Tea Törmänen, Biologist & Finnish Ecomodernist, September '23
Tea Törmänen, International Coordinator of RePlanet
meet Tea Törmänen, one of the driving forces behind making Finland’s green party the only pro-nuclear green party in the world
Tea Törmänen, a biologist, Finnish nuclear activist, and advocate with RePlanet, an alliance of environmental organizations dedicated to fighting climate change, said her deep love of nature is in her genes.
Törmänen grew up as the daughter of environmentalists in a small country town where children played in the forests. She developed a lifelong fascination and care for all types of animals, a passion that led her to become a biologist.
Growing up in Finland, it was part of life and a known fact that their reliable energy keeping them warm during the winters was partly powered by the nation’s nuclear plants. And through her readings as a youth, she became concerned about the destruction of rainforests, acid rain, and depletion of the ozone layer.
When she was a child, despite being in an area of Finland that received higher doses of radiation from Chernobyl, Tormanen’s parents did not “panic”, and remained in the most pro-nuclear party in Finland. The family’s only response to the accident was to not eat mushrooms that year.
Coming from a politically and environmentally family, Törmänen followed suit and was surprised to find heavy anti-nuclear attitudes in the classic environmental space. Sharing the same values, Törmänen found it difficult to understand the opposition to an efficient low-carbon energy source.
“I knew I didn't know a lot about it, but I knew it was low carbon. And it was in a very efficient way to produce energy,” Törmänen said. “And in Finland, the nuclear plants have always worked really well. So I had full trust in the people running them.”
While studying biology in college, Törmänen took a course on energy production, examining the pros and cons of every energy source, that convinced her even further that nuclear energy was needed to fight climate change.
Törmänen said that it “just became impossible” to be with the anti-nuclear environmental movement. Luckily in 2015, the Ecomodernist Society of Finland was born and Törmänen joined, providing a crucial perspective as a biologist to the group of primarily engineers.
In fact, she chaired the local organization in Finland for four years. After great success during those years, she focused her attention on making nuclear a nonpartisan issue and convincing the Greens to support the science.
Törmänen joined the Green Party in 2019 as they began to shift towards pro-nuclear positions. Since then, she participated in working groups like the Climate Working Group and currently chairs a local chapter of the Science Greens.
Through Törmänen’s advocacy with Replanet and the Ecomodernist Society of Finland (formed 2015), Finland’s Green Party changed its course on energy, becoming the only Green Party in the world to support nuclear energy.
In fact, nuclear energy boasts wide support among all the major parties in Finland - only 11% of Finns oppose nuclear energy - which Törmänen said can be attributed to pro-nuclear environmentalists pushing to make the subject a non-partisan issue.
Tea Törmänen, second from left with members of RePlanet Australia during their official launch in April 2018. RePlanet’s mission is to “elevate humanity” and “liberate nature.”
In 2021, nuclear provided ⅓ of all Finland’s electricity generation, a figure expected to rise to more than 40% with the opening of Olkiluoto 3 this past May. Törmänen says broad support exists for small modular reactors (SMR’s) to provide heating for homes and businesses, now largely powered through fossil fuels.
According to Törmänen, Finland’s success in converting political parties to pro-nuclear climate stances comes from a fundamental democratic essence– parties from left to right listened to climate activists like the Ecomodernist Society of Finland pushing the virtues of nuclear energy.
Convincing the Green Party that nuclear energy best serves both humanity and the climate stands as her greatest achievement as an activist, Törmänen said. She added it could not have happened without brave individuals within the Green Party publicly coming out and saying that they changed their mind about nuclear’s role in the fight on climate.
“We were able to kind of turn the whole green movement around, not just the Green Party, but the whole environmental scene in Finland, including Friday's for Future, Greenpeace, and (others),” Törmänen said. “We made nuclear a nonpartisan issue. We convinced the Greens, we convinced the whole environmental movement in Finland, and we made nuclear popular from left to right.”
And Törmänen knew this needed to be replicated across the EU and the globe. Inspired, she was one of 5 individuals who started RePlanet, an environmental organization that believes in ecomodernist philosophy. Specifically, they promote optimism and reject singular solutions and philosophies to complex problems.
But as the International Coordinator of RePlanet, Törmänen advocates for nuclear energy on a global scale. Climate change and raising standards of living remain major focus points of the umbrella organizations, with several European chapters and an African chapter.
“Our slogan is,’ liberate nature, elevate humanity.’ So we want every human in the planet to enjoy a good quality of life. To have access to healthcare, education, and all that we take for granted in Western countries,” Tormanen said. “But at the same time, we want to shrink the environmental footprint of humans.”
Last month, RePlanet launched a “Dear Greenpeace” Campaign, mobilizing climate youth activists across Europe against Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear positions. Specifically, Greenpeace is suing the European Commission for including nuclear in the sustainable taxonomy of finance.
Nearly 10,000 people, as of October, signed the petition launched by Ia Aanstoot, an 18-year-old pro-nuclear climate activist with RePlanet from Sweden. The petition asks Greenpeace to drop their lawsuit and recognize nuclear as sustainable.
One of RePlanet’s strengths as an organization derives from its optimism and hope, according to Törmänen.
“The traditional NGOs are too depressing. (They are) like we're gonna we're all gonna die. It's gonna end horribly and they're not really promoting any viable solutions,” Törmänen said. “And then they found us because we're more optimistic and we want to offer solutions to the problems that we have.”