How can it be that the British government is considering, nay promoting, nuclear power, when there’s still such a mess from the last lot: “Nuclear consultant Ian Jackson estimates, in his new book Nukenomics: The Commercialisation of Britain’s Nuclear Industry, that the total being spent on decommissioning is equivalent to an extra 1p in the pound on income tax.”
In the 1960s the notorious Agent Orange was tested in Australia, near the Queensland town of Innisfail. The sprayed area is still barren, and the town has an extraordinarily high cancer rate – which does, of course, make you think about SE Asia, where vast quantities of the stuff was thrown around.
Cuts in agricultural research funding have hollowed out scientific institutions. But now we really, really need them – and plant breeding specialists don’t grow on trees.
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