[ RadSafe ] RE: Swedish Centre Party makes nuclear u-turn

[Bjorn Cedervall]

Most polls about the nuclear position has been this way in Sweden over the 
past 12 years or so. Depending on the exact wording 75 to 85 % of the 
Swedish population favor nuclear power in some sense.

The Centre Party has its roots among the farmers but they were becoming a 
small fraction of the total population already 30 years ago. When the party 
then came up with an antinuclear agenda around 1976 they soon thereafter 
peaked by receiving around 25 % of the votes. After that and until 4-5 years 
ago the fraction voting for the Centre Party essentially followed a straight 
line downhill and were down to less than 5 % (they may have been close to 4 
% - the limit under which you get thrown out of Parliament - I don't 
remember exactly). Simple extrapolation math indicated that they should be 
more or less non-existant by now - but they may survive somehow - who 
knows?.

The Centre Party has, for at least 20 years, been jumping around with 
several different unclear agendas (pro church, against H & M December 
advertisement - anything that provokes in this country) and has flirted 
inconsistently with other parties. This resulted in people's irritation and 
many of their anti-nuclear voters probably spilled over to the other 
parties. Traditionally the Centre Party belongs to the conservative 
(non-socialist) block: The Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the 
Christian Party (I am uncertain about their exact name) - all these three 
are essentially for nuclear power. When the Centre Party then turned out to 
sometimes be in bed with the Social Democrats their credibility became 
questioned.

I had a brief argumentation with one of their leading personalities around 
1987 (second minister of the environment by that time) because she got the 
idea that freon(s) and krypton is he same thing (she referred to a popular 
health journal she had read - that publication if it still exists contained 
everything from excercise (which of course mainly good for you) to carrots, 
crystal healing and magnet therapy). Her argument was then that nuclear 
power threatened the ozone layer.

After I pointed out the difference between krypon (single atoms) and freons 
(molecules) in a letter she sent me a nasty and to me quite threatening 
response - the implicit meaning was that I should keep my mouth shut. The 
corresponding theater she played in Parliament ("there could be effects on 
the atmosphere" - I still have those Parliament circus pages) was 
interesting and included a reference to an international 100 page report on 
greenhouse gases (focus on CO2). I made an effort and found that report - 
but I could not find the the word radioactive in that report - my guess is 
that she hadn't grasped the difference between "radiative" (frequent word in 
that report) and "radioactive" - if I understood it right she had been 
checking people's income tax declarations before the top position in the 
Centre Party.

It has been more strange stuff (other topics) from this person and other 
leading Centre Party personalities over the past 20 years. One of those 
other examples included her top position in the board of one of our largest 
banks which went bankrupt - she said openly that she didn't know much about 
banks and was mainly a member of the board to learn. I mention this just to 
emphasize how some politicians are "experts" on anything and are blind to 
their own limitations - sometimes their talk includes radiation and they get 
many things wrong including basic causality philosophy (call it Bertell 
level).

My personal ideas only,

Bjorn Cedervall    bcradsafers at hotmail.com
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>"Shall we manage in Sweden
without nuclear power?" ("Kan Sverige klara sig utan kärnkraft?) The result 
was

   Yes: 18%
   No:  81%
No opinion: 1%