The funniest thing about Germany's anti-nuclear stance is that most of it stems from Chernobyl; there were these big scares and concerns fallout and radiation drifting through winds and rain into Germany. The local disaster is obviously bad, of course, but coal is a way more reliable local disaster, it was the "globality" of nuclear accidents that motivated the anti-nuclear stance, otherwise you can just have no one live nearby.
I'm not going to get into whether or not those fears were justified or how those concerns rank in comparison to the global consequences of global warming - I don't think they are but its not my point. My point is you are concerned about the global-scale impacts of nuclear accidents, and you live here:
A few years outdated of course, given how Germany has shut theirs down...but almost no one else has. Germany is flanked on all sides by nuclear power plants! France has way way more than Germany ever had, Russia is still going strong, Chernobyl itself produced power until 2013 until foreign pressure intervened For Germany, shutting down their own nuclear power plants barely addresses the actual 'problem' they are faced with, they are not safer at all from "nuclear rain", like really! They shut down 3 plants this year, France has 58 running.
Which maybe would be like "yeah okay but we are sending a message" if this was a harmless decision, but global warming is right there, Russian gas dependence is running roughshod over your energy policy, this is not the time for symbolic gestures. Even by the metrics of Germany's own anti-nuclear policy advocates, this move is an extremely minor win for them, their concerns aren't local. And man what a price they (and the rest of us) are paying for it.



cromulentenough