We are living in an unequal, plutocratic society, and it is feeding an emotional dimension characterized by a dismissive lack of caring by many of the super rich and an angry, dog-eat-dog worldview for everyone else. So many of the employment policy issues I write about on this blog must be viewed against this broader, ugly canvass.
First, let’s establish the factual baseline: America’s wealth gap has reached extreme proportions. As Connie Stewart reports for the Los Angeles Times:
If you feel you’re falling behind in the income race, it’s not just your imagination. The wealth gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99% in the U.S. is as wide as it’s been in nearly 100 years, a new study finds.
For starters, between 1993 and 2012, the real incomes of the 1% grew 86.1%, while those of the 99% grew 6.6%, according to the study, based on Internal Revenue Service…
Lauren Bloom is an interfaith minister and attorney who focuses on professional and personal integrity. Her career has been devoted to helping business professionals earn and maintain the trust of their clients, cutomers, colleagues and associates. An internationally-recognized expert on business and professional ethics.
I follow Ms. Bloom’s page. If you have a continuing interest in business ethics, I would recommend you follow the web site as well.
Working in a corporate environment is a two-way street. The leaders have to respect the team and vice versa. This involves knowing the correct way to behave in a professional setting. Many younger team members may come to the team with fewer boundaries than their older counterparts and there have been clashes in the corporate environment due to these differences. Most of the time, this includes comments that are too personal or inappropriate, taking breaks that are too long or coming in late every day. For a business to operate at its full potential, the employees have to be on the same page about what is expected, encouraged or discouraged. This helps to create harmony and expectations that everyone can live up to.
I fully agree. There can be few in business who would not benefit from following the Ethics Sage’s writing.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work these simple principles out. So why do highly educated professionals and seasoned businessmen and entrepreneurs make the mistake of forgetting business ethics? It requires the courage of your convictions and a good moral base in the individuals. Dishonesty does give you cash in the short term, much like sawing off the branch that you are sitting on gives you timber for a short time. So it will always be a temptation to those with weak morals coupled with financial pressure. In many cases it takes raw courage to be honest, but out of the troubles that businesses go through, its reputation grows, and businesses with good reputations are successful businesses. Naturally, you still need a good business plan and a hungry market, as well as ethics, to be successful. But good ethics are vital to keeping you successful.
From the web site, The Importance of Ethics for Professional Accountants
As accounting requires skills and ethical familiarity to a great extent for that ethics are most important for professional accountants. The concept of right or wrong can be cleared by learning about ethical terms thoroughly. To make correct decisions, they help you to make your personal guts strong. The Winnipeg accountants seem familiar in ethical terms and you may take a look at their ethical behavior to explore your knowledge. You may get aware just by searching out Winnipeg Business Directoryand choosing the accountant’s category will lead you to all accountants of Winnipeg. When an accountant keeps ethical factors in his mind, he can easily come out from any pressurized situation. After being a proper professional accountant by applying ethical condition at yourself, you will never give your big attention in satisfying investor by keeping up income growth. This attitude make you think for long term as all successful organizations manage for long terms, not for short term. In case of fraud, your ethical behavior makes you able to confront your special relations. You get an inner strength by concentrating on ethical factors and any fraud point you do never ignore. As an accountant, ethics becomes your first priority you can confidently treat with ethical dilemmas and areas without focusing on black and white. You feel comfortable meeting with grey areas people. After getting informed about accountant’s basics and ethical skills you should present your services for public to be useful and popular as well. You can advertise your skills by using online business directory just get listed in Winnipeg Business Directory as this business directory is providing a gorgeous access its visitors to get in touch with each other regarding relevant business, service or product need. You never under represent your time for implementing required terms. You never compromise with ethical factors and will easily go along with the crowd to do what your managers tell.
27-year old gets 20 years for half an ounce of pot
While Colorado and Washington have de-criminalized recreational use of marijuana and twenty states allow use for medical purposes, a Louisiana man was sentenced to twenty years in prison in New Orleans criminal court for possessing 15 grams, .529 of an ounce, of marijuana.
