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James Lovelock Normally the media can smell a rat better than a hungry terrier, and I was slightly surprised that they did not wonder more about the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London. He was cruelly poisoned by a few hundred nanograms of the radioactive isotope polonium210. When swallowed it soon finds its way to every cell of the body, where it emits helium atoms that plough through the vital structures. An evil way to kill someone: a slow, unstoppable, tortured death.

If you listen to the rhetoric, nuclear power is back. Smashing atoms will replace burning carbon-based coal, gas and oil. In the face of a disaster movie-like future of runaway climate change--bringing drought, floods, famine and social breakdown--carbon-free nukes are cast as the deus ex machina to save us at the last minute. Even a few greens support nuclear power--most famously James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory. In the popular press, discussion of nuclear energy is dominated by its boosters, thanks in part to sophisticated industry PR.