Conversations w/Great Minds Stephanie Cooke - The Nuclear Age P1
This Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster - and a year on - the disaster continues to devastate the people and nation of Japan. Towns and cities within miles of the Fukushima plant are still covered in a fine layer of radioactive dust - and have been turned into nuclear wastelands - devoid of life. Those lucky enough to have survived the earthquake and tsunami are now battling radiation poisoning and and the probability of cancer and birth defects. As hundreds of thousands of people across the world prepare to commemorate the tragedy over the course of the next month - we need to ask ourselves - is nuclear power really worth enduring such a horrible and deadly disaster? Will there ever be a way to make nuclear power a safe form of energy - or do we need to move away from it all together? Tonight we have a special edition of Conversations with Great Minds - featuring Stephanie Cooke. Stephanie is one of the world's top reporters and authors on the issues of nuclear energy and the use and history of nuclear weapons and is a real industry insider. Her articles on nuclear topics have appeared in a variety of publications - including Readers Digest - The International Herald Tribune - and GQ magazine. Stephanie first began her reporting career in 1977 at the Associated Press - and later moved to London where she covered the Chernobyl disaster for Business Week. She returned to the United States in 2004 to complete her most recent book, "In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age." Currently - Stephanie is the editor of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly - part of the Energy Intelligence Group.