Corey Ladd, 27, had prior drug convictions and was sentenced September 4, 2013 as a “multiple offender to 20 years hard labor at the Department of Corrections.”
Marijuana use still remains a ticket to jail in most of the country and prohibition is enforced in a highly racially discriminatory manner. A recent report of the ACLU, “The War on Marijuana in Black and White,” documents millions of arrests for marijuana and shows the “staggeringly disproportionate impact on African Americans.”
Nationwide, the latest numbers from the FBI report that over 762,000 arrests per year are for marijuana, almost exactly half of all drug arrests.
Even though blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates, black people are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than white people.
Yes, but is this case an anomaly in Louisiana?Apparently not – from further down in the same article –
In Louisiana, a person can get up to six months in jail for first marijuana conviction, up to five years in prison for the second conviction and up to twenty years in prison for the third. In fact, the Louisiana Supreme Court recently overturned a sentence of five years as too lenient for a fourth possession of marijuana and ordered the person sentenced to at least 13 years.
It’s time for a change. It’s time for some kind of sanity. Let’s start with tough sentences for people who hurt other people and gentler sentences for those who do not harm others.
Is this a business ethics issue? Yes, it ties in with the issues of private prisons and, in particular, the issue of policing for profit, the nauseating practice of police confiscating property often under the threat of filing charges.
The war on drugs had failed. It has filed monumentally, catastrophically; it is a self inflicted scourge upon this nation.
When policies fail over and over again, isn’t it time to try something new?
It’s time. It’s time to build a better nation, a better place to live. And we can do that by cutting our ridiculous rates of imprisonment and building the schools, the roads, the universities, the monuments and all the paraphernalia of a great nation. Let’s do it now.
James Pilant
Now, if you have fantasies of marijuana being one of the four horseman of the apocalypse in America – watch the film below and have your beliefs confirmed –
In claims that are in vast contrast to those of the Drug Enforcement Administrationand other government entities, the government-funded National Cancer Institute has a report published on its website which proclaims several benefits of cannabis and cannabinoids, citing numerous scientific studies to back their claims. The page was updated last month.
The report starts by explaining what cannabinoids are;”Cannabinoids are a group of 21-carbon-containing terpenophenolic compounds produced uniquely by Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica species”, the report continues, “These plant-derived compounds may be referred to as phytocannabinoids. Although delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive ingredient, other known compounds with biologic activity are cannabinol, cannabidiol (CBD), cannabichromene, cannabigerol, tetrahydrocannabivarin, and delta-8-THC. CBD, in particular, is thought to have significantanalgesic and anti-inflammatory activity without the psychoactive effect (high) of delta-9-THC.”
The Louisiana House took a big step forward May 29 when it voted 54-38 to approve a bill that would have reduced marijuana possession penalties for second and subsequent offenses. House Bill 103, sponsored by Rep. Austin J. Badon, Jr., would have also removed marijuana possession from the list of offenses that receive mandatory minimum sentences. The bill was approved 4-2 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Sen. J.P. Morrell, the bill was not debated on the floor of the Senate. Legislators adjourned for the year June 6.
Prior to this year, Louisiana legislators did not seem willing to consider reducing Louisiana’s draconian marijuana penalties whatsoever. HB 103 was a modest attempt at reform, but its surprising success could help Louisiana legislators see that reforming marijuana laws is good politics in addition to being good policy. Because HB 103 passed the House so late in the session, a supermajority was needed in the Senate to even bring the bill up for debate. We’re very hopeful that next year the legislature will take a serious look at excessive marijuana penalties.
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world and a Department of Corrections with a budget of almost $700 million – almost twice the budget for the entire LSU system. Yet we still have a high rate of violent crime, which is not solved by the increased penalties we impose on people who are not violent and pose no danger to society. In Louisiana, unfair three-strike laws have landed individuals in jail for life without parole for simple marijuana possession. Someone with two prior convictions, which can be for things as minor as calling a parole office a day late, can send someone to prison forever for simply possessing a small amount of marijuana for personal use. Laws requiring Mandatory minimum sentences generate disproportionately long sentences and often tie judges’ hands in considering the individual circumstances of a case. Meanwhile, nonviolent people who pose no danger to society risk spending their lives in state prison.
