The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Exit “My Lord”
Enter Honourable Judge
Language reflects the limitations of life. Nothing illustrates this better than the way we have persisted with in addressing judges as “My Lord” — a term that smacks of the colonial and the feudal and is out of sync with republican values. While many an ideal republican value is yet to become the norm in India, every small step — such as the way judges are addressed, for example — is important for deepening the democratic culture.

Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Fighting HIV/AIDS
Govt is doing it the wrong way
by Rami Chhabra
Enlightened national discussion on steps to curb spread of HIV/Aids is needed, based on knowledge of basic facts about HIV infection. At present, this is particularly pertinent as the ambitious third phase of National Aids Control Programme (NACP III) commences.

MIDDLE

Driving lessons
by Chitleen K Sethi
I started driving a scooter when I was still in school. Through my college years I drove it in Ludhiana, a city where traffic rules were virtually unknown. We were three friends and “tripli” it was to almost everywhere in the city. Traffic lights were non-existent and at places where there was a traffic light, we would merrily jump it and laugh at the persons waiting for it to turn green.

OPED

From surprise to victory
General V.P. Malik gives an account of the Kargil war
by General (retd) V.P. Malik
former Chief of Army Staff
While our military operations were gathering momentum and achieving success in recapturing important positions occupied by the enemy every few days, we learnt from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meetings that the US Administration was now in close touch with the Governments of Pakistan and India. In this context, US President Bill Clinton spoke to Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif on several occasions, particular after mid-June 1999.

Greenpeace founder for going nuclear
by Patrick Moore
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That’s the conviction that inspired Greenpeace’s first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

From the pages of

EDITORIALS

Costlier oil
Brace yourself for the coming hikes

With oil prices touching $ 74 a barrel, and the Indian oil majors losing as much as Rs 883 crore in the first half of April, consumers have to brace themselves for possible rate hikes. Indian Oil Corporation, which alone is losing Rs 80 crore a day, is asking for hikes of Rs 5.60 per litre of petrol and Rs 7.60 per litre of diesel. India’s oil import bill was $ 43 billion last year. Continued price rise is clearly one of the serious threats the Indian economy faces, as it can begin to tell on growth at some point, even as it fuels inflation.

While the recent spurt in prices is being attributed to fears over the Iran crisis, prices are high because of continued demand from both big consumers like the United States and rising giants like China, which accounts for almost 33 per cent of the increase every year. New oil fields are not being discovered fast enough – the “reserve-replacement” ratio of global majors is steadily falling. Moreover, demand is not slackening with rising prices: Both for individual consumers and economies, rising incomes, and fuel efficient technologies, have meant that the oil bill pinches less. In addition, China and India have strong taxation and subsidy regimes. While heavy taxation means that a lower portion of the final bill we pay is related to the crude prices, subsidy insulates the consumer from increases.

In today’s prices, crude during the “oil shock” years hit $ 90 per barrel,. What if the scenario is repeated? The International Energy Agency, under pressure from Western consumers, is recommending that countries like China and India end fuel subsidies, letting consumers feel the heat so that demand can slacken. Indeed, if that serves to cut demand, leading to a drop in prices (OPEC, after all, spends less than a dollar a barrel to get the crude out), consumers may benefit in the end. But that is only in theory, and even if politically possible, cannot work without wholesome reform, including of the Western economies. The people in India will be happy as long as P. Chidambaram absorbs the oil price hike. Whether he can, or whether he will, remains to be seen.

Delhi air sickens
Millions of residents at risk

If you thought the problem of air pollution in the national Capital stands solved following the introduction of CNG-run buses, you have to think again. The air in Delhi is still so laden with pollutants that it is playing havoc with the health of residents. A 10-year study conducted by the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute of India, Kolkata, and released by the Centre for Science and Environment says that among healthy, non-smoking adults, as many as 71.4 per cent show respiratory symptoms. Not only that, 26 per cent of Delhiites have chromosomal abnormalities which may ultimately lead to cancer. Even if the polluted air may not be causing these problems all by itself, it is certainly aggravating them. Women and children are especially susceptible. Sixtyfour per cent of the 3,500 children in the 8-16 age group studied in Delhi suffer from lung function impairment, whereas in unpolluted areas like the Sunderbans, only 24 per cent children show this impairment. Overall, 46 per cent of the population in the city suffers from the problem.

