In general, I tend to be in favor of a lot of biological technologies that are scary to others.
Nuclear energy
Pro. It’s far safer than fossil fuels: nuclear has killed a very small number of people in accidents, but fossil fuels not only cause accidents but also kill millions of people a year from air pollution alone, not to mention permanent environmental damage. The alternative to nuclear energy isn’t renewables, but fossil fuels. When Germany got rid of nuclear, they added coal, and the “environmentalists” who wanted nuclear gone have made the planet worse by it.
We have a status quo bias on this issue where our concept of the status quo is actually mistaken, as I discuss in There’s Always Problems.
As to whether new nuclear plants should be built instead of renewables, that’s a matter of a number of factors. But when it comes to dismantling nuclear, or other situations that in practice pit nuclear power against fossil fuels, nuclear power should always be preferred.
More resources:
- Kurzgesagt has a series on nuclear energy:
GMO
Pro. It’s not that different from traditional plant breeding. It has the potential to lift people from poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. I do think that monopolistic practices connected to GMOs can be bad, but those are the fault of those practices, not GMO in general.
Vaccines
Pro. The purported downsides are mostly literal lies.
Population
Pro. I do not think we have an environmental overpopulation problem. I do think we have an economic demographics problem---and lost opportunity.
I don’t think overpopulation is a real environmental concern. I think the United States should have a billion people per Matt Yglesias’s book A Billion Americans, which I review on this blog as well.
This is part of why I believe in building more housing.