short termism there is the fear of losing elections due to a misinformed populace. we should have educated people instead and embraced nuclear as the stop gap for the next 100 years while we develop all kinds of other energy tech.
The fact that you don't agree with them doesn't require you to suggest that they were uninformed or uneducated. I don't agree with you (mostly), but that just means that I've come to different conclusions about what is in reality a complex question.
It seems that you may have watched a few too many of the early promotional videos of the nascent nuclear industry.
Also, "directly guilty for the climate crisis" seems a little over the top. Sure, the anti-nuclear movement did lead us to generally not go down a path that would have helped avert or at least reduce the climate crisis. But the climate crisis was directly caused by the discovery and subsequent use of fossil fuels, not the anti-nuclear movement. That movement had what it considered a clear and present danger that implied that nuclear was not the right answer to replace fossil fuels. It is not a "logical" path to follow - the decision involves many tradeoffs and value judgements, and while I understand that you apparently would have resolved those differently, the anti-nuclear movement operated in good faith to try to avert what was at the time considered a much greater risk than climate change.
We might, or might not, ever discover if they were right.
They didn't - they never proposed anything to replace nuclear. The renewables success was unexpected and is owed entirely to the tech progress. They were pure luddites simply wishing to revert humankind to a pre-industrial state.
The anti-nuclear movement at its peak was already after the soft/alternative technology wave that had started at the end of the 1960s and generally wimpered out by the mid to late 1980s. Maybe you and/or the mainstream were not aware of the suggestions, but solar (hydronic and PV) was already known, small scale wind and hydro were being developed, and groups like the New Alchemists and others were busy working on concepts that would eventually translate into stuff like Passivhaus construction. The renewables success was entirely expected by people who knew about this sort of thing. The movement (such as it was) at that time (and to some extent in its modern forms too, such as Extinction Rebellion, not so well known in the USA) was much more focused on energy use reduction rather than replacement of fossil fuels outright. There were plenty of tinkerers, engineers and starry-eyed folk who shared that vision, and quite a few have been involved in "the renewables success".
> Sure, the anti-nuclear movement did lead us to generally not go down a path that would have helped avert or at least reduce the climate crisis. But the climate crisis was directly caused by the discovery and subsequent use of fossil fuels, not the anti-nuclear movement.
It sounds to me like you're describing a trolly problem scenario where the nuclear industry pulled the lever to only kill one person and not five but then the anti-nuclear activitists pulled the lever back to ensure that five people would die and not one.
I get the impression from your comments on nuclear power that you are one of these anti-nuclear activists but you're experiencing some cognitive dissonance because you're realizing that the course of action that you support may actually have been the wrong one but can't quite admit it.