In late March, the MSE assisted in the promotion of a film titled, “The Lost Bird Project,” which was showcased at FIFA (the International Festival of Films on Art) in Montreal.

The film tells the story of Todd McGrain, an artist whose passion for birds leads him to create five enormous statues of North American birds that were driven to extinction by the modern age. He wants to use his sculptures to commemorate the lives of these birds, and to remind the world of this loss.

But for McGrain, the creation of the sculptures proved to be the easy part of his quest. The film documents McGrain’s journey as he travels across eastern North America in hopes of finding the perfect location to place each sculpture. This might be the place where the bird was last seen or a common habitat for the bird. It needs to be a place in the wild, in the bird’s natural habitat, but needs to also be somewhere where people will see it regularly. After choosing each location, McGrain battles with park rangers and state officials to gain permission to place his sculptures.

McGrain hopes that his works will remind passers-by of the absence of the birds and will teach them that forgetting is another kind of extinction. If we can hold onto the memories of what has been lost, perhaps we can prevent more loss in the future.

Kaitlyn Shannon 

Irene Hofmeijer, B.Sc. May 2010, Major Environment - Ecological Determinants of Health Domain - Population

MSE Grad Starts Up Environmental Social Enterprise in Peru

Irene Hofmeijer, who graduated from the McGill School of Environment program in 2010, has taken her knowledge down south to Peru, where she has started up a social enterprise called LOOP (Life Out of Plastic), which raises awareness about plastic pollution.

The idea was born one evening at her Prince Arthur apartment in Montreal, when her roommate encouraged her that if she really wanted to make a difference, she needed to “pick one issue, just one that really gets to you, and try to fix it.” Heading this advice, Hofmeijer remembered her recent trip to Peru, where she was appalled by the plastic bag pollution she had seen. “No one recycles plastics in Peru,” she says, so she decided to come up with a plan to introduce resusable shopping bags made from recycled bottles into the Peruvian market.

After graduation, Hofmeijer worked as a research assistant under professors Lea Berrang-Ford and James Ford. During that summer, she was sent to the Peruvian Amazon to carry out field work. “It was saddening,” she says, “to see the amount of plastics accumulating along the Amazon river due to the lack of waste management services in rural communities.”

For Hofmeijer, that was the final straw. After her contract as a research assistant ended in January 2011, she moved to Peru and founded LOOP. “The day we got the final product set up was one of the happiest days of my life,” says Hofmeijer. Setting up the company was not easy, especially since Hofmeijer insisted that all their products be 100% Peruvian.

In just over a year, the small business has seen extraordinary success. LOOP has commercialized locally manufactured reusable bags made from rPET fiber (a textile made from recycles plastic bottles). They have introduced recycling services, organized educational campaigns, and engaged in beach clean-ups.

However, environmental issues are relatively new to the Peruvian discourse, and Hoffmeijer says that getting people to care about the problem and its habits is a big challenge that LOOP faces daily.

Hofmeijer reflects back happily on her MSE degree. “How I miss the MSE!” she laughs. She particularly values the systems-thinking approach that she learned from the MSE, and says it is extremely valuable in the work that she does today. She particularly has fond memories of ENVR 302, 400 and 401. “I even found myself looking back at ENVR 200 slides the other day for a class I was going to teach at a school. I really wish I still had that textbook!”

Hofmeijer recommends that MSE students take an economics or finance class if they have the opportunity. In both the work she does with LOOP and in her research work, she has constantly come across accounting and budgeting and MSE students would be well-equipped to handle these important tasks if they study finance during their degree.

Finally, Hofmeijer implores MSE students to get involved as much as possible with the MSE community. Hofmeijer was an executive member of MESS (the McGill Environment Students’ Society) in both her third and fourth years at McGill, serving as co-president in her final year. “The skills I gained from being involved in MESS have been extremely helpful over the last year,” she says.

From Montreal to Peru, Hofmeijer’s story is an inspiration to MSE students, reminding them that they are capable of accomplishing anything they put their minds to.

