Letters and Inspiration

The Safe and Green Campaign is part of the Sage Alliance, dedicated to shutting down Vermont Yankee.  Recently, Safe and Green did us a favor (sort of).  They have been annoyed at all the letters in favor of Vermont Yankee that have been published in local papers recently, and they want their supporters to answer these letters.  So they put a bunch of pro-Vermont Yankee letters on their website, with links to the letter as it appeared in the local paper.

I looked at the page and thought---wow!  How convenient! All these good letters in one place! I wish I had thought of that.

The Letters Themselves

Here's a link to Sage and Green web page with the letters.  If you prefer, you can look at the list below, the same letters, instead of visiting an opponent website.

• Nuclear Fuel: The Win-at-any-cost philosophy of anti-nuclear activists.  Let's shut down Yucca Mountain and then complain there's no place to store spent fuel!  Jim DeVincentis in the Brattleboro Reformer
• Vermont Yankee helps in the fight against climate change.  Without nuclear power, there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "Mother Earth will not be shouted down by nuclear opponents"  Harriet Green in the Brattleboro Reformer
• Economic Impact of Vermont Yankee.  Up to 1500 well-paying jobs in the local area, due to Vermont Yankee. Michelle Joy in the Brattleboro Reformer
• The Vermont Yankee Economic Benefit Zone. Opponent signs always call the "Emergency Planning Zone" the "Evacuation Zone."  Wrong name.  Whatever you call that zone, though,  the Vermont Yankee Economic Benefit Zone is much bigger.  Richard January in Vermont Digger
• Trojan Horse about Energy:  It's the Fossil Fuels.  Opponents brought a "Trojan Cow" to the plant's gates, and pulled fake solar panels from within it.  Trojan Horses (or cows) are the symbol of deceit.  In this case, the deceit was that VY would be replaced by renewables if it closed.  It would be replaced by fossil fuel plants. Meredith Angwin in the Brattleboro Reformer.

Not really a favor

Of course, Sage and Green had no desire to make things better or easier for us.  They placed those letters on their website because they wanted to inspire their followers to write counter-letters.  I guess I should be worried.  Letters may flood in.

However, I have seen responses to these letters in the website comment streams, and these responses have not worried me.  For example, my letter was in the Burlington Free Press, and one comment there said that I claimed "there was as much tritium in a banana as leaked from the plant." Even when they make up a fact (tritium in a banana?) they get it wrong.

The actual facts are on our side.  The factual facts, so to speak.

I hope that some of the people reading this blog in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire will be inspired to write a letter in favor of VY to their local paper. If you plan to write a pro-VY letter and want some fact-checking, please email me at mjangwin at gmail. I will be happy to hear from you and to help. (If you are writing an anti-VY letter,  just go ahead with business as usual and make up your own facts.)

Let's keep those pro-Vermont Yankee letters coming!