26th April 2005: for immediate release
On the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament says no to nuclear power and demands that in the run up to the general election the government comes clean on its nuclear policy. A number of reports suggest that the government plans to build new nuclear power stations. Kate Hudson, Chair of CND today criticized the government for pandering to the nuclear lobby and rubbished the campaign to present nuclear power as the answer to climate change. She said “Nuclear power is not cheap, it’s not safe, it’s not green and it is certainly not the answer to climate change.”
On the 26th April 1986 one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine exploded. A catalogue of human errors led to the worst ever civil nuclear disaster. The horrific environmental and human cost of the Chernobyl disaster lives on. Thousands died and millions more lives have been affected; babies are still being born with abnormalities, there continue to be elevated cancer rates and there is a high suicide rate among the communities worst affected. The land will remain barren and untouchable for generations.
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said,
“A number of reports suggest that the government plans to build new nuclear power stations. It is clear that this would be an unpopular policy and the government are chickening out of announcing it until after May 5th. The government should be investing in renewable energy and concentrating efforts on energy efficiency rather than pandering to the nuclear lobby and a nuclear industry which is still failing to deal with its dangerous nuclear waste legacy of the first generation of nuclear power stations. Nuclear power is not cheap, it’s not safe, it’s not green and it is certainly not the answer to climate change.”
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Notes to Editor:
1. For further information and interviews please contact Ruth Tanner CND’s Press & Communications Officer on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.