The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Speaking in the wake of a series of revelations in the Guardian about the extent of the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations, Rusbridger said: “Orwell could never have imagined anything as complete as this, this concept of scooping up everything all the time.
“This is something potentially astonishing about how life could be lived and the limitations on human freedom,” he said.
Rusbridger said the NSA stories were “clearly” not a story about totalitarianism, but that an infrastructure had been created that could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.
“Obama is a nice guy. David Cameron is a nice social Democrat. About three hours from London in Greece there are some very nasty political parties. What there is is the infrastructure for total surveillance. In history, all the precedents are unhappy,” said Rusbridger, speaking at the Advertising Week conference.
I heartily share Alan Rubbridger’s concern about later governments. The possibilities for abuse are so incredible that it is difficult to wrap your mind around them.
But what about Business Ethics? What are the implications there?
The government is tracking all financial transactions, so they know who invests, in what and for how much in any and every American business. That’s power. Since they monitor all e-mails, they have every kind of inside information including promotion and firing decisions. They can do something no government has been able to do before: understand the inner workings of a corporation in detail and in real time. Since corporations have incredible power, this check to that power’s implications are hard to measure. But we could be on the edge of an era in which government management of data enables corporations both domestic and foreign to be brought to heel.
Of course, they know enough personal information to blackmail millions, discredit millions more and by implication of knowing silence tens of millions of others. I find these implications disturbing.
It may be that Obama will not abuse this power but where is the guarantee for those who will come in the future?
A number of high-profile websites will be taking part in an online protest tomorrow against the National Security Agency (NSA)’s surveillance of online activity and phone calls. The protest is organized by non-profit organization Fight for the Future, and will see participation from thousands of sites, including WordPress.org, Namecheap, Reddit, 4chan, Mozilla, Fark, TOR, Cheezburger, Demand Progress, MoveOn, and EFF, among others.
However, none of the tech companies – like Facebook or Google – whose cooperation with the NSA was outed in the PRISM reveal will be involved in tomorrow’s events.
Look, if this had been a once-off, or a first offense for Searls I might not be as upset. But, it wasn’t, and it’s not. He worked his con three times over the course of two years. That’s not making a mistake, or a single offense. He intentionally targeted people in and around the autism community. Let’s face it, autism research just isn’t sexy. The people who typically buy fund-raising raffle tickets are those with loved ones diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, or someone who knows someone like that. These are people who are already financial stretched. And he did this with the promise that the proceeds would go to fund autism research. Which also gives false hope to those buying the tickets, as well as to the charity expecting the money.
In addition to Searles’ scam not being an isolated incident, this isn’t the fist time he’s been caught with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar. According to the Olympian article, “ In 2011, Searles was the subject of a court order in Washington barring him from acting as a mortgage broker because he violated the Mortgage Broker Practices Act.” He was also issued a cease and desist order in regards to any kind of solicitation in the state of Washington.
I’m unhappy with the sentence in this case, 90 days home confinement and a $5,000 dollar fine. He’s a repeat offender and he gathered up 277 thousand dollars with this scam. I have seen white collar crime punished more lightly than virtually any other crime imaginable over the course of my life. It is so unfair. Shouldn’t penalties be assessed in some measure on the harm done and less on the social class of the perp?
The next mayor of New York, if he or she is to do a good job, will have to say “no” a lot. “No” to public employee unions who want a retroactive raise the city can’t afford. “No” to city councilmembers who will try to spend every tax dollar that comes in instead of rebuilding the city’s reserve funds. “No” to NIMBYs who don’t want anything new built in their neighborhoods. “No” to commuters seeking relief from fare increases, bridge tolls, parking fines, and an alleged “war on cars.”