Women are more vulnerable because of smaller lungs, smaller diameter of airways in the lungs and continuous exposure to cooking. Doctors feel that the only way out is to restrict the number of cars moving on Delhi roads and ensuring that pollution norms are enforced strictly. What the doctors ordered is not easy enough. One, the number of vehicles cannot be cut down substantially till there is an effective mass transport system in place, and two, enforcement of pollution norms is scandalously weak in this city of VIPs. The situation is not much better in other metropolitan cities.

With illness in the air, one would have expected the residents to defend themselves. But they follow a lifestyle which aggravates the problem. Far too many people smoke. Even those free from this vice make up by taking junk food, aerated drinks and foods with questionable preservatives which lead to the increase of ailments like asthma and bronchitis. The diminished consumption of fruits and vegetables also weakens one’s immunity. While pressure on the administration is mounted to clean up the air, the real change will have to come in each and every household.

Exit “My Lord”
Enter Honourable Judge

Language reflects the limitations of life. Nothing illustrates this better than the way we have persisted with in addressing judges as “My Lord” — a term that smacks of the colonial and the feudal and is out of sync with republican values. While many an ideal republican value is yet to become the norm in India, every small step — such as the way judges are addressed, for example — is important for deepening the democratic culture. Of course, if until now, lawyers did not decide to break with the tradition of “My Lord” and “Your Lordship” it was not for any fault of the courts and judges. It is just that lawyers did not want to give the judges any cause upon which they may earn His Lordship’s frown. It is heartening that this presumption was proved wrong in February when a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal tossed out a petition on the subject of how judges are to be addressed, but asked the Bar Council of India (BCI) to decide on the matter.

Once the Chief Justice of India had made it clear that this is not an issue for the court, the Bar Council got the message that it must take the initiative, which it did without losing any time. The BCI intimated 19 State Bar Councils of its resolve to replace “My Lord” with “Your Honour” or “Sir” and a majority of them were quick to respond. Accordingly, a resolution was passed by the BCI stating that judges of the Supreme Court and superior judiciary should be addressed as “Your Honour” or “Honourable Judge”; and, lower court judges will be addressed as “Sir” or “Madam”, or its equivalent in the local language.

With this change, the linguistic distance between the bar and the bench has been bridged, and, more importantly, a colonial relic has been jettisoned. The relic represented a psychological distance between the public and the judiciary that is not suited to the democratic times and temper. May be the people will now have greater faith in the judiciary and judges will draw more respect from the lawyers — that is, when they are not on strike.

ARTICLE

Fighting HIV/AIDS
Govt is doing it the wrong way
by Rami Chhabra

Enlightened national discussion on steps to curb spread of HIV/Aids is needed, based on knowledge of basic facts about HIV infection. At present, this is particularly pertinent as the ambitious third phase of National Aids Control Programme (NACP III) commences.

HIV is a communicable disease, spread through a deadly but fragile virus that is unable to survive outside the body fluids that host it. Therefore, it only infects through the physical exchange of body fluids, namely semen, blood and possibly saliva in larger quantities. In India, over 85 per cent HIV infections are through heterosexual intimacy. However, HIV-transmission also occurs through men having sex with men (MSM), contaminated blood/blood products, infected injections and by HIV-infected mother to child during birth.

So, prevention of further spread has to be tackled on two fronts: universal health precautions to prevent accidental exposure and human will and capability to prevent self-exposure. The perspectives governing how this is achieved have enormous societal repercussions. Aids issues affect the core of human lives. This article deals with self-exposure.

HIV infected blood transmits infection with over 90 per cent-efficiency. Sexual transmission rates are far lower: 1 in 100 but contribute maximum toll. Women’s physiology makes them far more susceptible to infection than vice-versa. But a single visit to a “sex worker” triples a man’s possibility of HIV infection plus other STDs frequency increases probability. Danger lies not only in brothels; all multipartner sex is inherently dangerous as HIV— infection displays no visible signs; more partners, greater infection-probabilities.

