When will the green groups apologise for their contribution to global warming?

The infamous anti-nuclear power badge,
featuring the largest nuclear reactor within 4 light years

When I talk to people in the media about their treatment of science, they often admit, rather sheepishly, how bad they are at apologising for misleading the public - even when it's something with the devastating impact of the way the media turned parents against the MMR vaccine with no basis in fact. However, I don't think they're the only ones to shirk their responsibility to apologise. How about Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth?

The fact is that without substantial green campaigning there is a good chance that the major percentage of our electricity - as is the case in France - could now be generated by nuclear power with a huge beneficial impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So much so that we could have probably filled the gap with renewables and had pretty well zero carbon electricity. Instead we are now playing catch up far too late.

Long term, the best solution is likely to be nuclear fusion, but until that comes on stream, not until 2050 at the earliest, we need nuclear fission to tide us over in a low carbon fashion. Instead though, when they should have been building new power stations, governments gave way to the media impact of these green behemoths and failed to invest.

So how about it, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth? Time to say 'Sorry, we got it wrong'? Because your action seems at least in part to be responsible for one of the biggest segments of carbon emissions from the UK. Well done, guys. But my suspicion is that we won't see any such apology, because unlike science, campaigning groups (with the exception of a few individuals like George Monbiot) are not very good at accepting that they got things wrong and changing tack. They are happy to wave the 'scientific consensus' banner when it comes to manmade global warming - and that's a good thing - but they ignore the scientific consensus when it comes to the role nuclear power should take, suggesting that emotion is more of a driver than actually caring for what is best for the planet.

I think there's an interesting parallel in an email conversation I had with the Soil Association, the UK's main organic body, a while ago. I was pointing out that their policy on nanoparticles, which was that natural nanoparticles are ok, but artificial ones aren't, doesn't make any sense, as any problems with nanoparticles comes from their size and physical properties, not how they are made. In a burst of perhaps unintentional frankness, their spokesperson replied: ‘[T]he organic movement nearly always takes a principles-based regulatory approach, rather than a case-by-case approach based on scientific information.’ In other words, theirs is a knee-jerk reaction to concepts, rather than one based on genuine concerns about the dangers of various products. What's sometimes called greenwash. And sadly that is all too often the case with the big green organisations too.

This has been a Green Heretic production

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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