Both these disasters are pretty horrible, of course, but I think the OP's point was that Chernobyl and nuclear disasters leave an area uninhabitable for periods of time that far outstretch the entirety of human civilization up to now.
Horrible dam failures don't do that, though of course there's a massive human cost for infrastructure failures like that. There's nothing like the "this is not a place of honor" warnings (for regions contaminated with nuclear waste) for dam failures, e.g.
Tell that to the ton of wildlife around everything but the refactor proper?
And also even taking your argument at face value, I fully believe a handful of 20,000 year dead zones would be superior to global warming at our current rate. The alternative we get now is way more than 20,000 years of wrecked biodiversity almost everywhere.
How is the orange website so full of self-avowed rationalists so incapable of comparing sudden and quick vs slow and steady harm...
Point is, current energy sources can be stopped and reworked, once you go with nuclear disaster you assume the 20k year scenario. Tell me you won't change your opinion in that time span.
In fact fair few parts of the exclusion zone are under discussion to be reopened very soon, and Chernobyl is quite habitable for some definition of habitable. Thousands of people stay and live there (decontamination workers, and a big tourist trade), though they are only allowed to stay three months at a time.
They are exposed to less radiation than an airline pilot or a stewardess receives in the course of their job -- so "habitable" is relative.
Anyway, nuclear power GENERATES heat and electricity, so it increases global temperature, while renewables are CUTTING part of solar energy, so they decrease global temperature.
> while renewables are CUTTING part of solar energy, so they decrease global temperature
Do you know why solar panels looks dark, almost black? Because they absorb as much solar as they can. IN real life if you cover surface with panels, albedo would decrease and system as a whole would absorb MORE solar energy. But part of absorbed energy would be converted to electricity and do some work. At the end it all would be heat, so on pure heat basis solar panels would increase temperature
Problem with solar panels is solvable: a special material to emit heat in a narrow infrared region, to which Earth atmosphere is transparent, is already invented in India. It will keep solar panels cool, which will increase their efficiency. Per watt price for this material is unknown for me.
Quarter-million people killed, 7 million houses destroyed. Thats enough to wipe a small coutry, like Czech Republic, off the map.