Who is "we"? I'm simply impressed that despite hippies going extinct back in the 90's, "we" still don't have nuclear energy powering 80% of every single country.
The only real pollution coming from nuclear power plants is hot water that is poured down the drain into the river which causes serious damage to ecosystem and if this bureaucratic bullshit was looked at seriously and all idiots kicked out (and preferably lynched), someone just may figure out that in winter, you need lots of hot water for, I don't know, heating lots of houses maybe.
And yes, not the hecking radioactive waste that can be buried deep underground where noone will ever be affected by it... Just remember that same should be done with the unrecyclable plastic which now deteriorated into microfibers, got into your rivers, seas and eventually into the fish that you ate last week, but isn't, because you do not actually care about real world problems and waste that in fact does ruin your health beyond repair.
> For the advocates of Ostpolitik – the new “eastern policy” of rapprochement towards the Soviet Union and its allies including East Germany, launched the previous year under chancellor Willy Brandt – this was a moment of supreme political consequence. Schiller, an economist by training, was to describe it as part of an effort at “political and human normalisation with our Eastern neighbours”.
The West German bureaucrats of the time were dangerously naïve hippies in pinstripe suits. They believed that by drawing Russia into trade with the West, it would inevitably become democratic and liberal. (They were warned, repeatedly, both at the time and throughout the following decades.)
I'm reminded, indirectly, of the famous (and famously misunderstood) "appeasement" of Germany by Chamberlain.
Chamberlain was a skilled and experienced politician, who was in no sense "naive". He knew perfectly well what a reprise of the first World War would mean for Germany: a complete destruction of its industrial base and its resources. It was a war Germany could not win, and would be foolish to try.
It did not win, and didn't really come close, despite early successes created by surprise. The surprise over, they were gruelingly beaten down, at immense cost to the entire world. It was stupid and worthless and cruel -- and did not even benefit them.
Russia has put itself in the same place. They cannot win anything important. Even if they take Ukraine, they've isolated themselves, and made their military a laughingstock. They can try to recreate the Russian Empire, but Putin would just be a tinpot dictator, not a world force. They'll have destroyed their economy, and no amount of telling each other that they did it to fend off a nefarious West will take the sting out of that.
Russia failed to look out for their own self interest, and Germany was wrong to imagine that they would. But it's not as self-evident as other posters here have suggested. It's like a weather report: if it says 10% chance of rain, you didn't do the wrong thing by skipping the umbrella, even if you got wet. That's a reality of international relations.
There will be a lot to study over the coming decade about what we've learned. And much of what we've learned is how badly we screwed ourselves over the past half-century by not taking climate change seriously.
The only real pollution coming from nuclear power plants is hot water that is poured down the drain into the river which causes serious damage to ecosystem and if this bureaucratic bullshit was looked at seriously and all idiots kicked out (and preferably lynched), someone just may figure out that in winter, you need lots of hot water for, I don't know, heating lots of houses maybe.
And yes, not the hecking radioactive waste that can be buried deep underground where noone will ever be affected by it... Just remember that same should be done with the unrecyclable plastic which now deteriorated into microfibers, got into your rivers, seas and eventually into the fish that you ate last week, but isn't, because you do not actually care about real world problems and waste that in fact does ruin your health beyond repair.