Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the HVD Federal Association, takes a stand on nuclear power:
Three principles of practical humanism can be applied in the nuclear power plant debate, which has resurfaced in the wake of the Fukushima disasters:
o The principle of the fundamental indivisibility of nature – i.e. just because something happened ‘far away’, it cannot be considered irrelevant ‘for us here’
o the imperative of rationality, which forbids closing one’s eyes to reality
o finally, the principle of treating the foundations of life on this planet with care.
It follows from the first principle that it is right that the debate on the safety of nuclear power plants has intensified in this country following the events in Japan. The second principle forces consistent humanists to admit that super-GAUs (Chernobyl) and GAUs (Three-Mile-Island, Fukushima so far) are a real possibility and, according to Murphy’s Law, must occur at some point – so that the continued operation of nuclear power plants can only be justified if it is either completely unavoidable or could be justified by very high goals and values that outweigh the suffering caused by such disasters. The third principle calls for a cautious and ‘error-friendly’ approach to the Earth’s biosphere, i.e. to avoid risky technologies that could cause long-term and permanent damage to it.
After Fukushima, I believe that “Nuclear power, no thanks!” is the obvious stance for all humanists. All those who want to deviate from this and advocate the continuation of nuclear power plant operation beyond the period technically required for the changeover would have to find very strong reasons for doing so, the likes of which I am currently unable to see or even imagine.
