According to the BBC, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have pulled out of the British Government’s consultation on whether or not the U.K. should build more nuclear power stations, claiming that it is not a “fair and full debate”.
Of course, what they really mean is that they aren’t winning the debate, which I have to say I don’t find terribly surprising (especially as a number of prominent environmentalists are on record as supporting nuclear power). A lot of environmentalists are misinformed or even wilfully ignorant about the issues they wish to “debate”, and when challenged on the subject by someone who does have the facts, they either pull out the “precautionary principle” and claim that the other party cannot be aware of all possible consequences (which is true, but their version of the precautionary principle would have us all confined to underground bunkers for fear of asteroid strikes1), or—as in this instance—run away from the debate claiming that it “isn’t fair”.
Frankly it’s pathetic.
1 This is the reason that I dislike the “precautionary principle”. The original idea was that you should, when making a decision, take account of any risks inherent in that decision. Which, frankly, is what any sane person would do anyway (which begs the question, why do we need a name for this practice?!). But it is often trotted out and used in the sense of “we must not do that because there is a risk, however slight”, which is just plain crazy.