High risk groups — a catch-all term for those engaged in the selling and buying of sex, MSMs, hijras and IDUs - are initial, concentrated HIV— infection sources. Once HIV enters a community it spreads like wild fire within its sexual network. As people buy/casually have sex the infection transmits elsewhere across the chain of sexual-relations, including those occasionally indulging and innocent partners who never had sexual intimacy with anyone other than their one partner. Therefore, anyone self-indulging in casual sex is high-risk. Partners of such sexual cheaters and others vulnerable to sexual predators, like street children, also become high risk.

Once infected, there is no cure. HIV takes 7-10 silent years to erupt into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids) that so destroys the person’s immune system as to make him prey to a host of opportunistic illnesses/diseases that devastate. Medicines now available postpone Aids onset but require rigorous regimens, nutritional support and management of side-effects, difficult for most persons to sustain.

High-risk behaviour renders persons highly vulnerable to HIV infection, also other STDs that physically debilitate and devastate, if not kill. The presence of STDs accentuates vulnerability to HIV.

The use of condoms provides 80-85 per cent efficacy in protecting from HIV infection, but not all STDs. Further, condoms protect only if consistently and correctly used, each time, every time, from start of sexual intimacy to end. Such use is rare, as evidenced by low utilisation of condoms: 3 per cent of couples covered; condom consumption figures stagnant over many years despite decades long family-planning propagation and a decade-plus high-profile Aids-prevention communication. Inexplicable this touching faith of Aids programmers in their capability to train ever-expanding numbers of undisciplined, self-gratifying men for ever-alert lusting!

On the other hand, a monogamous couple — a man and woman in sexual relationship only with each other — cannot get HIV through sexual transmission. Even persons with promiscuous pasts/drug addiction, giving up high-risk behaviour to live in committed relationship with one HIV-free person (first establishing through HIV-testing own infection free status) carry no extra vulnerability. Thus, high risk can evolve to low risk with lifestyle change— if strategies encourage such lifestyle-changes, as distinct from “behaviour change” focused on effective condom use to protect promiscuity.

This requires a very different policy perspective. The trajectory of strategies and consequent activities (and monitoring indicators) would become totally different once the primary objective is to support wholesome lifestyles and mindsets that abhor paid sex/casual flings/one-night stands; celebrate values of abstinence, commitment, mutual faithfulness, transcendence of the venal-carnal together with compassion for the disease-afflicted and acceptance for those abandoning high-risk behaviour. The vast bulk of Indian society subscribes to such balanced values. Media persuasion for restraint in breaking such mindsets/values would need to be canvassed.

Instead, the “enabling environment” kickstarted by Aids-prevention programmes is euphemism for tolerance of sexual-libertarianism and “harm minimisation” services. Five years of surreptitious buildup of such tolerance, through NACP Phase 11, has de facto expanded high-risk numbers without commensurate results. Increasing HIV infection rates at sentinel sites representing high-risk behaviour point to problems papered over with more of the same needed arguments.

Exceedingly high HIV-infection rates prevail in brothel areas and the identified commercial/casual sex points in cities, despite long-running Aids prevention projects and mappings. For instance, Mumbai’s infamous Kamathipura registers 60 per cent-plus infection and at least 22 per cent — up from 0.3 per cent — is conceded in Calcutta’s Sonagachi, the controversial “model” government and international agencies cite as “best practice”. As the “trade” is a revolving door for ever-younger recruits what is happening is frightening.

Those breaking society’s sexual restraints — or speaking in support — are increasingly privileged and emboldened as their voices are magnified by well-funded Aids prevention forums, media and other influential circles. Any wonder, the demand for changes in social norms - and laws - on sexual restraints get shriller, albeit camouflaged in lofty human rights language?

The sex industry, once a fugitive underworld, rears its monstrous head openly in the 21st century. Huge figures are vaunted — tens of billions dollars — as commercial stakes in prostitution, pornography, sex toys/games and much else termed adult entertainment, while media salaciously pushes the envelope further for sleaze. Alongside, those sucked into the sex industry — by coercion and “choice” — grow exponentially; acknowledged so by international and national documents.

