In early November, a delivery of nuclear waste en route to a “disposal site” in northern Germany met with some unanticipated obstacles. Dozens of farmers lined the route determined to block roadways with their tractors, trees and stumps cut down by protestors blocked the routes, and more than 3,000 people gathered in protest outside the site deemed acceptable to bury containers of highly toxic nuclear waste.
Several times police had stop and to clear flocks of sheep and goats from the roadway. A shepherdess who would only give her name as “Evelyn,” due to fear of reprisal, expressed the concern of the farmers and other protesters - that the toxic-waste disposal site represented a poisonous long-term threat to not only their livelihoods, but also the health of the land and water.
Along the roads, hundreds of people gathered to protest the German government's decision to extend the life of the country's nuclear power plants for several years.
Organizers stated that the protest was not only an effort to voice ongoing concern and dissent over the use of nuclear power but also an effort to show support for local renewable energy sources.
One has to wonder how the fate of energy policy in the U.S. would differ if people who regard themselves as stewards of the earth played an active role in the decisionmaking process rather than nuclear industry “professionals “ and regulators who give precedence to corporate earnings over the well-being of the planet.