For more information about LOOP, visit the website: www.lifeouotfplastic.com or facebook group: www.facebook.com/lifeoutofplastic.

Kaitlyn Shannon

The School of Environment teamed up with McGill Career Planning Services to launch “Green Careers Week,” a series of events designed to raise student awareness of environment jobs.

The keynote speaker, an environmental lawyer named Katia Opalka, told the audience about her experiences working in the world of  “green careers.” Opalka completed both undergraduate and law degrees at McGill, and is now a specialist in Canadian environmental law as well as an adjunct professor with the School of Environment.

After completing her undergrad in history, Opalka was still unsure where her career path would lead. Certainly, she had no intention of becoming a lawyer. But reflecting back on her experience, she says, “things happen when you’re studying or doing your summer jobs, and all these twists and turns will end up becoming the story of what is your career.” In her case, she stumbled upon a summer job in 1990 working on car brakes for her uncle in Germany. Her uncle placed her in charge of creating an environmental management system for the factory, and this sparked her interest in environmental issues. Later, almost by default, Opalka decided to enter law school. When she met her husband in 1995, they decided to stay in Montreal. She realized that her best chance at staying in Montreal and supporting a family was to take a job with a corporate law firm, specializing in environment. “I became an environmental lawyer by accident,” she laughs.

Though she couldn’t have predicted her career path, Opalka thoroughly enjoys her work. However, she advises students interested in this field to remember: “it’s not enough simply to care about the planet. You need to be a useful contributor, because it’s actually quite complicated. It’s a huge field that is not in and of itself, “sexy.” You don’t always feel like you’re saving the world.”

Opalka suggests that the best way to make a meaningful contribution to environmental protection is to identify your own strengths and interests, and pursue a job in that field. “Environment is a spectrum,” she says, “with pure nature at the one end and people at the other.” If you can determine where your interests fit on the spectrum, you’ll be able to find a job niche that suits your skills, experience and personality. “You’ll be much better at your job,” she assures students, “if you are doing what you really enjoy.”

Kaitlyn Shannon

After listening to Professor Nalini Nadkarni speak at the MSE Public Lecture, I had the opportunity to learn more about this fascinating woman when I met with her the following day at Rowles House on the MacDonald campus. Speaking with her in person only served to enhance the respect I had gained for her the evening before.

During the public lecture, Nadkarni’s passion for trees and nature exuded from her. But in talking with her, I learned that Nadkarni has another less obvious love of her life: modern dance. Nadkarni was a dancer all throughout her childhood and into college, where she pursued an undergraduate degree in both field biology and modern dance. When it came time to graduate, she realized she had to make a choice. Like a true scientist, she says, “I gathered the data I needed to make the right decision.” This involved spending one year doing field study research in the forests of Papua New Guinea, followed by six months at a modern dance studio in Paris. When these “trial runs” came to an end, she says, “I got all my journals out, I went to a café and read through them all.” She realized that field biology offered her a life-long opportunity and the chance to use her mind, whereas as a dancer, she would face an intense, but short, career. “That was the moment, sitting in the café in Paris where I said: it’s field biology.” Though she’s devoted her life to the study of trees, Nadkarni still dances recreationally, and recently had the opportunity to help a dance group choreograph a dance about the rainforest. For Nadkarni, this was a high point in her career. “I can die now,” she laughs, “the two parts of me have come together!”

When I asked Nadkarni about how she reconciles her outreach work in a scientific community where time spent away from rigorous research is often seen as wasteful, Nadkarni responded that it depends on one’s definitions. “My own definition of science has grown to include the public engagement part. So I’m fulfilling my own contract of what science is.”

