Frank123 comments

While nuclear energy is environmentally friendly (no CO2, no smog, no pollution, waste is managed and not discarded, etc. etc.), the author is 100% correct. Greenpeace has equated nuclear energy with nuclear weapons. Most of the agenda of the "Greens" is not to move away from carbon based economy, but to adopt some utopian back-to-the-cave mentality where there is no mass transportation, there is no power grid and there is no trade as "all needs are satisfied locally".

The agenda of greens is to stop all fossil fuel energy sources, all nuclear energy sources and even stop most of the hydroelectric energy sources as these are deemed to be ecological disasters. This is while most continue to use these energy sources through their purchases and travel.

Today, there is little pragmatism in the western environmental movement. People like Patrick Moore, a former president of Greenpeace, supports nuclear power as a necessity not because he likes it.

"In 2005, Moore criticized what he saw as scare tactics and disinformation employed by some within the environmental movement, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism.""

This quote is from wikipedia link about Patrick Moore. Apparently a link is "offensive content" ;)

From the outside, I see Japan dealing with the problem in a pragmatic manner. As a physicist, decisions that are being made are being made based on our current understanding of how radiation works, not our understanding from 1950s. Personally, I don't believe the Japanese people are in significant short or long term danger based on actions currently taken (evacuations, food monitoring, etc) and the Japanese government is not hiding data.