Posted Sat, 12/12/2009 – 00:00
The smiling sun “Nuclear Power? No Thanks” logo appears on our website with permission. It has quite a history.
The anti-nuclear badge “Nuclear Power? No Thanks”, also known as the “Smiling Sun”, is the international symbol of the anti-nuclear movement. It was ubiquitous worldwide in the late 1970s and the 1980s. BBC News reported in 2005 that few symbols had become “as instantly recognizable across the world.” Even the nuclear power industry recognized the logo’s “power and success,” the BBC report said. Over 20 million Smiling Sun badges were produced in 45 national and regional languages. In recent years the logo is playing a prominent role once again to raise awareness and funding for anti-nuclear groups, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland where opposition is growing to plans for extending operation of old nuclear reactors and constructing new ones.
The Smiling Sun logo was designed in 1975 by Danish activist Anne Lund who was part of the Danish organization OOA (Organisationen til Oplysning om Atomkraft/ Organization for Information on Nuclear Power). By posing the question: “Nuclear Power?” and providing a polite answer, “No Thanks”, the logo was meant to express friendly dissent and – by questioning nuclear power – to stimulate dialogue.
The depiction of the sun often is additionally interpreted as a statement pro renewable energies, particularly for the many ways of using solar energy. Only few people try to ridicule the Smiling Sun by stating that the depicted sun would also be a source of nuclear power, but the thermonuclear fusion happening in the sun is something different and very obviously not opposed by the anti-nuclear movement.