Anti-nuclear sentiments have run high at the COP17 demonstrations.  Together with Occupy activists, Koeberg Alert Alliance volunteers created a banner which reads ‘Nuclear Power is Intergenerational Tyranny’.  This highlights the injustice inherent in a technology which produces power for the current generation, and leaves the very difficult problem of the high level waste to future generations, for thousands of years to come.

There was a lot of media attention focussed on this banner, and perhaps the body painting had something to do with that.

The banner that got all the media attention

This certainly gets media attention, but how much effect does it have on the decisions that are taken at the end of the day?  To what extent do  the protests just provide colourful images for the media to use as fillers?

We need to hope that somewhere a decision maker who is not motivated by self interest alone has their eye caught by the colour, then reads the message and starts to think about it…  Or perhaps members of the public will see this in the media, and become motivated to be involved, and that will result in the message getting to decision makers, perhaps through the media… That might sound like I am confused, which makes sense, because COP17 is a confusing place to be.