And Nadkarni envisions her dual goals persisting as she advances further in her career. “I’d like to continue this double road of engaging myself with scientific questions and also with public outreach.” She also wants to focus on helping other scientists embark on similar public engagement programs. Many young scientists are hesitant about outreach, and she hopes to encourage them and give them tips along the way. Likewise, she hopes to inspire older scientists who have already contributed extensively to the field of science. She wants these veterans of the scientific community to serve as role models for younger scientists and pass on their knowledge to the non-academic community. “They can afford that now,” she says, “and I can help them do it.”

To help other scientists in this engagement, Nadkarni hopes to impart some of her excellent public speaking and presenting skills. As a former dancer, performing comes naturally to Nadkarni, who, as a young girl, learned how to carry herself on stage, how to project and how to tell a story. “In dance, you don’t do storytelling verbally, but dancing is all about stories and I think public speaking is the same. The best talks are stories.” Nadkarni explains that many scientists have difficulty engaging an audience because “in the sciences, you’re supposed to leave yourself out and be objective.” But Nadknari believes that the inclusion of “personhood” is essential for a successful presentation. She hopes to help scientists learn to expose themselves in a way that gives the audience an initial connection to the speaker, which helps them follow along when the presentation becomes more complex.

Though Nadkarni herself has never known a time when she did not feel passionate about trees, she offers some advice to those who may still be searching for their calling. “Be as open as a peach,” she says. “Take the time to experience boredom and a vacuum, which is something we so rarely allow ourselves in our society. This will allow something else to flow in.” But she knows that finding one’s passion is not always easy. “My advice would be patience, openness, wait.”

During her time in Montreal, Nadkarni was introduced to the School of Environment and had the opportunity to meet with various professors and staff to discuss the programs and research at McGill. She was quite impressed. “I did not expect this at such a big, standard university.” She was particularly pleased with the interdisciplinary nature of the environment program. “I was very impressed with this idea that to solve the world’s environmental problems we need more than one discipline, we need multiple lenses, and we need different ways of looking at the problems. I admire the foresight and the vision to put together and maintain this school, teaching the next generation to have better tools at hand to deal with the problems with need to solve.”

Kaitlyn Shannon

As the MSE Annual Public Lecture came to a close, the room echoed with inspiration.

            “I could listen to that again.”

            “She’s so passionate!”

            “That was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

Though she spent only a brief hour and a half with McGill faculty, staff, students and community members, Professor Nalini Nadkarni easily captured their hearts. Her contagious passion and drive left audience members inspired to pursue their own dreams the way that Nadkarni has pursued hers. She had the audience laughing, smiling, and applauding throughout the lecture, and the listeners leapt into a standing ovation when her talk came to an end.

A professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Nadkarni has spent the past two decades at the forefront of treetop canopy research. And at the public lecture, she shared with the audience her unique scientific philosophy, which values communication and outreach just as much as rigorous academic research.

Nadkarni truly opened herself up to the audience. By opening her lecture with a photograph of her parents and laughing about the fact that each member of her family has an ant named after them (her husband is an ant taxonomist), Nadkarni was no longer a simple lecturer talking about her field of study, but a fascinating woman recounting her own unique story.

From a young age, plants had grabbed Nadkarni’s attention and fascination. But unlike other researchers in her field at the time, Nadkarni’s fascination went beyond the forest floor, up the trees she loves to climb and high into the forest canopy. Though the canopy was largely ignored by forest ecologists when Nadkarni was a graduate student, she was not content to let her feet rest on the ground, and single-handedly raised the issue of canopy biology to the forefront of ecological research. Less than three decades later, there are dozens of canopy research centres around the globe.

But what drew Nadkarni to the treetops? She recognized that the canopy has a completely different microclimate than the forest floor, with its own diversity of plant and animal species. Nadkarni’s research focuses on epiphytes, the plants that grow on the branches and trunks of other trees. She describes epiphytes as “keystone elements,” because of their enormous impact on the survival of plant and animal ecosystems in the canopy. She focuses on the tree canopies of the Pacific Northwest and Costa Rica.

