Bearing responsibility in the region

Wolfram König, President of Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management

Bearing responsibility in the region

We are standing in front of the Konrad mine – the last stage of a crossroads where we may reflect on the very threats to creation and our existence, and simultaneously put to the test the lifestyle of a postmodern highly mobilised society. Here at the Konrad mine, similarly to four weeks ago at the Asse mine, Christians have been posing the central question: in the knowledge of all problems of sustainable energy provision, how can we introduce societal reversal processes? And what conclusions can we draw from the consequences already visible and comprehensible here in these two places from the use of atomic energy?

I stand here today as someone who as President of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection must pose the question of responsibility within this discussion of the problem in a particular way. I am legally responsible for the disposal of the radioactive legacies of atomic energy and leader of an authority, whose many employees live in this region with their families. Not least on a personal level and due to fundamental considerations, I believe that the further use of nuclear power is not compatible with the challenge of sustainably securing our basic necessities.

Safety and responsibility

In the question of the final storage of radioactive waste, two central terms appear time and again: Safety and responsibility. Radiation from the legacies of atomic energy, hazardous to both our health and the environment, can over a period of time cause damage inconceivable to humans. Responsible action is therefore required to guarantee safety. But what does responsible action look like?

In classical ethics from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, the word responsibility did not yet exist. As a word it does not appear in the Bible either. Christianity has known the term only since modern times – but has always been very familiar with the idea. The first Book of Moses reads: "The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it" – and from this can it not also be considered that the responsibility for it was also handed over to man? And does the commandment to love thy neighbour not likewise mean taking responsibility?

The first evidence of the worldly use of the term responsibility came in the 15th century and related to man having to answer to worldly courts. The term then found entry into Christian use of language through the idea of a responsibility before the "judgement of God". Immanuel Kant called this entity personal conscience, that "inner courthouse in man, before which his conscience appeals or excuses".

Our modern term responsibility has become detached from the biblical idea. What remains is the task of a person being able to answer for his actions before a moral entity.

The history of final storage was and is to a large extent also a history of how responsibility has been and will be accepted or withdrawn – but is unfortunately becoming ever more the latter. This is not only an observation of politics, but also of other social groups, for example science. It has - at least in the case of Asse - not yet succeeded in facing up to the continual review of mistakes.

The BfS, as an operator of final repositories here in the region, has a very special responsibility – namely the safety of the people and the environment. The BfS bears responsibility not only for the Konrad final repository but also since several months ago for the Asse mine, which represents one of the largest environmental problems of recent times. Dealing with this responsibility transparently and in dialogue with local people is one of the most important principles of the BfS.

Responsibility is also borne however, particularly in politics, by the Federal Government, the state and the local authorities. In the current discussion about the destination of the waste recovered from Asse, I am filled with concern that storage even of just a part of this waste in the Konrad mine final repository, approved according to atomic law, will be denied without further discussion. I can understand very well that a Konrad final repository is faced with general rejection by local people. But at the same time, the people who live around Asse are struggling to find the best practicable way to prevent a potential danger.

As an argument against the storage of Asse waste in the Konrad mine, it is not only fears about a lack of safety that are voiced but also that this would legitimise the Konrad mine and along with the Konrad mine the further use of atomic energy. The impression arises that rejection is also based on the desire that waste storage is "not here!" That Asse is only a few kilometres away and so could be a real danger even for the local people here is frequently disregarded.

There is a similar reaction when with great public visibility, the use of their own community area for the processing or interim storage of waste from Asse is flatly refused. And this as well without simply asking me as the operator at Asse whether there is indeed any other plans to entrust a stock-market listed company in Braunschweig with tasks of this type, and that this company had brought itself publically into the discussion for a task of this type.

Ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility

How are these behaviours to be classified? Max Weber differentiated between the ethics of conviction on the one hand and the ethics of responsibility on the other. While followers of ethics of conviction believe that the noble motives of their actions take centrestage, those of the ethics of responsibility believe it is the actual consequences.

