Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYThe next criterion demands that the resistance does not set as absoluteprivate opinions. But that is exactly what the peace movement andthe movement opposed to nuclear energy have done. Their private viewwas that the deployment of additional nuclear weapons would lead to anuclear war in Europe and thus via the annihilation of mankind inevitablyalso to the removal of the liberal democratic order in Germany. Theargumentation regarding nuclear energy was similar, in that it was insinuatedthat over longer periods of time it would have a similar effectas a nuclear war due to radioactive contamination.Both considerations have proved to be wrong or even disastrous. Afterall, one can argue from today’s point of view that NATO’s additionalarmament efforts contributed decisively to beat the USSR in thisarms race, and thus to end the Cold War, i.e., the threat of a nuclearholocaust. And it is similar with abandoning the further expansion ofnuclear energy as a result of the anti-nuclear protest, because as a resultof this the whole world has massively increased the use of fossil energycarriers – with terrible consequences. In China alone some 5,000 mendie every year in coal mines. Worldwide the death toll of coal miningmay be as high as 10,000, and this does not even include fatalities dueto acute ailments of the respiratory system resulting from coal smog inthe conurbations of developing and emerging countries. Hence, in orderto keep up with the annual death toll of fossil fuels, we could afford atleast one Chernobyl every second year, the nuclear reactor accident ofwhich has resulted in a total of some 20,000 human fatalities accordingto current pessimistic estimations. That is far from being the end of thebad news. According to the most recent research results of paleontologistand geologists, which were published in the October 2006 issue ofthe U.S.-American science magazine Scientific American, one is nowon the scent of the reasons why mass extinction events have repeatedlyoccurred during earth’s history. 232 There is general agreement that theimpact of a meteorite in the Caribbean is responsible for the extinctionof the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Yet for the other five similarmass extinction events no such cosmic collisions could be determined.More recent research suggests, however, that these episodes ofmass extinction of species were the results of massive tectonic activities.The volcanism connected with these released huge amounts of carbondioxide, which in turn kicked off an intense greenhouse effect. The232 Peter D. Ward, “Impact from the Deep,” Scientific American, 10/2006, pp. 42-49.190