Nadkarni wanted to see what would happen if the epiphytes were disturbed. So she conducted an experiment, which is still ongoing, and discovered, shockingly, that epiphytes take a very long time to recover. Twenty-two years ago she removed the epiphytes from certain branches to conduct her experiment. Today, those epiphytes have only recovered to 40% of their previous density. Upon seeing these results, Nadkarni said, “I realized that I have a responsibility as a scientist to do something about it. Forest canopies are being destroyed.” And they won’t be coming back any time soon.

She realized that in order to protect the forests that she loves, she needed to bring her message to the broader community. “Science is not just for the scientist,” she told the audience.” In addition to writing articles geared towards non-academics (including children), and establishing ICAN, the International Canopy Network, Nadkarni has taken some unique steps to get her message out.

Nadkarni created “Tree Top Barbie,” an adventurous, scientific Barbie who turns the traditional idea of a Barbie doll completely on its head. Distributed with her very own “field guide,” Tree Top Barbie is not only a toy, but also an “educative ambassador” to children around North America.

Nadkarni also works in prisons in the United States, teaching inmates how to grow the mosses that are frequently used in garden baskets. This moss is usually taken from old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, and in order to protect the wild moss, the inmates grow their own. Not only does this help achieve Nadkarni’s scientific and conservation goals, but she says that it has received an overwhelmingly positive response in the prisons as well. “The inmates have the opportunity to feel a connection to nature and the outside world that they are cut off from.”

By conducting her outreach programs, Nadkarni realized that her love of trees is shared with those outside the scientific world as well. She has developed programs to engage various groups with canopy research, drawing on their religious, artistic or musical backgrounds. When looking at a tree, the artist and the scientist both feel the same excitement, albeit for different reasons. But there is undoubtedly a universal fascination with the natural world around us.

In fact, Nadkarni suggested that trees and humans aren’t so different after all, and perhaps this explains our intrinsic fascination with them. We may think they are rooted and unmoving, but by documenting the movement of the branches of various tree species, Nadkarni actually calculated the extent to which trees move. The Red Cedar, for instance, moves 186, 540 miles per year – more than seven times around the earth!

Finally, Nadkarni commented on the ubiquity of trees. Their shapes show up everywhere – in the patterns of rivers or in the creases of the brain. And even in the veins of the human heart.

Kaitlyn Shannon 

According to Sarah Archibald, “food is all about stories.” And on Thursday night, six McGill activists had the opportunity to share some of their stories with the students eating at the Douglas Hall residence cafeteria.

There was an aura of magic in the wood-paneled dining hall that night. The rich scents of warm food danced between the long rows of tables and floated high up into the rafters. The yellow lights twinkled, and the soft murmur of conversation flowed about the room as the six speakers took their places and the finale of the Food Awareness Fortnight got under way.

Alex Briggs was first to take the stage. He reminded the audience that our addiction to exotic commodities (such as sugar) reinforces modern-day slavery and racism. He gave a compelling critique of the capitalist system, and suggested that rather than trying to destroy capitalism, we should be working to create something new and beautiful to replace it.

Next in line was Katryna van Vliet, who gave an optimistic talk about grassroots education – literally. Katryna helps run the MacDonald Ecological Garden, which aims to educate students on farming techniques. As she so eloquently put it: the Ecological Garden is “a living lab for students.”

Passion and enthusiasm surged from the next speaker, Sarah Archibald. Sarah shocked the audience with some little-known facts about the food we eat. Only three companies control all the corn production in the world; agriculture is 70% of the world’s fresh water consumption; 80% of the world’s poorest people are farmers. In light of the inequalities of a globalized food system, Sarah encouraged her listeners to “go the distance, so our food doesn’t have to.”

The spotlight then turned to Susanne Klassen, who coordinated the McGill Farmers’ Market this past fall. Susanne gave the audience some ideas of how they can become involved in work related to sustainability and food systems. She spoke highly of the Applied Student Research program, which gives students the opportunity to conduct independent research and receive school credit.

