Despite being in the middle of a climate emergency, with young activists putting themselves in front of dystopian mining behemoths, Europeans made the choice to willfully emit almost 7 million tons of CO2 every year. The nuclear reactor Tihange-2 in Belgium will close. 1/n
Right now Belgium is importing very dirty energy from Germany. Mostly from coal. And when Tihange-2 closes it will be worse. Instead of shutting down 7.5 Twh of no-CO2 energy, Germany and Belgium should work together to shut down the equivalent amount of coal generation. 2/n
This amount of energy from coal generates around 7 million tons of CO2 every year. To put things in context, this is more than the emissions from ***every single flight in Belgium***, both freight and passenger flights! stats.oecd.org 3/n
While nuclear plants continue to shut down, ignored by most people who claim to care about climate change, there is a ferocious debate about flights, even bans on some routes to reduce our emissions.
simpleflying.com 4/n
simpleflying.com 4/n
Considering the amount of controversy and attention that flights gets from both activists and policymakers, it is absurd that Tihange-2 is still closing. There should be mass demonstrations around this. 5/n
Because if we truly are in a climate emergency, to the point of fighting about mere pounds of CO2, certainly emitting 7 million tons every year just because our priorities are screwed is borderline an environmental crime, a giant middle finger to the coming generations 6/n
The amount of energy generated by nuclear plants around the world offsets more than 150% of the emissions from all flights. (1400 megatons CO2 vs 915). Instead of obsessing on marginal carbon savings we need to focus on the big picture. This is indeed an emergency 7/n
We need to stop shutting down nuclear power plants! Immediately! We can't afford to continue emitting CO2 just because some of us are irrationally afraid, because our preconceptions and misguided ideologies. The evidence is clear: we need to keep nuclear plants on. 8/n
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