Photo courtesy kiwanja and licensed by Creative Commons.

I recently watched a re-run of the television series The Incredible Hulk, starring Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby.  In this episode, Bruce Banner attempted to use a radiation chamber in a nuclear plant to reverse the effects of the gamma rays that caused his monstrous condition.  The last thirty minutes of the episode dealt with an earthquake that caused the cooling systems to fail and a nuclear meltdown was imminent.  The entire city was evacuated.  Freeways were jammed with automobiles and residents fled for their lives.  But in the end, the Hulk saved the nuclear plant, and the city, from certain destruction.  The episode was from 1978.

A climate of fear has been created over the last several decades concerning the safety of nuclear plants.  In 1979, Three Mile Island in the United States released a small amount of radiation into the air, causing panic, but no ill effects.  Soil, air and water samples from the surrounding area after the incident showed little radiation and no harmful effects were felt by nearby humans, animals or plants.  In 1986, the Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union released radioactive gas into the atmosphere after a steam explosion that opened up the top of the reactor.  Most areas affected by the radiation are now safe and habitable.

Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, no new nuclear plants have been built in 30 years.  Nuclear energy is safe, clean and affordable yet, as many pundits, Hollywood, and the green activists want you to believe, it’s risky.  We could have a nuclear meltdown (even Chernobyl’s reactor didn’t melt down) and kill tens of thousands of people.  While there is a small risk with any power operation, the real answer to energy independence is nuclear power.

When any issue is deemed a crisis, answers are typically thrust forward without any real choices.  The global warming myth was declared a climate crisis, and now our food supply is being turned into fuel.  We’re being subjected to new energy-efficient light bulbs that contain mercury.  And the countries of the world are being force-fed carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes, all in an effort to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere.  So now that I look back upon this episode of The Incredible Hulk, I realize that the green hue of the monster’s skin wasn’t from the gamma radiation.  It was an icon for the movement of the same name that pretends to live green, only wants to see more green in the form of money, and is green with envy of the monster’s power over people.