Following Susanne’s discussion of Applied Student Research, Will Agnew gave an account of his own personal research project, which is to make McGill Food and Dining Services Marine Stewardship Council certified. (Read more about Will’s efforts in the previous post!)

And last but not least, came Dave Morris, the coordinator of Gorilla Composting, which operates “Big Hanna,” the McGill composter that eats up 1 tonne of organic waste each week. Dave engaged the audience by explaining the pros and cons of composting, why it works better on small scales, and how students themselves could set up their own composters.

After the event, I spoke with Maria Mazzotta, the Food Systems Administrator for MFDS, who helped organize the event. I mentioned  “local food day” in my last post as something that had received a positive response from first year students. Maria pointed out some of the difficulties in obtaining local food on a regular basis. “It’s very difficult to eat locally on such a large scale.” However, she assured me that the cafeterias make an effort to serve local food every day. “It’s just particularly highlighted on the local food days.”

Reflecting back on the event after its grand finale, Russell Vinegar, its main coordinator, stroked his beard thoughtfully, leaned back in his chair, and nodded his approval. “We wanted this event to be thought-provoking, to spark conversations,” he said. “It’s about getting people to think about what their values are.” It wasn’t about indoctrination; it was all about stimulation. In short, Food Awareness Fortnight had the emphasis on awareness.

Kaitlyn Shannon 

Have you ever wondered what a bycatch is? Do you know what proportion of the fish we consume is farmed? Can you determine which fish species are sustainable and which are threatened?

Students at McGill’s residence dining halls learned the answers to these questions, and more, at last night’s episode of Food Awareness Fortnight. Organized by students working in collaboration with McGill Food and Dining Services (MFDS) and a number of campus groups, the event’s goal is to make students more aware of where their food comes from, and how they can make sustainable choices.

Last night’s “wheel of fortune” activity asked students questions about fish and oceans, and a correct answer earned a free piece of sushi. Events over the past week and a half have included a chocolate fountain to discuss fair trade, and the labelling of all corn products in the cafeteria to promote awareness of corn consumption.

I spoke to Will Agnew, a student researcher who played a key role in organizing the event. Agnew is currently working with MFDS to get the McGill dining halls certified by the Marine Stewardship Council for supporting sustainable fishing. Last night’s meal was accompanied by a slideshow with more information about what this will mean for McGill.

Amelia Brinkerholt, VP Environment on the Inter-Residence Council, was enthusiastic about the event. “The dining services have been really receptive to the idea,” she says. The staff are excited to be improving their services and have been cooperative and helpful to the students who have organized the two-week long event. Brinkerholt says she has seen a fair amount of enthusiasm from the rez students as well, who have been keen to eat locally and think about where their food is coming from.

However, when I walked around the cafeteria and spoke with groups of students, the results were mixed. Although many students were concerned about the food they were eating, these people had been aware of sustainability issues before the event, and generally already made an effort to eat locally. Others had less interest in sustainability. “If I have the option to eat locally, I do,” said one first year Arts student, “but I don’t go out of my way to do so. I’m more concerned with taste.”

Of the students I talked to, most were interested in eating locally if this option was readily available and did not involve significant extra effort on their part. The dining halls have a “local food day” every couple weeks, and this was immensely popular among the students, with many expressing a desire for this to expand or occur more frequently.

Despite the mixed response from students, MFDS remains committed to making its cafeterias more sustainable, and Food Awareness Fortnight is a huge step in the right direction. The two-week event wraps up tomorrow (Thursday) night at 6:30pm in Douglas Hall, where a speaker’s panel will address some of the complexities of our food choices.

For more information, visit the Facebook event page.

Kaitlyn Shannon

“We in the United States have been a nation for only about 200 years, yet we face the task of storing technetium-99 having a half-life of 200,000 years. Given the short span of our experience in handling these materials, how can we deal adequately with long-lived radioactive waste?”

