Dan Fogelberg : Face the Fire
On March 28, 1979 the Unit 2 reactor of Three Mile Island experienced a partial meltdown, leading to small radioactive releases near Middletown, Pennsylvania. 140,000 people --everyone within a 20 mile radius--were evacuated. No one was hurt and the exposure to radiation levels were a 1/6th of those for someone receiving a chest x-ray, but the public fear and distrust of nuclear power skyrocketed. It didn't help that a disaster thriller about a nuclear plant meltdown, The China Syndrome, has been released just 12 days earlier and
Artists, still distrustful of a government responsible for Vietnam and Watergate, were part of the anti-nuclear demonstrations. Dan Fogleberg responded by plugging in an electric guitar and writing "Face the Fire", which would appear on his album Phoenix:
The Island's leaking into the bay
The poison is spreading
The demon is free
And people are running from what they can't even see
In September hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated at rallies in New York City where China Syndrome actress Jane Fonda spoke. At night Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Carly Simon and Jackson Browne were among the stars that performed. Orleans frontman and future congressman John Hall organized the event with Bonnie Raitt, Browne and Graham Nash.
It had the desired effect I guess. In 2005, the coal-electric industry accounted for 40 percent of U.S. energy-related carbon emissions, making it one of the country’s single largest sources of greenhouse gas. , while countries like France which get 80% of their power from nuclear plants
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