Now, I will note that as far as I know, Josh Barro has not personally killed any kittens. He merely advocates that others do it, a candidate for major in particular, pointing out the “real New Yorkers” don’t care about this. I have had the pleasure of meeting New Yorkers and those have I met strike me as a compassionate and worthy lot. Perhaps he meets a different group.
New York does not need a mayor with the “resolve” to kill kittens. New York is not yet a business theocracy where order is preferred over the democratic rabble. Those kitten lovers, those unions, those neighborhoods are constituents in a democracy. They have a voice. They deserve that voice. They participate in society. They pay taxes and obey the laws. That they don’t meet the standards of Josh Baro is not a legitimate reason to disenfranchise or ignore them.
There is a certain implication here that killing kittens, ignoring unions and overruling local populations is a matter of courage. I often hear that acting in defiance of the wishes of those that elected you, for instance, cutting medicare and social security, is a matter of resolve and courage. No, it’s a matter of acting anti-democratically. It’s a matter of denying necessary benefits long proven successful because it disempowers millions of Americans and making them subject to the whims of our “betters.”
We can safely assume that the title of the article is meant to be provocative. I’ll buy that. But I think he means it. And I have seen a number of kitten hating blogs take up the cry and I find this depressing. There is a place for compassion and kindness and I believe that what “real New Yorkers” believe is far more varied than Josh Barro’s friends in the business community.
How can we have business ethics if we live in a country where order and profits (saving time by running over kittens with subway trains) trump moral and compassionate concerns? We might as well fold up our ethics tents and drift away in the night.
I have seen a good number of ethics professors and textbooks explain that business ethics is actually profitable. Businesses that practice ethics have greater customer trust and loyalty, and over time this and other ethics practices produce profits. I don’t doubt this for a moment but it misses the point of ethics. We do it not because it is profitable but because it is right. We do it because we want to live with some sense of purpose beyond counting our money and giggling like Bond villains.
Ruthlessness and profits above all other values are popular right now with the one percent. That you and I are not wealthy is a sign of our unworthiness. But we in the middle class, who do the work, who sacrifice for our values, and who do the jobs of fireman, teaching and policeman are the heart of the nation, the ones that make this country work. I have nothing but pride for being one of those citizens.
Four Percent of Americans think that the U.S. is winning the war on drugs.
The number of Americans who support the War on Drugs is getting lower and lower. In the most recent poll by Rasmussen, only four percent said they think the United States is winning the War on Drugs. That’s down from 7 percent in November. The number who think the United States is losing remains steady at an overwhelming 82 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
The so-called “War on Drugs” declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, has turned out to be an expensive and violent international prohibition endeavor, that, more than 40 years later, is partially to blame for the United States’ bloated prison population.
Americans continue to overwhelmingly believe the so-called war on drugs is failing, but they are more divided on how much the United States should be spending on it.
Just four percent (4%) of American Adults believe the United States is winning the war on drugs, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Eighty-two percent (82%) disagree. Another 13% are undecided.
I’m puzzled. Four percent still don’t get it? Did they misread the question?
Of course, it is important to note how many Americans do get it, do realize that this is a doomed endeavor that on any cost benefit analysis has been a loser for a very long time.
We’ve packed prisons that we built with desperately needed tax fund. Tax funds that were diverted from colleges, universities, schools, roads, parks, social services, etc. We’ve taken our police who we have taught our children should be treated as friends and transformed then into semi-mercenaries dressed like commandoes in a B move. Kevlar armored, camouflage uniformed, black helmeted, soldiers carrying automatic weapons do not conjure up pictures of Andy Griffith as sheriff of Mayberry. They look remarkably like soldiers on a mission. That’s not police or policing.
You see, police work with the support of the public. They defend and serve. When talking to regular citizens who are not committing crimes they are respectful and can even be kind.
Soldiers maintain order and their power doesn’t come from respect except the respect accorded the barrel of a gun. They don’t talk to you. They order you.
And the regular police have become more and more militant as a result of our failed drug wars. They are now much more violent in their own “defense,” that is, shooting family pets.
The really sad thing about the police shooting of dogs is how little time it took me to come up with that many.
