Greenpeace executive director launches climate solutions tour for a nuclear-free Ontario

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Bruce Cox, Greenpeace Canada Executive Director.

Greenpeace executive director launches climate solutions tour for a nuclear-free Ontario

Greenpeace executive director Bruce Cox will tour 10 cities in Ontario to promote nuclear-free climate change solutions and expose the greenwashing of the province's proposed Green Energy Act.

The speaking tour, entitled "Climate Solutions: Nuclear Lies-Green Truths," will run from February 26 to mid-March. Cox will make the case that the nuclear agenda of the McGuinty government in Ontario blocks the development of green energy and is not the right solution to climate change.

Green Energy Act + nuclear = greenwashing:

"The McGuinty government cannot have a serious green energy agenda when it is firmly committed to having 50 per cent of generation coming from nuclear power," said Cox. "It is greenwashing to say you support green power when you're spending billions on nuclear."

The Ontario government introduced its proposed new legislation, the Green Energy Act, on February 23, 2009

Plans create a nuclear ceiling:

McGuinty's plans create a "nuclear ceiling" in the electricity system, capping new renewable energy projects at 5,312 megawatts over the next 20 years to allow space on the electricity grid for 14,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity. The proposed Green Energy Act does not remove the government's self-imposed nuclear ceiling.

Ideas ignored:

Ontario is ignoring the green ideas of countries like Germany which has 20,000 megawatts of wind power and is shutting down reactors. In 2008, Germany installed over 1,500 MW of wind power.

Green energy is the solution to climate change. A focus on green energy will also create the 21st Century electricity system that will create jobs and protect our children from massive debts and the serious threats of nuclear electricity and toxic nuclear waste.

"If the McGuinty government wants to become a legitimate leader in green energy, the Premier needs to announce that the Pickering B nuclear facility is shutting down and will be replaced with green energy. You cannot build new reactors, mine uranium for nuclear fuel and create radioactive waste and still be considered a green energy leader," said Cox. "It defies logic."

The goal of the Greenpeace tour is to help to convince Ontarians to stand up to McGuinty and the nuclear lobby and demand that Ontario become a nuclear-free zone.

"The problems with nuclear reactors are legion: enormous cost overruns, possible terrorist attacks that threaten millions, and nuclear waste that is toxic for a million years," said Cox.