Is it an expression of the ethics of conviction fundamentally not to want to agree to final storage because it is not desirable to agree to anything that could serve for the further use of nuclear power? Max Weber indicated that man should not in reference to good will walk away from reality and the requirements made by it. The causative principle also connects responsibility for the causing of damage with that of remedial action. Can it be understood to be a responsible application of the causative principle, if it is said that man does not want to solve the problems of the nuclear economy that it has itself created ? Is there not an oft-repeated idea that the best place for the final storage of radioactive waste would be the front gardens of the company representatives who operate nuclear power stations?

It is to Hans Jonas’ credit to have indicated that with numerous technological innovations, including nuclear power, the age of the concentration of responsibility on the immediate surroundings is past. Far more necessary is an expansion of loving thy neighbour to include "loving those furthest away", which also includes people living far away and future generations.

Hans Jonas particularly observes the role of politicians. Because these grasp for power in order to obtain responsibility; and other motives such as respect, glamour etc played only a subsidiary role in the struggle for power. Hans Jonas excludes only an extreme case from this assumption: the most naked and self-seeking tyrants, whom he only counts within the political sphere through the hypocritical pretence that they act in the public interest.

In his recent article that appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung on 26.2.2010, the Professor for Legal Philosophy and Public Law, Uwe Volkmann, established exactly this. He claimed that democracy is increasingly no longer the previously targeted "common enterprise of the people", which not only needs politicians ready for responsibility, but also a common orientation of the people. Today, people are turning away from the communal, from politics, towards private life and entertainment. Accordingly, the action calculations of politicians are becoming "ever more superficial and short-sighted". And if this were not dramatic enough, this is also happening at a time when the problems to be dealt with "are ever more pervasive and of long-term duration." Volkmann states on the one hand the "excessive expectations" of the public, but primarily a consequence in politics: "a continuing muddling along, where the suggestion of solutions is ultimately more important than the solution itself".

If this is the case – and our society continues to use nuclear power, I ask myself: Are we in today's societal structures in any way able to deal with the legacies of atomic energy or even with an accident like the one almost 24 years ago in Chernobyl? Or will it then be a case of "every man for him-self"?

Not In My Backyard

"Holy St Florian, spare my house, set light to others", so goes the saying, which in my opinion is also to be observed in the case of final storage. The new German expressions is NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) It also exists in political form: NIMEY (Not in my election year).

Is Asse a problem just for the region of Wolfenbüttel, which in reality only the people and politicians there must take care of? Have the rapid calls of "not here!" in Braunschweig and Salzgitter without any effort to explain the situation anything to do with the fact that a problem that is not even real should really still be possible to solve as a community? Or is it preferable that a virtual problem is created with great sensation, which is then really combatted - and with a heroic attitude? Here, Asse is part of a shared region. And does the signpost "Asse 20 km" displayed here by opponents of the Konrad final repository apply in only one direction? Or does a signpost not equally show the same from Asse to Salzgitter, i.e. in our direction?

The St Florian principle has always gone hand in hand with final storage. From the location selection for Gorleben in the 1970s through to debates about location comparisons, actions have always and will frequently follow this principle. And more than a few consider that a better place could not possibly be found for our legacies than the far side of Siberia or the Gobi desert.

Could "loving those furthest away", promoted by Hans Jonas, mean on the one hand that respon-sible citizens remind their representatives that they have responsibility for superordinate and long-term goals, and not only for their current electorate and their re-election? A could it also consist on the other hand of responsible politicians reminding their region that they are not called upon to slide anything unpleasant slyly into other regions or even onto future generations?

Taking responsibility

The unsolved worldwide question of the disposal of highly radioactive waste must be kept in the minds of those responsible, especially in the current discussion about the planned time extensions for nuclear power stations. It does not however give us justification to close our eyes to the current problems.

How do we want to solve such a long-term problem as the final storage of radioactive waste and offer safety here if we do not take responsibility, which not only keeps an eye on our motives and short-term personal successes, but also on the actual consequences of our actions?

We need responsibility that extends beyond lip service, our own garden and our generation.

We need a procedure that tackles the concerns, questions and fears of the people and carries them along.

We need more than ever people who are ready to bear the crosses of others.