"Gaia guru" flips, embraces nuclear power.

British scientist James Lovelock, venerated by fervent environmentalists worldwide as a kind of high priest of "green theology," is causing anxiety, confusion and heated debate among the enviro-faithful. Professor Lovelock is most famous for his "Gala Hypothesis," which holds that the Earth is a self-regulated, living organism. He named his hypothesis after Gala, the ancient Greek Earth-mother goddess.

Now, however, Lovelock is guilty of the most serious heresy; he is saying that mankind must switch to nuclear power as the only viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Vehement opposition to nuclear power has been a cardinal tenet of green theology for decades. However, Lovelock attacked this sacred doctrine in a controversial May 24 commentary written for one of Britain's leading newspapers, The Independent. Lovelock's op-ed declared:

   Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed
   by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.
   These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start
   in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We
   must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer
   from chemicals or radiation.... If we Pail to concentrate our
   minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may
   die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from
   overheating in Europe last summer.

      I find it sad and ironic that the UK, which leads the world
   in the quality of its Earth and climate scientists, rejects their
   warnings and advice, and prefers to listen to the Greens. But
   I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to
   drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.

Unfortunately, Dr. Lovelock's epistle gets the facts straight on nuclear power only to promote another dangerous enviro-myth, global warming, which, to use his own words, "is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media."