- K. S. Shrader-Frechette

Proponents of nuclear energy claim the technology has become so advanced that there’s no need to worry. They would have you believe the cost of construction is cheap compared to renewables and the resulting energy is cleaner than coal or natural gas. Many of these ideas originate from the very people seeking to profit from nuclear subsidies – the nuclear industry itself. In 2011, the Nuclear Energy Institute spent over $2 million attempting to convince American politicians of nuclear energy’s merit. I’m here to say that we can do better.

If we have learned anything from the past few decades of nuclear buildup, it is that the risks clearly outweigh the benefits. In terms of health, the consequences remain yet to be fully realized, as many of the adverse effects of nuclear radiation take multiple generations to present themselves. Economically, nuclear programs cost massively in initial investments – money that would be far better spent looking into new forms of truly renewable energy. With our current revolution in green energy gaining momentum, regressing to dangerous and unsustainable nuclear technology would be a step in the wrong direction.

Health: Nuclear energy creates massive amounts of waste, and no current solution exists to dealing with it. Some suggest throwing this waste into the oceans, others like the idea of burying it deep inside mountains. One thing cannot be argued however; even under optimal circumstances, the effects of nuclear waste are far reaching and largely unknown.

As we have seen from Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukoshima, and others, nuclear facilities are far from fail proof. When they do fail, as in the Chernobyl explosion, more than 100 times the radiation as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is released into the environment. Remnants of these radioactive isotopes stay in the soil and affect the health and wellbeing of communities long into the future. According to Nobel Prize nominee and physician Dr. Helen Caldicott, mutations of recessive genes caused by nuclear waste can take up to 20 generations to reveal themselves. That’s more than 500 years.

Economics: Despite the overly optimistic numbers the nuclear industry tends to throw out, nuclear projects in the past ten years have consistently gone over budget. In the United States assessments of 75 of the country’s reactors projected a 45 billion dollar construction cost. When completed, the actual number was 145 billion. The last ten reactors constructed in India, the country with one of the world’s newest nuclear programs, final costs have amounted to 300% of what was projected. Once constructed, these facilities require massive amounts of money to maintain operate under current safety regulations.

What, then, are we to do?

The world is obviously suffering an energy crisis, and with climate change looming overhead, we need new sources of energy – fast. Dr. Fenster is right to note that when looking at nuclear energy we ought not to compare it to an idealistic standard, but rather to judge it against its next best competitors. As Greenpeace accurately states, “Every dollar invested in electricity efficiency displaces up to seven times as much carbon dioxide as a dollar invested in nuclear power.”

Nuclear energy may be relatively clean, but supplies only 16% of the world’s electricity. At present, nuclear energy is used only to generate electricity, and electricity accounts for only one third of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Renewable energy facilities can be constructed far faster than nuclear plants, require less oversight, cannot be transformed into weapons of mass destruction, and best of all, have the potential to provide the world with energy independence hundreds of times over.

Nuclear technology has led to war, economic hardship, and health conditions we may never fully realize. We are right to say that nuclear reactors have a place in this world, and I propose it be the scrapyard.

“Had the nuclear era not started with warfare, we would certainly have had a much different attitude towards nuclear energy.”

Ariel Fenster, Professor of Chemistry and nuclear energy specialist at McGill, suggests that our very perceptions of nuclear energy might be our biggest obstacle to its expansion.

But let’s backtrack for a moment. Do we want expansion? In order to answer this question, let’s first look at some of the basics of nuclear energy.

There are two ways to produce nuclear power – fission and fusion. In today’s world, only nuclear fission is used. Fission involves the use of uranium isotopes, whose nuclei are bombarded with slowed-down neutrons. This impact causes the uranium molecules to split apart, and energy is released. Although there are various types of nuclear reactors, all function on this same basic principle – the splitting apart of uranium nuclei.

In Canada, approximately 13% of our electricity comes from nuclear reactors. All of these, except one in Gentilly, Quebec, are located in Ontario. This is a relatively low percentage compared, for example, with France, where 78% of electricity comes from nuclear sources.

