Get Off the Grid Fest would like to welcome Mary Olson – Speaker, Nuclear Information and Research Service to our Speaker lineup!
Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is a national, non-profit, educational organization that serves as the clearinghouse for grassroots activists working for a sustainable, non-nuclear energy policy and climate solutions. Nuclear-Free, Carbon-Free is one of our campaigns. Mary Olson joined the staff of NIRS in 1991 and founded an office for the Southeast in 1999. This year, Mary is retiring from NIRS. Her work has included helping to keep highly radioactive waste off of Native Lands; stopping “Mobile Chernobyl” (the nationwide shipment of nuclear waste to a failed site in Nevada); preventing the use of plutonium from nuclear weapons as fuel in commercial nuclear reactors in the Southeast; helping to challenge new nuclear power reactors; sadly not preventing utility decisions that resulted in partial nuclear builds in South Carolina and Georgia that have saddled the people of this region with billions in debt with no benefit whatsoever. Olson also participated in work at the United Nations which produced the new global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Olson is founder of a short-term project to raise awareness that radiation is more harmful to women and girls than to men and boys. Gender and Radiation Impact Project is based here in Asheville, NC. Mary will be speaking on Saturday at 6:30 in the presentation tent. http://nirs.org
