TY - JOUR

T1 - ‘Pro-Nuclear Environmentalism

T2 - Should We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Energy?'

AU - Munster, Rens van

AU - Sylvest, Casper

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - In light of repeated failures to reach political agreement on effective policies to combat climate change, pro-nuclear environmentalists have set out to reverse the traditionally anti-nuclear inclinations of environmentalists. This essay examines the ideological commitments and assumptions of pro-nuclear environmentalism by performing a critical, historical analysis of the nuclear-environment nexus through the prism of documentary film. We focus on the work and career of documentary filmmaker Rob Stone, whose most recent production, Pandora’s Promise (PP) (2013), has emerged as a central statement of this creed. PP actively forges a new political imaginary that replaces the apocalyptic image of nuclear fallout with that of catastrophic climate change. In terms of its rhetorical and visual strategies, however, PP also reveals that pro-nuclear environmentalist arguments have a long lineage. A close study of such continuities reveals a number of political implications that call for reflection as well as caution.

AB - In light of repeated failures to reach political agreement on effective policies to combat climate change, pro-nuclear environmentalists have set out to reverse the traditionally anti-nuclear inclinations of environmentalists. This essay examines the ideological commitments and assumptions of pro-nuclear environmentalism by performing a critical, historical analysis of the nuclear-environment nexus through the prism of documentary film. We focus on the work and career of documentary filmmaker Rob Stone, whose most recent production, Pandora’s Promise (PP) (2013), has emerged as a central statement of this creed. PP actively forges a new political imaginary that replaces the apocalyptic image of nuclear fallout with that of catastrophic climate change. In terms of its rhetorical and visual strategies, however, PP also reveals that pro-nuclear environmentalist arguments have a long lineage. A close study of such continuities reveals a number of political implications that call for reflection as well as caution.

U2 - 10.1353/tech.2015.0107

DO - 10.1353/tech.2015.0107

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 26593709

VL - 56

SP - 789

EP - 811

JO - Technology and Culture

JF - Technology and Culture

SN - 0040-165X

IS - 4

ER -