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Dear Sir/Madam, I appreciated Saturday's leader, "Pre-empting debate", on the need for a wide public debate before our government comes to any decisions on the future of nuclear energy. However, for such a debate to make any sense, we also need to discuss the much wider context of the kind of world we want to live in, i.e. the kind of economy and ways of life we want, giving due consideration to the imperative of us achieving sustainability for 8-10 billion people on our finite and vulnerable planet, Spaceship Earth - since there is a limit to the number of millionaire-type lifestyles that it can support. Also, in view of the immense and extremely long-term dangers posed by nuclear materials in the event of human neglect, malice, accidents, wars or terrorist attack, we also need to discuss the global prospects for peace and the rule of reason at least for the next few centuries. It seems to me that we are deeply in denial about the fundamental non-sustainability of our current growth-dependent economy and the grossly materialistic lifestyles it engenders. This situation came about, not least, through the availability of seemingly boundless amounts of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels, which we are plundering and squandering in reckless irresponsibility towards coming generations. If we should succeed in producing boundless amounts of energy through nuclear fission (and later perhaps, fusion), far from solving our problems, it would make them far worse, virtually guaranteeing our own self-specicide. We think that we are so cleaver (and in some respects, of course, we are), but we are also blind and incredibly dumb. In respect to nuclear energy, we are like young children playing with matches. One day, perhaps, we will be mature and wise enough to make safe use of it. That day, however, is still a very long way off. We don't just need debate. Above all else, we need introspection to help us come out of denial. In order to see the situation as it really is, and where we are heading, we need to understand where we have come from - which is the animal kingdom. We are not fallen angels, but animals, Earth's "Greatest Ape ". When we understand that we will have come a long way, but Christian fundamentalist are not the only ones loath to face up to Darwin's teachings about human origins - except in the safely compartmentalised natural (but not social) sciences.
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