Should Canada follow France’s example and increase it’s use of nuclear power? The question is fiercely debated. According to Dr. Fenster, we must look at the issue rationally, assessing it on the four qualities it is supposed to achieve and dispelling any misperceptions we may have. Nuclear energy is supposed to abundant, clean, cheap and safe. Is it living up to these standards? It seems that it is.

Abundant: In most nuclear reactors, water is used as both the coolant and the moderator. As one of the world’s most abundant resources, this is certainly not a limiting factor. The fuel, uranium, is potentially more limiting, but, according to Dr. Fenster, uranium resources are also abundant. Uranium is a common metal, found in rocks and seawater. Known uranium resources have increased substantially over recent years, as exploration continues. Next to Kazakhstan, Canada supplies most of the world’s uranium (about 22%). The majority of this is mined in Northern Saskatchewan.

Clean: Nuclear power doesn’t produce any carbon dioxide, making it an extremely appealing solution to those concerned about global warming and climate change. A nuclear power plant produces approximately 20 tonnes of waste a year, compared to 1 million tonnes produced by an equivalent coal-fired plant. “Nothing can compare to nuclear power plants,” says Dr. Fenster. If we wish to reduce our carbon emissions in any meaningful way, the answer is with nuclear power. Other forms of green energy such as wind or solar power simply don’t have the capacity to produce the amount of energy we need.

Cheap: Uranium as a fuel is significantly cheaper than coal. In fact, fuel costs for a nuclear power plant are typically one third of the costs of a coal-fuelled plant. Though the biggest cost in nuclear energy comes from the construction the plant itself, which can be quite expensive, the cheap fuel quickly offsets this initial sunk cost.

Safe: Safety remains the most contested issue in the nuclear energy debate. There are two major subjects that are brought up regarding safety: nuclear waste, and potential for accidents.

Nuclear waste can be dealt with in two ways. It can be reprocessed, and used again in nuclear reactors. This is only done in France and Britain, however. In most countries, including Canada, nuclear waste is kept at the site of the plant and stored. Critics of nuclear energy cite this as a threat, because nuclear waste is radioactive and can take thousands of years to decay. The challenge is to find a place to store this radioactive waste without letting it leak into the atmosphere. One solution has been to store the waste in abandoned salt mines. Fenster suggests that this is quite safe. He cites a natural fission reactor that occurred underground 2 billion years ago in Gabon. The fission reaction started naturally, and all radioactive material remained in the caverns underground without being released into the atmosphere. The same can be done in salt mines.

The second issue with nuclear energy safety is the prospect of a nuclear accident. This is especially important given the recent disaster in Fukushima. However, Dr. Fenster reminds us that when looking at the merits of something, we must compare it not to an idealistic standard, but to the next best alternative. “You can’t ask “is nuclear power dangerous?”” says Fenster. “You must ask yourself “what does nuclear power replace?”” While indeed nuclear accidents have occurred, coal fire plants, the next best alternative, are far more dangerous. Thousands of people die each year from either coal mining or from activities at the plant, compared with the couple hundred people who have died from nuclear power in the history of its existence. Yes, it’s important to assess risks, but sometimes it’s a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

Finally, in looking to the future, we must remember that nuclear fission isn’t the only type of nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion, in which joins nuclei together, provides an even more compelling alternative. Although not yet functional, further research and development in nuclear fusion has the potential to create an undeniably clean, sustainable energy source without the major downfall of nuclear fission – its radioactive waste. Fusion not only gives off 1000 times more energy than fission, but also, as Dr. Fenster describes, “doesn’t produce any radioactive material, and this is a very important point.” Fusion, which is fuelled by hydrogen, the most prominent substance on earth, produces only helium and neutrons, eliminating the problematic radioactive waste of nuclear fission.

With this in mind, Dr. Fenster concludes, “nuclear power is with us to stay.”

Kaitlyn Shannon