Last updated on March 1, 2013
The recently started Nuclear Literacy Project has a welcome entry, a person with knowledge in the field of radioactivity and nuclear engineering reports on a visit to an anti-nuclear seminar with Helen Caldicott. The person, PhD student Kallie Metzger, entered the meeting with some hope of a good discussion where there would be room for incorrect statements to be straightened out.
What Kallie found, however, was that the renowned anti-nuclear activist was more keen on scaring people into thinking like herself, and questions from the audience were responded to in a hostile and arrogant manner, if at all.
After watching a few videos with Helen Caldicott, including her infamous TV-debate with George Monbiot from last year, we are, unfortunately, not surprised about her behaviour. The good news is that Kallie went to listen to Caldicott, and reported about it. We need more people like Kallie who attends these kind of meetings and try to raise relevant questions when remarkable claims are being stated. If Caldicott continues her tour in the same arrogant manner her audience should diminish rather quickly down to the die-hard fans of her outrageous claims.
So the hero of the week is Kallie Metzger. Read her account of the Caldicott seminar here. Then ask yourself: will you be our next hero?
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Hero of the week? Is this related to the comment made by Lise Nordin (MP) last week that pronuclear advocates and scientist can only be of male persuasion?
I feel that I want to go Ternström on you, but then you never tried to be a woman anyhow. My five cents regarding the gender issue of the word “hero” are based on the following:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2267770
Whatever is correct, we can probably agree on that Kallie is our hero/heroine, while Helen isn’t. 🙂
English is a language with a long tradition of the males having to share the terms for themselves with the female population.
The old form of English, Anglo-Saxon, had distinct, exclusive words for both a male person (wer) and a female person (wif or wifmann). However, as the language developed and evolved, the exclusive male term was dropped from the language in favor of the word that is now “man,” which has always been used for gender-neutral purposes.
So even today, man, as both a word and a suffix, has a dual role. It could signify a male person or it could indicate a person in general, regardless of sex. Anyone who claims otherwise simply demonstrating ignorance of the English language and its history.
Similarly, “hero” is one of those words that can do double-duty. It could indicate a male person, or it could be gender-neutral. The word “heroine” is often used when the speaker wants to emphasize the femininity of the person referred to.
I think I just got called “old fashioned”! HUMPH!
Well, that’s not what I was saying, but the idea that “pronuclear advocates and scientist can only be of male persuasion” is certainly very old fashioned.
Welcome to the twenty-first century!
So you are calling Lise Nordin ‘old fashioned’?!
Thank you for your recognition, it’s much appreciated!
Hey Kallie!
Thank you for your effort, that’s even more appreciated.
It is our firm opinion that the nuclear scholars and entrepreneurs of the world have been much to complacent and let anti-nuclear activists own the public stage for too long without being challenged. This has resulted in the important debate on nuclear power becoming infested with large amounts of misinformation, myths and nonsensica. While we put most of the blame for this on those actually spreading the ignorance, we also feel that a portion of the blame resides with those that could have spoken up against this, but didn’t.
You did… and for that we are very glad. 🙂
/Michael