The question is: if we commit to fission, are we simply trading one problem disaster for another? Put another way, given our collective (lack of) response to CC, should our track record on decision making be trusted?
This is incorrect. Not only is the Fukushima prefecture inhabited, even the very town in which the incident happened is inhabited.
What area are we taking about here, and is it truly inhabitable or is it just the same flawed logic that caused the Japanese government to evacuate the area when there was no sense in doing so?
Not even close to significant amount, compared to the certainty of a CO2 fueled Climate disaster. Not to mention modern reactors are passively safe.
No it isn't. The purpose of a nuclear reactor is to take highly radioactive material found in nature, cook off a bunch of its radioactive energy (producing power in the process), and create less-radioactive material as a by-product. The waste that comes out at the end is less radioactive than the material we started with, albeit much more concentrated. But that makes it easier to handle and store, compared to the CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are spewed out all over the place.
If we dumped all that radioactive waste into the ocean (BAD IDEA), mother nature would dilute it for us and spread it out until it disappears into the natural background radiation. The drawback is that it'll be dangerous to everything that encounters it before it's diluted, so we can't do that.
This is not true. Nuclear fuel not highly radioactive. Their use in nuclear reactors stems from the fact that they emit two neutrons when hit with one, producing a chain reaction. Their byproducts are much more radioactive than the original fuel.
Also there’s the pesky fact of half-life. Ignorant anti-nuclear activists seem to think that nuclear waste is extremely dangerous and lasts for centuries. Nope. Nuclear material can either be imminently dangerous or have a centuries long half-life. It can’t be both.
As a human that's the particular sort of disaster I care about most.
Climate change will make much larger parts of the planet uninhabitable.
People choose not to live there, but plenty of wildlife does. Which is different from saying it's uninhabitable. People could live there. People haven't because an increased risk for cancer and birth defects. Which is a far cry from saying it's not livable. Chernobyl is basically a wild life sanctuary now. Nature is doing better off because of the lack of human presence.
Yup. And the same can we said for the planet. Mother Nature will adjust and bounce back. Ultimately, she's not at risk. We are.
So if it's about wildlife, CC is not a fatal issue. Again, MN will persist, one way or another. CC and Humans? That's a differnt plot arc.