Now a new policy agenda is being moved beyond “nonjudgmental” tolerance towards normalisation and mainstreaming. NACO Phase 111’s draft is disturbing — public funds for “saturation coverage” of core high risk groups, not to pull out but “behaviour change” aka neutral promotion of “prevention services” clearly defined as “condoms, lubricants, needles and syringes”& “treatment services (STD drugs, substitutions for IDUs)” through “empowerment and mobilisation” and “enabling environment”, including towards legal frameworks. The defunct Sonagachi model — where trade unionisation and sex work recognition centre staged while HIV-infection spiraled and studies on HIV— prevention/cost-effectiveness were abandoned — constitutes the talisman. Why?

Normalisation of high-risk behaviour, ignoring societal impact, is as deadly as HIV — infection itself. Legitimacy to illicit sexual networks and primacy to sexual identities will come only at the cost of social networks and social identities that glue family units and societal well-being. Negative approaches have wreaked havoc in Africa (where in some parts a third of the population is now Aids-afflicted). Even Thailand, where a second cycle of HIV infection looms a whirlwind reaping the sown past of sex casualisation. We stand warned.

The writer is a noted commentator on health, population and issues related to HIV/AIDS.

MIDDLE

Driving lessons
by Chitleen K Sethi

I started driving a scooter when I was still in school. Through my college years I drove it in Ludhiana, a city where traffic rules were virtually unknown. We were three friends and “tripli” it was to almost everywhere in the city. Traffic lights were non-existent and at places where there was a traffic light, we would merrily jump it and laugh at the persons waiting for it to turn green.

When I landed in Chandigarh for university education my scooter followed me. A family friend drove it down, parked it outside the hostel gate and I was ready to zip around the city on my Bajaj Chetak.

I was still getting used to driving on the scarily wide traffic-less roads when a friend asked to be dropped to the Chandigarh bus stand. With her on the pillion, I drove straight into the Sector 17 ISBT, halting near the bus parked next to my friend’s destination counter. My friend, also new from Ludhiana, found it the most natural thing as this was the way people are dropped off at the bus stand there.

On my way out, a traffic cop on duty outside the bus stand gestured me to stop: “Side pe lagao”. I did. “Driving license please.” I burst out angrily: “How dare you stop me like this? I have broken no rule. You are harassing citizens. I will complain to higher authorities.” He was unruffled. “Ok ok at least show me your driving license.” Very reluctantly I handed him the license and without sparing a second, he issued a challan. “What is this?” I asked? “This is a paper which you keep and the license I keep. You can get this back after you pay the fine at the office.” But what have I done? “Madam this is no-entry zone” he said pointing to big red letters painted on a white board.

“Look, I did not notice it. You cannot challan me. Don’t you know who I am? I am so-n-so’s daughter,” I said giving him what I thought were impressive details of my father’s post. “Madam, nothing can be done now. The challan has been issued.” Left with no choice I pleaded with him. “I am a student new to Chandigarh. I am sorry. I will be more careful in future, I promise,” I said.

“Madam, you have it all wrong. You should have started from where you are ending” he said smiling. “What do you mean?” I was confused. “Look, it’s simple. When I stopped you should have accepted your mistake and pleaded forgiveness. Chances are I would have let you off with a warning. Had that not worked, you should have dropped names as strategy number two. Chances are that would have worked. But if that too failed and you know you are going to be challaned, you are free to hurl abuses as there is nothing else that you can do!”

OPED

From surprise to victory
General V.P. Malik gives an account of the Kargil war
by General (retd) V.P. Malik
former Chief of Army Staff

Battle ready — Kargil, 1999

While our military operations were gathering momentum and achieving success in recapturing important positions occupied by the enemy every few days, we learnt from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meetings that the US Administration was now in close touch with the Governments of Pakistan and India. In this context, US President Bill Clinton spoke to Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif on several occasions, particular after mid-June 1999.

After the futile visit to India by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani authorities were now looking for a honourable way to end the battle. According to Nawaz Sharif, he ‘seriously wanted the war to come to an end’. Sharif has also stated that Pervez Musharraf asked him: ‘Why don’t you meet Clinton? Why don’t you ask him to bring about a settlement?’

