During the early morning of the 26th April 1986 the world's worst nuclear 'accident' to date took place at the Chernobyl reactor, near the now abandoned city of Prypiat, Ukraine. Thousands of workers died in the clean up operation and the radiation left a legacy of genetic defects and a huge increase in the number of people developing thyroid cancer.
Such 'accidents' do not mean that a Socialist world would abandon nuclear power. But it menaces our life now because we live in a society of class ownership of the means of production, in which wealth is turned out for sale and profit. In this system human interests have a very low priority; if something is profitable then it happens, whatever the risk to people. The Greens attack this as if were a form of madness when by the standards of capitalism it has a deadly sanity and logic. If anyone should doubt this, they might ponder of a certain reaction to the speculation, soon after the explosion at Chernobyl, that a total meltdown was imminent. If that had happened, the consequences for the world would have been incalculably horrific. For everyone, it seemed, this was dreadful news. But not quite everyone. The prospect of the destruction of the Ukraine sent grain and livestock prices soaring in Chicago. When there is extra profit to be made, even out of human misery, the capitalist class are keen to do so.
Further reading:
The State and Chernobyl
Radioactive
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