Let’s call an end to the war on drugs, license them, regulate them, tax them – let’s do something else. We don’t have to live in a militarized society afraid of the police and under surveillance.
The war on Drugs intensified during the Nixon Era.
In 2010, about 200 million people took illegal drugs. The numbers have remained relatively constant for years, as has the estimated annual volume of drugs produced worldwide: 40,000 tons of marijuana, 800 tons of cocaine and 500 tons of heroin. What has increased, however, is the cost of this endless war.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration pumped about $100 million into drug control. Today, under President Barack Obama, that figure is $15 billion — more than 30 times as much when adjusted for inflation. There is even a rough estimate of the direct and indirect costs of the 40-plus years of the drug war: $1 trillion in the United States alone.
In Mexico, some 60,000 people have died in the drug war in the last six years. US prisons are full of marijuana smokers, the Taliban in Afghanistan still use drug money to pay for their weapons, and experts say China is the drug country of the future.
From the web site, What’s the Truth? (I used almost half the post and I fell guilty about using that much. I hope the site owner will cut me some slack!)
Let me start this out by saying I don’t do drugs, I have no interest in doing drugs. With that said, it is none of our business if other people want to do drugs. Whether their drug is alcohol, weed, or even the heavier stuff, the fact remains they made a choice to do them, and the we can not tell them how to live their private life. When the only victim of the crime is the person committing the crime, it isn’t a crime. That’s would be like saying eating too much is a crime.
According to the federal database on crime, in 2011, over 20% of the people in jail were there for either drug possession or drug distribution.
Percentage of State and Federal Prisoners
Offense
1974
1986
1997
2000
2008
2010
Violent
52.5%
64.2%
46.4%
47.2%
47.3%
47.7%
Property
33.3%
22.9%
14%
19.1%
17.0%
16.7%
Drug
10.4%
8.8%
26.9%
25.3%
22.4%
21.7%
Public-order
1.9%
3.3%
8.9%
7.8%
11.9%
13.4%
Other/unspecified
2.0%
0.9%
3.7%
0.4%
1.2%
0.6%
1/5 of the prison population are in there for a victim-less crime. There were over 2 million people in total incarcerated in 2011. 1/5 of 2 million is 400 thousand. According to this chart it costs on average about $47,000 to jail each prisoner. So if you do the math, that means America spent over $18 BILLION on non violent, victim-less crimes. Seems like a waste to me. Prisons shouldn’t be used for social engineering. You cant use it to change people, and scare them out of using drugs. Despite the threat of jail time over 15 Million still smoke weed. Now some of those people smoke weed for medical reasons, but a lot of them smoke for recreation. Clearly people aren’t threatened by the idea of going to jail.
From the web site, The Fix. ( I, too, fine the militarization of the police and the use of military forces for police work to be troubling phenomenon. When does the defender of the public become a soldier and what does that imply for we, the citizens?)
When 150 New York state troopers, U.S. Marshalls and local city police officers rounded up 52 suspects in a massive multi-city drug raid in the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 27; five members of the New York National Guard Counterdrug Task Force gave themselves a silent pat on the back for a job well done.
The New York National Guard provides law enforcement agencies with equipment and staff to help with intelligence and surveillance. According to the NGCTF website (yes, they have a website), they’ve assisted in raids that have confiscated about $68 million of cash and contraband, and led to the arrest of “just under” 950 people. That yields about $72,000 per person arrested. This assistance includes the use of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft equipped with infrared cameras. Infrared cameras use heat emitted by objects to create an image. Heat signatures can give away the location of drug labs, grow operations, and illegal plants hidden amongst legal crops.
The ethics of using Adderall are relatively clear cut. It provides a competitive advantage, which in and of itself is not a crime. However, the edge is gained in an illegal manner. When I try to make this point to students, I am met with the explanation that gaining a competitive advantage is a long-used technique to get ahead in college.