Pervez Musharraf was a party to the decisions taken at the meeting of Pakistan Defence Committee of the Cabinet on the eve of Nawaz Sharif’s departure for Washington. Musharraf saw him off at the airport on 3 July.

The ‘desperate’’ meeting that the Pakistani prime minister sought was fixed for 4 July 1999, despite that day being a holiday (it was the American Independence Day). Twenty hours before Nawaz Sharif could meet President Clinton, we had recaptured Tiger Hill. For all practical purposes, this development meant that the tide had turned inexorably in our favour.

President Clinton insisted on the restoration of the sanctity of the LoC. He also insisted that the Pakistani forces withdraw to the LoC and that Pakistan should follow the Lahore Declaration. When Nawaz Sharif attempted to get round the suggestion o the withdrawal of Pakistani forces to the LoC, the US president confronted him with the latest information given to him by his staff. Clinton asked Sharif if he knew that the Pakistani Army was preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible use. Nawaz Sharif denied that he had ordered their missile force or nuclear weapons to be readied. He then agreed to sign the joint statement.

During the meeting, President Clinton also warned Nawaz Sharif that unless he did more to help the United States in apprehending or killing Al Qaeda leaders, he would have to announce that Pakistan was in effect supporting terrorism in Afghanistan. Nawaz Sharif then agreed to the United States’ proposal to train sixty Pakistani commandos, who would go into Afghanistan and get hold of Osama bin Laden; something that Pakistan was not agreeing to earlier.

Nuclear threat?

There is no doubt that the Pakistani political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif himself and the foreign secretary, Shamshad Ahmad, had been making provocative public statements about using nuclear weapons. We in India never took them seriously. India’s national security advisor, Brijesh Mishra, had conveyed our contempt for such rhetoric though an interview given by him to the media. Other than one or two intelligence reports indicating that Pakistan Army personnel were noticed cleaning up artillery deployment areas and missile launch sites at the Tilla Ranges, we had no specific reports that the Pakistan Army was readying its nuclear arsenal. Moreover, till then, Pakistan had not created any nuclear command and control structure for utilizing strategic weapons and for decision-making in this sphere.

Events over the next few days moved rapidly. On 6 July 1999, when the Directors General Military Operations (DsGMO) of India and Pakistan held their scheduled telephonic conversation, our DGMO, Lieutenant General Nirmal Chander Vij, conveyed to his counterpart that we were now in possession of several Pakistan Army official documents and personal letters belonging to their officers, all of which revealed Pakistani duplicity. He also told him that there were so many dead bodies of Pakistani soldiers on the Indian side that it had become difficult to identify them individually. He then gave him names of various units that had been detected so far. The Pakistani DGMO appeared quite rattled. He ended the conversation abruptly, saying that he had nothing to discuss.

On 6 July, Prime Minister Vajpayee called me to his residence. Only he and Brajesh Mishra were present in the room where we met. The prime minister informed me that Pakistan had agreed to withdraw its forces to the LoC. He wanted to know my reaction. My immediate reaction was that the Indian Army would not accept such a withdrawal. The armed forces had suffered many casualties. My question was: Now that events were swinging in our favour, why should we let the enemy escape? In any case, I told the prime minister and Brajesh Mishra that I needed to consult my colleagues in the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and also formation commanders on this issue.

In all these conservations with the prime minister, there was never any hint of political pressure. They were simply consultations between the highest political authority and the chairman, COSC, as it should always be.

Withdrawal begins

The next day (9 July) evening, the Pakistani DGMO called our DGMO, Nirmal Chander Vij, for holding an unscheduled conversation. Apparently, the Pakistani DGMO had received instructions from his prime minister and the Pakistan Army chief for the withdrawal of forces. Consequently, he wanted to work out the details. He set the ball rolling by stating that as the political top brass on both sides had shown the good sense to deescalate the conflict, his leaders had persuaded the Mujahideen to honour their commitment. Vij asked him how had they suddenly managed to gain so much control over the Mujahideen who had been operating in Jammu and Kashmir for so many years. Vij gave his counterpart the identities of two Pakistani Army officers who had been killed in the Dras sector and told him to give up this Mujahideen façade, which, he pointed out, could no longer convince anyone.

