If not you, who?

What the world needs now is more whistle-blowers. Folks who will take on the job of stewards of this beautiful, God-given planet and demand that it be as pristine as it was when first created.

The powers that be have finally recognized that global warming warnings are valid. But some mighty strange things keep happening. One example: The coal industry funded TV commercials that show a lump of coal skipping down the street, singing a song about its ability to provide energy and how it's going to be a diamond some day!

When it comes to legislation barring air contamination, concerns about the economy have slowed down action to the speed of cold molasses. About the only law I can think of prohibits the burning of household trash.

Those benefiting from nuclear power keep touting it as the "clean" solution to energy needs. Clean? The waste from nuclear plants remains radioactive for 10,000 years!

RADIOACTIVE

During the Reagan administration, work was started to develop a waste-disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Today, after an expenditure of $8 billion, not a spoonful of waste has been placed there. Groundwater contamination and the fear of earthquakes have inspired local opposition.

As if we didn't have enough of a problem with our own radioactive waste, this past week, a commercial firm filed a request for the United States to accept low-level waste from Italy. Residents of Tennessee and Utah, the states mentioned as repository sites, have lodged protests, as have their representatives.

The firm, Energy Solutions, claims it will reduce the radioactivity before depositing it in landfills. But the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a non-profit watchdog group, says that only the volume of the waste is reduced; the amount of radioactivity remains the same. It also says that burning the waste spews radioactivity and toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.

Adirondackers who have witnessed how acid rain kills fish in our lakes and streams know how far atmospheric contamination can travel.

A recent film shown on PBS was created by a woman who rode her motorcycle into Chernobyl. That ghost town is an eerie testimony to the possible disaster of "clean" nuclear fuel.

PARTY'S OVER

The U.S. Department of Energy this week offered a funding opportunity of $15 million to universities and private industry to research nuclear-fuel-cycle technology.

Life is full of choices we must make. The Lady or the Tiger? The Rock or a Hard Place? Our conversion to safe, alternative energy may not be easy, but what other choices do we have? Can we allow coal- and oil-fired energy to block out the sun? Could we live with the possibility of an earthquake releasing radioactive waste? Consider the danger of terrorists uncovering nuclear waste and allowing it to spread over the land.

I wonder if the Dutch of centuries ago objected to the windmills now considered so picturesque? The sight of wind-generating towers and banks of solar collectors would make me feel safer. And grateful that we cared enough to preserve a clean world for our children and our children's children.