Sellafield protest: Today Jan 23, British Embassy , 6pm GMT

There was some party political stuff with Sinn Fein and the socialist workers movement, I didn't like it much I thought it was playing politics a bit with the issue, but I went to protest the existance of Sellafield and it's clear health risks. I basically put up with the party political stuff which was probably a little off topic, I'm not saying I agreed nor disagreed with the anterior politics and conotations, what was important to me was to go and show support for the closing of Sellafield.

I was kind of relieved that there was more than one political party present though, I thought it showed that there was some cross party support so there seemed to be a greater plethora of opinions and not just a party line, which I was in support of.

On the whole I am glad I went, even though I did not agree with all of the politics, I did agree with the core issue, closing down Sellafield. Thats what mattered and I could put up with the rest of what was said. Like I say, it's not that I did or didn't agree with the supplementary political conotations, the issue was Sellafield.

There were four speakers, one of them seemed to get a bit too bogged down in his election manifesto (politicians huh?), but the other three seemed to make quite a compelling environmental case for the shutting down of Sellafield. One speaker from Louth spoke of how the incidences of cancer in Louth are thirteen percent higher than the national average, and how the radioactivity which he attributed ostensibly to Sellafield was five times higher on the coast of Louth then on the coast of Mayo.

Without someone blowing up Sellafield, right now it is discharging iodine-129

http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/97/nuclear/reprocess/saveour05.html

There is no safe level of radiation
Medical wisdom once held that low levels of radiation posed no real threat to human health-and therefore dilution of radioactive discharges in the oceans could be justified. The consensus of scientific opinion today, however, is that no level of radiation can be dismissed as harmless and that, in fact, any dose of radiation from reprocessing waste, no matter how small, will increase the risk of cancer and genetic damage.

The British and French reprocessing facilities now discharge more than 40 different radioactive substances. Many of the radionuclides discharged do not exist at any significant level in nature, yet they are now entering the environment and the food chain in enormous quantities. Although scientific knowledge of the long-term effects of these materials is limited, every review of recommended radiation limits for workers and the general public has revised the accepted levels downward.

To cite one example, Iodine-129 is among the radiotoxic materials released at dramatically increasing levels. When ingested in food, iodine-129 enters the bloodstream and accumulates in the thyroid. There, the gamma radiation it emits can destroy thyroid cells, impairing the production of necessary hormones. Damage to the thyroid of a foetus can cause mental retardation and other severe developmental abnormalities. Iodine-129 remains dangerous for millions of years

Iodine 129 is clearly not a pretty substance, yes litter is a big problem in Ireland and the Irish could and should recycle more, the incinerators that the government plan will discharge large amounts of carcinogenic materials into the air and should be derided for it's anti-environmental impact, yet the inadequacies of the Irish government with regard to the environment do not give the British government right to abuse the environment too. Clearly a litter problem is paltry in comparison to a substance like iodine 129. Lets be clear, even if Sellafield never, ever melts down it will still be discharging radioactive materials into the environment and these materials will increase the likely hood of cancer and genetic abnormalities. This is why the plant has to be closed down, another reason is that nuclear materials to be reprocessed in Thorp will be brought over from Japan. Japan, on the other side of the world. The Germans have enough trouble transporting nuclear waste from one end of the country to the other. Can you imagine the potential for serious accident with highly radioactive wastes being shuttled from Britain to Japan and back again?