Berol Robinson

Environmentalists/Ecologists For Nuclear Energy (EFN). I am a member of the Scientific and Medical Committee and president of the affiliated EFN-USA. Website www.ecolo.org

Today's Date: 02 November 2006

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

[no answer given]

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

I was a city boy. When I was young, Boy Scouts was the thing to do, and I was an Eagle Scout. That was the most outdoor thing I ever did, and it didn't take.

Now? I'm still a city type.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is, and why?

I think penguins are real cool ! I watched them one day in the penguin house at the Detroit Zoo, and I could watch them forever. The recent film "The March of the Emperors" was very moving.

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now, and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

The world's population is much larger than the Earth can support. We live in an economy based on cheap oil - not only for electricity and transport but also for the very food we eat. We have new crops which feed us - the so-called Green Revolution has changed India from a famished land to a grain exporter, for example. But those new crops depend heavily upon fertilizer - derived from petroleum. It is said that "the soil is a tool for turning oil into food". And the oil is now running out - reserves of oil and natural gas are estimated to last a few decades, and we are discovering new deposits at a rate much less than current consumption - so we are living up our diminishing capital of energy.

5. If you could give everyone one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

Another source of energy is at hand: clean, safe, reliable, economical, and almost inexhaustible. It is nuclear fission; the technology is mature but subject to great improvements in the next 20 to 40 years. My fear is that the energy of nuclear fission may be set aside - that we may refuse to use it - for essentially trivial considerations: fear of radioactivity and radiation, the non-existent "problem" of radioactive waste management (dubbed "insoluble" by many), and fear of another accident like Chernobyl.

The problem of nuclear weapons proliferation remains, but that horse got out of the barn a long time ago. Every effort must be made in international politics to slow proliferation, but in the long run it is inevitable. Civilian nuclear power must not be sacrificed on the altar of weapons non-proliferation.