On the ground, the withdrawal of Pakistani troops from different sectors commenced smoothly. The DsGMO spoke to each other frequently, sometimes more than once a day. The Pakistani DGMO sought an extra day for pulling out from the Mashkoh sector. This request was granted.

At the end of the accepted time frame, we found that, while withdrawing, the Pakistanis had laid mines and booby taps indiscriminately, particularly in the Mashkoh sector. Also, despite the 1000-metre distance agreement, they remained deployed in several pockets. Some of these pockets were vacated after we reported them to the Pakistani DGMO. But three pockets close to the LoC on our side — Zulu Spur in the Mashkoh sector, Ring Countour in the Dras sector and Area Saddle in the Batalik sector — remained occupied by the Pakistanis. The details of these three intrusions were faxed to the Pakistani DGMO, but to no avail. One possible reason could be that they were still hoping to link these intrusions to the Siachen sector.

While theses activities were going on during the agreed ceasefire period and there was a lull in the fighting, India’s chief election commissioner (CEC), M.S. Gill, promulgated orders on 11 July 1999 for holding the next parliamentary elections. That announcement changed the mood of the CCS members all of a sudden. From then onwards, I found them and the secretaries of various ministries spending more time discussing election scenarios and arrangements rather than the war situation. For the armed forces, the war was not yet over because the intrusions had not been fully vacated.

Our troops were still engaged with Pakistani troops at several places. In the vacated areas, they were busy locating and lifting mines and booby traps put in place by the enemy. I strongly felt that the military implications of the announcement of the election schedule for the war situation should have been considered and the COSC consulted. I mentioned this aspect to the prime minister, who pointed out that the CEC was an autonomous authority. There was nothing that we could do now except to log a lesson for the future. I, therefore, conveyed my views to M.S. Gill over the phone the very next day.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal of the Pakistani troops, which was extended by one day after 16 July, came under dispute. The Pakistanis claimed that they had pulled over completely and had gone over to their side of the LoC. However according to the information available to us, they were still occupying three features on our side, close to the LoC. Despite a discussion over the hotline between the DsGMO of India and Pakistan, the stalemate over this issue continued.

On 21 July, I briefed the prime minister on the latest operational situation. I said that it would not be possible fro the armed forces to conclude Operation Vijay successfully till the three Pakistani pockets on our side of the LoC were cleared. I pointed out that we needed his approval to use force for evicting the Pakistanis. He gave the go-ahead signal. All the three pockets were cleared by 25 July.

The next day, the Indian DGMO, Nirmal Chander Vij, along with his colleagues from the Navy and the Air Force, held a press conference and announced that all intrusions of Pakistani troops had been cleared. With this, the mission assigned to the Armed Forces by the Government has been accomplished’, he declared.

The above is excerpted from the forthcoming book “Kargil — from Surprise to Victory” by the former Chief of Army Staff, General V.P. Malik. General Malik was both Army Chief and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in 1999, the year of the Kargil war.

Greenpeace founder for going nuclear
by Patrick Moore

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That’s the conviction that inspired Greenpeace’s first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too. Nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2 while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

And although I don’t want to underestimate the very real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands of rogue states, we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That was the all-or-nothing mentality at the height of the Cold War, when anything nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment.

In 1979, a reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant sent shivers of anguish throughout the country. What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do—prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn’t been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America’s electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that’s not including the nuclear workers). Although I don’t live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

And I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change. Stewart Brand, founder of the “Whole Earth Catalog,” says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group’s board after he wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter.

There are signs of a new willingness to listen, though, even among the staunchest anti-nuclear campaigners. When I attended the Kyoto climate meeting in Montreal last December, I argued the need for an aggressive program of renewable energy sources (hydroelectric, geothermal heat pumps, wind, etc.) plus nuclear. The Greenpeace spokesman agreed with much of what I said, though not the nuclear bit. But there was a clear feeling that all options must be explored.

Here’s why: Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable. They simply can’t replace big plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It’s that simple.

(Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace)

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post