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Greenpeace Canada Rolls Out Photo Exhibit to Mark Chornobyl Anniversary

Posted on: Friday, 21 April 2006, 18:00 CDT

By VICTORIA AHEARN

TORONTO (CP) - Greenpeace Canada is rolling out a haunting mobile photography project in a bid to mark the 20th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and highlight the potential risks of nuclear power.

The project, also timed to coincide with Earth Day, consists of 18 black-white photographs of places and people - many of them with physical deformities - in and around the site of the April 26, 1986, nuclear explosion in Ukraine that led to thousands of deaths.

"We've brought this exhibition here to bring a human face about who's actually being impacted through deaths and through horrible (radiation) effects . . . on their health," Greenpeace Canada's Shawn-Patrick Stensil said at the unveiling of the exhibit - one of 30 similar displays being shown around the world.

"Chornobyl should remind us, and give us a moment of reflection about what the true impacts or risks (are) of using this type of technology to produce electricity."

Netherlands-based photojournalist Robert Knoth was commissioned by Greenpeace last year to take the pictures in areas where major nuclear accidents or atomic testing have occurred.

The photographs used in the Canadian exhibition are mostly of children in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Russia and Belarus. They have various types of cancer as well as other conditions, including cerebral palsy, that ostensibly were caused by radioactive contamination.

In one particularly graphic shot taken in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, the dead bodies of a set of conjoined twins can be seen on display in a laboratory, their stomach organs exposed.

The entire collection is mounted on two large wooden panels on wheels, with the word "UNCLEAR" spraypainted in capital letters on the sides of the panels - a play on the Ontario government's "getting clear about nuclear" TV advertisements.

Stensil hopes the Knoff display will give Premier Dalton McGuinty "a moment of sober second thought" as he weighs a recommendation that the province spend $40 billion to construct or replace nuclear power in the province.

A spokesman for Ontario Energy Minister Donna Cansfield, however, said Friday that there really aren't any viable alternatives to nuclear energy in the province.

"The one thing that people forget is that right now the amount of baseload power in this province, for the most part, is nuclear and it's about 50 per cent of our power right now," Neal Kelly, senior media relations adviser, said in a telephone interview.

"So even if we don't do any refurbishing or we don't do any rebuild, there will be nuclear well into the future."

Kelly touted the country's Candu technology as having a safety record that "is second to none," adding: "You can't compare the technology that was being used in the former Soviet Union 25 years ago to technology here ... so to say that a Chornobyl type situation could happen here in Ontario I think is irresponsible."

As for Greenpeace Canada's suggestion that nuclear energy be phased out in the province - as Germany is doing - Kelly pointed to McGuinty's comments earlier in the week about solar and wind power solutions being unreliable and expensive, and hydroelectric possibilities "getting close to being tapped out."

Stensil wants to see a public debate and environmental assessment of the province's energy plan.

"A catastrophic accident here at the Pickering nuclear station, just 30 kilometres from Toronto, would decimate Canada's heartland," he said.

"Four million people live in the GTA area. The 30 kilometres around Chornobyl are uninhabited now; 350,000 people had to be resettled. We have to ask ourself, 'Even if it's a small risk, is it worth it playing the chance when we know with technology accidents do happen?' "

Greenpeace Canada plans to display the Knoth exhibit on Earth Day Saturday at various Toronto locations and on Wednesday in front of province's Ministry of Energy as part of a Chornobyl vigil. After that it is to be moved to various locations across Ontario - and possibly Quebec and Saskatchewan - this summer.

Source: Canadian Press

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