Tag: Germany

Overview of science journalism in India, for WiD

Wissenschaft im Dialog is hosting “a special series about the role of science communication and science journalism in various countries”. At their request, and thrilled for the opportunity, I wrote the India edition, available to read here. The initial limit was 1,000 words but the version that got published has around 1,400 words. For allowing this spillover – i.e. letting me go on and on – but more so for helping me compose and edit the thing, I owe thanks to Esther Kähler and Arwen Cross.

Excerpt:

There are many reasons for [science stories of a certain type being popular today] – but two of them in particular dominate. The first is that, like everywhere else in the world, Indian journalism outlets are making a painful transition from print to the web. However, the business of journalism is tougher in India because the purchasing power is lower while the costs remain high. As a result, tested models of money-making such as online subscriptions and paywalls developed for the West can’t be adopted in India. Second – and again, like everywhere else in the world – political nationalism is on the rise. (Even if Emmanuel Macron received 65% of the French vote, it is startling that Marine Le Pen secured 35%.) One consequence of this has been that right-wing ideologues, politicians and supporters are becoming less tolerant towards journalism that criticises homegrown innovations. Instead they want stories that amplify national pride by glorifying ’successes‘ that, in most contexts, would simply be seen as low-hanging fruit.

Keep reading.

Featured image credit: mdhondt/pixabay.

Risky transfers

This update is 6 days old, but it hasn’t made any more sense with time. Perhaps it was the way it was written – my opinion: the stress on the financial benefits of offsetting local plutonium storage with monetary compensation is alarming. That Germany will pay the UK to store this ridiculously dangerous material, that the UK will risk political backlash because the “financial benefits from the title transfer will exceed the long-term costs of the material’s safe storage and management”, that France will then supply processed MOX fuel for use in German reactors, that the UK will then argue that it is glad it has been spared the trouble of shipping plutonium while implying that it is comfortable being the site of nuclear waste storage… are all alarming developments.

Why? Because, even though I’m pro-nuclear, the backlash that could arise out of this could negate years of progress in developing MOX-processing technologies and installing them in the middle of energy policies of three countries. One problem is already obviously foreseeable: Germany’s reluctance to continue its reliance on nuclear power is simply short-sighted. If it requires any more power in the future, it will have to purchase it from France, which, given the knee-jerk shutdown of NPPs worldwide after the Fukushima Incident, is just as surprisingly displaying enough sense to rely on NPPs. By then, I hope monetary advantages will not suffice to mask the reality that Germany would be paying to have France purchase its troubles. Unless, of course, there is some other agreeable form of risk-transfer.

Just ugly.