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So, here are the offending words:

“I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear. Let it happen – as long as its total emissions are taken into account, we know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried, how much this will cost and who will pay, and there is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will used by the military. We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future most be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.”

Source: one George Monbiot, scourge of literally all and sundry, especially of those who are perceived by him to be “betraying the cause.”

Context: George is (probably even now) at the Climate Camp outside Kingsnorth in Kent, energetically supporting the campaign against E.ON’s proposal to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth – with or without Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) built in.

Common ground: this is a campaign with which I am in total agreement – planning permission for E.ON at Kingsnorth would usher in a new and utterly disastrous lease of life for coal in the UK. There may be up to eight further coal-fired power stations in the pipeline. The fact that BERR would appear to be minded to go ahead with such a proposal tells you all you need to know about the Government’s head-long retreat from what we now know to have been the high point of sustainable energy thinking in the 2003 Energy White Paper.

Disagreement: as George says, a horror story. But does one’s horror at one horror story justify turning a blind eye to another – equally horrifying – horror story? “Yes”, says George, because our every sinew must now be strained to combat the threat of resurgent coal. “No”, say I, because a resurgent nuclear industry constitutes (almost) as grave a threat to the emergence of truly sustainable energy strategies as coal does.

I am putting the ‘almost’ in there to build a bridge back to George’s startlingly irresponsible and throw-away ‘green light’ for nuclear. As you can see, he is trying to hedge that improbable endorsement with a few conditions that both he and I would agree are all but impossible for the nuclear industry to comply with.

But a communicator as astute and clever as George should (and surely does) know the difference between a ‘Yes … If’ position and a ‘No … Unless’ position.

Does all this mean an irrevocable split in the Green Movement? Yes and No. Yes, because there are indeed widely diverging views about the potential contribution that nuclear might make to a low-carbon world. No, because there always have been such diverging views, and we are all (for the most part!) united in our anger and disgust at the sheer stupidity of something like Kingsnorth.

So please do check out the Climate Camp 08 website. It’s excellent.