Pandora’s Promise

Pandora’s Promise directed by Robert Stone is a documentary film that was released in 2013 about the nuclear power debate. The film focused on whether nuclear power is a safe form of clean energy for the environment which can help attack the current growing issue of global warming. 

The film displays how a group of environmentalists believe that nuclear power is a safe form of energy which does not contribute to the current levels of global warming. The stereotypes presented with global warming are known to be unsafe however the documentary states that these stereotypes are false. Many of these stereotypes are based off nuclear disasters such as the disasters that happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima and Chernobyl. All these disasters which happened had severe results that many people still live with today who are based in these area, such as health complications. Unfortunately these incidents have caused nuclear energy to bee looked upon as a negative, however Pandora’s Promise states that these were due to inadequate cooling methods and the development of the atomic bomb, which nuclear energy is not meant to be used in this manner. 

Pandora’s Promise informs us that nuclear energy could save the planet from the destruction that is currently happening and could benefit third world countries to become as developed as countries in the west. Many third world countries lack basic electricity due to poor infrastructure and rely on back up energy such as generators and solar. With nuclear energy this could pose a more reliable source of energy for these countries. 

Although the film discusses the issues with nuclear energy and radiation being contaminated, many of the uninhabitable places such as Chernobyl have now been brought back to life due to the are becoming livable again. 

The problems with the mentality that nuclear energy faces is that there has not been much positive light focusing on nuclear energy. The Iraq war led by the George W. Bush administration was based on the fact that Saddam Hussein was keeping weapons of mass destruction which were built using nuclear Another example would be the Iran nuclear deal where they were accused and sanctioned for many years by the worlds largest economies due to nuclear energy not being put forward towards good use. 

According to Pandora’s Promise nuclear energy is the cleanest form of energy that is available. There have been smear campaigns used by oil companies stating the dangers of nuclear energy in newspapers to ensure that nuclear energy is not seen in a positive light and to keep the oil economy booming.

The United States has been purchasing nuclear energy and through Pandora’s Promise we are seeing that this form of energy is more common than we think. The environmentalists have acknowledge that nuclear energy is not a form that we should be afraid of due to the benefits of reducing the impact of global warming.