Stichting Laka

Publication Laka-library:
From Energy Dreams to Nuclear Nightmares. Lessons from the anti-nuclear power-movement in the 1970s

Author	Horace Herring
Date	2005
Classification	2.05.1.10/04 (UNITED KINGDOM - PUBLIC OPINION)
Front

Why have so many people been so strongly opposed to nuclear power?

This book challenges the existing histories and associated explanations of the growth 
of the anti-civil nuclear power movement in the UK from 1955 to 1979. It argues that 
opposition to nuclear power emerged in the 1970s because of the post-war concerns 
of a minority of people about the dangers of atomic energy. Continuity of opposition 
to the building of nuclear power stations dated back to the 1950s.
It illustrates these concerns through an examination of the ecological messages 
contained in best-selling science fiction novels from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. 
It further shows how a minority of the 1960s underground press blended the old 
conservation ideas with counterculture styles to create new radical groups- the 
1970s environmentalists typified by Friends of the Earth.
The book seeks to answer the question: Why an anti-nuclear power movement 
instead of an anti-coal or anti-asbestos movement? What was it about nuclear power 
that generated such opposition? Its environmental impact, its cost, its prospects or 
its symbolism?
Finally it asks whether wind power in the twenty-first century could fall victim to 
the same forces that opposed the expansion of nuclear power thirty years ago.

This publication is only available at Laka on paper, not as pdf.
You can borrow the publication or request a copy. When we're available, this is possible for a small fee.