In debates about the issue, one student asks what is the difference between the use of Adderall and downing an over-the-counter medication such as No-Doz? No-Doz is a caffeine tablet that can help relieve mental fatigue and drowsiness and assist in remaining alert and wide awake so that the user can stay productive throughout the day. No-Doz tablets contain 100mg of caffeine or approximately the same amount as a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the illegality of how Adderall has been obtained versus the legality of buying No-Doz falls on deaf ears because my students are great at rationalizing unethical action by dismissing illegalities or somehow thinking the rules do not apply to them.
The truth is, as I see it, today’s students are more concerned with an egoistic ethic – how one’s actions improve one’s performance – rather than accepting that societal norms do exist [even though they seem to be slowly disappearing]. Students can be oblivious to basic values of honesty (lying when questioned about the use of Adderall); accepting responsibility for one’s actions (blaming it on the teacher’s excessive demands in class or overly-difficult exams); and basic fairness (other students are playing by the rules and don’t have the same competitive edge).
It’s a good ethical analysis. Please go to the web site and read the whole thing.
Adderall is widely reported to increase alertness, libido, concentration and overall cognitive performance while decreasing user fatigue
That bombshell in a nutshell: Take Adderall—Feel amazing.
“Amazing,” says “Kerry,” 21 year old female student at Florida State University. “That’s how it feels the first time you take it. Like, when I was younger, I remember all that ‘Don’t Do Drugs’ and ‘Just Say No’ D.A.R.E. crap, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh okay, well I’ll just not do drugs and I’ll be okay, right?’ Then my brother gets a prescription for Ritalin, and even as a kid I remember thinking, ‘Wait, what’s the difference between this stuff and the stuff on the streets?’ and so in high school I remember I took Adderall, and I just felt amazing—like I could do anything, you know? That’s the only way I can think to describe it right now.”
A less enthusiastic counter to this is recalled in a recent conversation I had via instant message with “Max,” aged 22, who discusses his prior illicit usage of the drug. “Amphetamines make people schizophrenic,” he writes me. He regales a point in his life where he would snort cocaine, drive at high speeds whilst simultaneously high on Adderall (‘Addy’), caffeine, and cannabis. Drug User Soup. He says he’s been off drugs for awhile; he still drinks occasionally but for Max it seems that days of excess are far behind him. “It’s just nice,” I remember him saying to me, “to not have to wonder anymore what’s real and what’s not real.”
From the web site, Concerta, Profiderall or Adderall.
There are a lot of medicines prescribed to relieve Attention deficit disorder such as Ritalin, Adderall, Vyance or Concerta but all those medicine is seldom are available in the pharmacy Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta and, Vyvance would be the most common medications which might be recommended by medical professionals for treatment of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, even though more often than not they’re not easily available. Then again exactly what are these particular medicines? The typical denominator with regard to these types of medicines is methylphenidate. This particular ingredient is definitely a stimulant which regulates the quantity of receptors that could be located inside the mind. Problem is, these kinds of medicines had been made for people with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder along with other central nervous system conditions ( including narcolepsy), not intended for pupils searching to boost their very own encounter. Certainly , there is a great large risk in getting these types of prescription medicines when a person are not really specially approved these, such as anxiousness, danger of reliance, mood shifts and also seizures Seizures! The main problem of utilizing medicines which contain this particular stimulant is the fact that you can get an unpredictable alter of disposition, anxiety, cravings and seizures.
From the web site, Which study drug is the greatest.
Obviously, a number of options are for sale for treating ADHD, but it is difficult to stumble upon just one of theme…things such as Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta and, Vyvance. But exactly how are these drugs distinctive from each other? Well, there is hardly no distinction between these drugs since they all contain methylphenidate — a stimulant used for the central nervous system. Basically, it’s function will be to control the number of cognitive receptors inside our brains. The main problem is, these drugs are designed for A.D.H.D patients along with other illness just like narcelepsy, not for students attempting to enhance their mental alertness. You will for sure threat yourself having anxiety, addiction, emotional dissorders and seizures. Seizures!
Unexpectedly, methylphenidate also causes serious heart related illnesses like cardiac arrest or even immediate death. I’m up for excellent grades, however , not at that cost. The benefits are certainly not worth the risks, particularly for graduating university students taking a lot more than the recommended dossage. So give me another option.
