Celsias
Italian voters have voted overwhelmingly to reject Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi plans for nuclear power plants and to privatise water.And it's hard, even for Berlusconi to argue with such an emphatic vote.
In a massive victory for the anti-nuclear lobby Italians have rejected the call to restart nuclear by 94% of those who voted. .Berlusconi had proposed a restart of the nuclear program that was abandoned in the late 1980s in a referendum soon after Chernobyl.
Berlusconi has accepted the verdict and has said Italians that have made their opinions "clear" and government and parliament must "respond fully". He said that "We shall have to say good-bye to nuclear "and that his government would throw itself into developing renewable resources.
Voters also repealed water privatisation and immunity from trial for government ministers.
Turnout was about 57%, which is a significant rise on participation in previous referendums. Berlusconi's call for voters to boycott the referendum went unheeded. If turnout been less than 50%, the result would have been invalid.The vote was a uniform rejection of Berlusconi in many respects.
Anti-nuclear campaigners say Japan's Fukushima disaster in March helped sway public opinion against nuclear power. Like Japan, Italy is prone to earthquakes and the images and the human disaster of Fukushima will be fresh in Italian minds. So too will Angela Merkel's call for Germany to abandon nuclear power by 2022, and Switzerland's decision to also phase out nuclear power. So Italy joins the move towards renewables. Congratulazioni, Italia ! For other great stories on all environmental and climate change issues, check out Celsias : Why Do So Many people Seek to Deny Climate Change Science? Germany -Stepping Away from Nuclear and into leadership on Renewables
