Cumberland Council Receives George Monbiot Nuclear Greenwash

[Oscar]

Cumberland Council Receives George Monbiot Nuclear Greenwash Award

2025 Award on the Anniversary of the Windscale Fire

Marianne Birkby - October 09, 2025

EXCERPT: "Dear Cumberland Councillors,

We would like to congratulate you on winning the George Monbiot Award.

As you may know, the famous journalist George Monbiot is a great convert to nuclear and this award in his name is in recognition of the Council’s ongoing unconditional support for the geological disposal plan for nuclear wastes. Confident in the benefits of this plan, the full council have never needed to debate or vote on continuing in partnership with Nuclear Waste Services in their delivery of the largest infrastructure project ever in the UK

Of course, the award is a spoof but it is highlighting a very serious issue.

The press release is below and we encourage Councillors to, at the very least, lobby for a full debate and a full vote before continuing in plans for an experimental mine (much larger than the proposed coal mine) with groundworks leading to the sub-sea area in which to abandon very hot nuclear waste on and under the Lake District coast.

yours sincerely,
Marianne Birkby
Radiation Free Lakeland

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PRESS RELEASE 9th October 2025 - CUMBERLAND COUNCIL GIVEN GEORGE MONBIOT NUCLEAR GREENWASH AWARD

Nuclear safety campaigners at Radiation Free Lakeland and Close Capenhurst are giving a spoof award to Cumberland Council. Cumberland are aiming to receive “Significant Additional Investment” from Government in return for saying yes to a nuclear dump. The “George Monbiot Award for Nuclear Greenwashing” is named after the Guardian columnist who declared his “love” for nuclear power following the earthquake caused Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011. . . . . .

The proposed land based mine operations would be active for over 100 years trundling plutonium and high level nuclear wastes down mine shafts to a 36km square void beneath the Irish Sea bed. Leading geologists Professors Stuart Haszeldine and David Smythe have cautioned against the burial of extremely hot nuclear wastes saying “It’s perfectly reasonable to think of a 150C-200C heat source at 0.5km, producing a geyser of boiling water intermittently erupting at surface temperatures above boiling.” . . . . "

[ https://radiationfreelakeland.substack. ... dium=email ]