the environment but to the
atively speaking, such a minor problem
complex, Brentspar is relegated to insignif
American mainland. The answer, as report
compared with what we have just discussed
ed in the hearings on August 1, in the esti
that I have to discount seriously that the
icance. So what we may be seeing at work here is the environmentalists politically dif
mate of the General Accounting Office, is
environmental movement of the world is
54 million Americans affected by a radioac
paying any particular attention to this pro
tive plume from Cuba. The House
ject at all. If you compare the Brentspar Mobil Oil
International Affairs Committee's internal
estimates put that number at over 80 million Americans. Press reports more recently
have put the number as high as 120 million. By day four of a nuclear accident in Cienfuegos in the spring or summer, a
ferentiating projects in the world. Perhaps they are still intrigued by the revolutionary mystique of Fidel Castro. Perhaps a social ist nuclear power plant is okay, but a
storage facility, which received such world wide publicity because of Greenpeace and
Western governments and big-oil plant is
others, with the dangers of the Cienfuegos
evidence in this case.
not okay. That seems to be suspiciously in ■
radioactive plume like Chernobyl's would sweep over the lower third of the United States to Texas. In the winter months it
would race up the East Coast and pass Washington, D.C., on day four. So, wc are talking about a cataclysmic circumstance for the American people, not to mention the fisheries, the ocean-oriented pollution.
The irony here is that Greenpeace, which was almost completely silent—as was World Watch and the other environ
mental organizations—has more recently recognized this lopsided attention, this
seeming,almost politically inspired inatten tion to the Cuban deal, and has now come
out with its biggest concern, which is that the spent fuel storage pool on the Aragua site is only sufficient to hold the waste from this plant for a period of twenty-five years, and they would like that to be longer Well,
with all due respect, spent fuel waste is. rel
Robinson:"This project is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen."
y^orgottm njutHs Inequality Is a Condition for Social Harmony Just as a perfect condition of the body results from the conjunction and composition of its various members, which, though differing in form and purpose, make, by their union and the distribution of each one to its proper place, a combination beautiful to behold, firm in strength, and necessary for use; so, in the commonwealth, there is an almost infinite dissimilarity of men, as parts of the whole. If they are to be all equal, and each is to follow his own will, the State will appear most deformed; but if, with a distinction of degrees of dignity, of pursuits and employments, all aptly conspire for the common good, they will present a natural image of a well constituted State. Pope Leo XIII
Encyclical Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1996
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