Frantic efforts to contain radioactive leaks at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been dealt another blow after its operator said about 300 tonnes of highly contaminated water had seeped out of a storage tank at the site.
The leak is the worst such incident since the March 2011 meltdown and is separate from the contaminated water leaks, also of about 300 tonnes a day, reported recently.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it did not know how the water leaked out or where it had leaked to, but it believed that the spillage had not flowed into the Pacific ocean.
Tepco’s spokesman, Masayuki Ono, said the water had seeped into the ground after breaching a concrete and sandbag barrier around the tank. Workers were pumping out the puddle and removing the remaining water from the tank, he added. Despite efforts to contain the spillage, the leak is already the most severe since the crisis began.
This is the worst leak since the 2011 disaster. Fukushima after the disastrous tsunami was a major disaster. It was on the news every day.
Now it’s slow motion disaster. Leakage continues into the ocean while experts solemnly intone that we shouldn’t worry because the ocean is big.
This is business ethics at its worse. A nuclear power plant was built on the coast near an earthquake fault. The safety systems we were repeatedly assured would never fail failed. We don’t find out from the government or the industry that there is a problem. The news media discovers the serious nature of the crisis. A corrupt industry downplays the incident with government connivance. As the disaster worsens, the lies and incompetence become more and more obvious, and gradually it becomes obvious that when confronted by a disaster, the nuclear industry simply has no idea how to fix the problem. This is contrary to what the industry has been saying for decades.
Remember, just repeat, “Nuclear industry is the future. It’s safe and cost effective. Only a handful of people have died in the rare nuclear accident compared to thousands in the coal industry. It’s only fearmongers and environmental cranks who oppose this future.”
See, after a while you feel better about everything?
Highly radioactive water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is leaking into the ocean creating an “emergency” that the operator, TEPCO, may be unable to contain, said an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog.
“This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force,” told Reuters.
Tokyo Electric Power Co’s “sense of crisis is weak,” Kinjo said. “This is why you can’t just leave it up to Tepco alone” to deal with the ongoing disaster.
“Right now, we have an emergency,” he said.
A total of up to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium may have leaked into the ocean since the disaster, said TEPCO, insisting that it was within legal limits.
Two and a half years after the Fukashima tragedy Japan does not want to admit how serious it is, but it is obvious the drastic environmental implications are to follow, Harvey Wasserman, journalist and advocate for renewable energy, told RT.
RT: Japanese officials have admitted a leak at Fukushima has been happening for two years and is worse than earlier thought. Why did it take so long to evaluate the actual repercussions of the tragedy and take decisive measures to tackle them?
HW: The Japanese authorities have been covering up the true depth of the disaster because they don’t want to embarrass themselves and the global nuclear industry and they are trying to open up another nuclear plant in Japan. When the Japanese people now find out that the accident is worse than we thought and they have been leaking many tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean for almost two and a half years, this is a catastrophe. Tokyo Electric has no idea how to control this accident. This is absolutely terrifying after two and a half years. To find out that these reactors have been out of control, now that they can’t control this they don’t know what’s going on. This is not a primitive backward country; this is Japan with advanced technology. It has very serious implications for nuclear power all over the world.
RT: Why the plant’s operator failed to contain the leak?
HW: Because they don’t know what to do. This has never happened before. You have three explosions; you have four nuclear reactors that are severely compromised. No one ever planned for this. This is an apocalyptic event. This is something that could contaminate the entire Pacific Ocean. It is extremely serious. The reality is that Tokyo Electric does not know what is happening and does not know how to control what is going on. Our entire planet is at risk here. This is two and a half years after these explosions and they are still in the dark. It’s terrifying.
The New York Times has recently reported that the workers at Fukushima are running out of places to store the water that has been used to cool the radioactive waste. The water is highly radioactive, and is leaking from its storage tanks at the rate of 75 gallons per minute. In other news, the Japanese government is changing the threshold for danger so that people may return. Thus, doses of less than 20mS/y are now acceptable.
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