Nuclear Power

Having a blitz on political leafleting at the moment, and trying to spend an hour or two each day cutting back grasses in the garden. Not much time to keep up with my Telegraph - so only just caught up on a very interesting article in yesterday's edition which presages what I expect to build up to become a revolution in environmentalist's thinking. 'Four leading environmentalists have abandoned their opposition to nuclear power and said that Britain must build more reactors to meet its climate change targets.'

They are Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace; Lord Smith of Finsbury, Chair of the Environment Agency; Mark Lynas, an award winning science writer; and Chris Goodhall, a Green Party activist and parliamentary candidate. I, and many others have undergone the same change in opinion, but for rather different reasons - or at least additional reasons. My conversion took place when I realised that the British Government had allowed a situation to develop where in the absence of a commitment to new nuclear power generation, the lights are going to go out.

For years, environmental campaigners have resisted nuclear power (most still do) because we still do not know how to dispose of radioactive waste. And they are right to be worried, and there is a responsibility on Government to get a move on in deciding where the deep burial shaft is going to be located. But unfortunately, there is no longer any choice. The Government is now playing the only card left in the pack (after a decade of pretending that renewable energy can do the job on its own) - clearing away any obstruction that might stand in the way of several new nuclear power stations.