The Only Way We'll Stop Polluting the Planet

I've worked at a couple huge, national corporations and noticed a continuing, repeated thread running through them.

Corporations and all the employees that work for them throw away and waste a great deal of plastics and papers and cardboard and aluminum cans and glass.

Corporations, with all those people, create and then throw away all these materials.

And they do it daily. Weekly. Month after month. Year after year.

And they have no desire nor motivation to reduce the amount of waste and wastes and what ends up as pollution, landfill.  It's what gets us these results:

Plastic Garbage Patch Bigger 

Than Mexico Found in Pacific

'Plastic in All Sizes' Found Everywhere 

in Once Pristine European Arctic

Nasa animation shows how ‘garbage islands’ have taken over the seas in the last 35 years

Corporations are all about profit and profits, of course. Because of that, they're also about cutting costs. They're about cutting costs at all costs. Recycling requires commitment. It requires spending. Those are costs they don't want to assume or commit to.

So let's face it. The only way we, as a nation and planet, can get them to start recycling and at least reduce, if not end polluting will be for government and governments, state by state and nation by nation, to require them to do so, to start and keep recycling.

Think about the waste.

Think about how much paper and plastic alone each McDonald's restaurant throws out. Daily. Then think of the entire company.

AT&T

GE

Alcoa

Dupont

Bayer

The list goes on. Company after company. All over the nation, continent and world.

We must do this. We must require this. We have to call them out on this. They won't do it on their own.

An upside to all this, besides that we'll clean up our planet is that it will also create jobs. Those are two huge wins for humanity and the planet.

The thing is, it must come from us, from the people.

Links:

Just 100 companies responsible for 71% 

of global emissions, study

Just 90 companies caused two-thirds 

of man-made global warming

Just 90 companies are to blame for most climate change

The Toxic 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters 

in the United States

The Oceans Are Drowning In Plastic -- 

And No One's Paying Attention

And it's not just the oceans, of course.

Landfill photos from six cities that highlight 

the global waste problem

Landfills: Are we running out of room for our garbage?

On That Equifax Breach

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) asks some fantastic, even important questions here recently of Equifax CEO Richard Smith. More of us need to hear and learn how they, Equifax, operate and operated. It has to do with the industry, certainly, but with our own information and security, too.



This should, once again, shatter any notion that we don't need government and that we don't need government rules and regulations and oversight of corporations.

What Democratic Socialism Is -- And Isn't

For all the uninformed out there and/or the Right Wingers and/or Republicans and/or just outright fearful people---

The disrespect--and lies--heaped on and attributed to this president

This is the kind of character assassination President Obama gets now. It used to nearly exclusively come from the Fox Network (I refuse to call it news). These all came, on the same day, yesterday, from Yahoo "News":

Obamacare advisor apologizes for saying "stupidity of the American voter" helped law pass

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist and key architect of the Affordable Care Act, suggested in a recently-surfaced video clip that "the stupidity of the American voters" helped Obamacare pass. 

Obama to Unleash Deluge of New and Costly Climate Regs 

President Barack Obama is gearing up to unleash a torrent of new climate regulations in the next few months and there will be little the Republican Congress can do to stop it.

Lies, deception, fraud: Obamacare architect drops bombshell 

With the bombshell admission of the main architect of Obamacare that a series of lies were told to the American public to get the new healthcare law passed, conservatives have been vindicated. 

It's pretty unconscionable.

Most people won't read beyond the headlines and worse, far too many will just believe the most negative these headlines and clips suggest, without doing their own homework and reading more into each area.

You'd think he'd lied to the nation about weapons of mass destruction and drug us into a war or somethingg.

Why we need to reign in the wealthy and corporations in America

And to do it, we need, yes, more regulation(s), not less. Not "big government." Not at all. Just sensible, logical, intelligent restraints on greed.

Government regulation?

I'm just glad they know what's important, aren't you?

The Republican dream

Just as Mitt Romney and the Republicans and Right Wing would tell us

Why we need government--and regulation

Why do we need government? Why do we need government regulations?

Look no further than this headline from The Wall Street Journal a few days ago:

Interest Rate Probe Escalates

Barclays Agrees to Pay Record Fine; Emails Show Traders Tried to Manipulate Libor

Barclays PLC agreed to pay $453 million in fines to U.S. and U.K. regulators after admitting that traders and executives tried to manipulate interest rates tied to loans and financial contracts around the world.

If the 2008 national and international collapses of the world's financial markets weren't enough for you, or the collapse of Enron or the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or one of the many other big catastrophes in the last few years weren't enough, this should do it for you.

Barclays Bank, in England, was just big and powerful enough to do their best to try to manipulate international interest rates to go in their favor. This, this is why we need something bigger and stronger than corporations--to control them. To keep their greed in check.

If you don't either already know this or understand it, you need to see one of the many documentaries on these collapses.

We need government as an independent check on corporations and the world's wealthy.

This, above, got Barclays a nearly half billion dollar fine.

And the thing is, the examination is still going on.

Who knows what they did we don't know?

As if that isn't enough, Glaxo-Smith-Kline of the pharmaceutical industry was also fined. This time for three billion dollars--that's $3 billion--for fraud, for stealing from the American public:

GlaxoSmithKline Settles Largest Health Care Fraud Case In U.S. History

WASHINGTON (AP) — GlaxoSmithKline LLC will pay $3 billion and plead guilty to promoting two popular drugs for unapproved uses and to failing to disclose important safety information on a third in the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, the Justice Department said Monday.

The $3 billion fine also will be the largest penalty ever paid by a drug company, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said. The corporation also agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years to attempt to ensure the company's compliance, Cole said.

Small government? Sure. You bet.

No government? Not a chance. Weak government? Ditto. No, thank you.

So, Libertarians, you can count me out, thanks very much.

Link to original article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304830704577493092589081130.html

"Inside Job" (documentary): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/

"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/gsk-fraud_n_1643186.html

President Obama, giving in AGAIN?

Man, I hope this isn't true but it's being reported that President Obama's jobs plan he's going to introduce Thursday night has been leaked. It's over at Daily Kos: "Our local paper here, the Oregonion, is reporting some highlights of President Obama's "bold" new plan to create jobs to reinvigorate the economy as well as his own re-election campaign, according to anonymous administration officials. According to the administration officials, the President deliberated with his key advisers and fundraisers before settling on a plan. After extensive negotiations between his cabinet members, the President agreed to accept some bipartisan proposals like a repatriation tax holiday for corporations, a stealth-bailout for major banks, a payroll tax cut, and a drastic cut in regulations. All are supported by a majority of corporate lobbyists & campaign donors who insist that this will help rebuild "business confidence", which will eventually lead to more jobs." As I said, I hope this isn't true. Look at that short list, above. A "repatriation tax holiday for corporations", if you'll look it up, is just another tax giveaway for and to corporations and will lead to no new jobs. Another "bailout for major banks"? Are you freaking kidding me? A "payroll tax cut" is tax relief, sure, and probably for the middle class and that's good but it absolutely won't create jobs. Finally, a "drastic cut in regulations." Right. So, what? They can pollute more? And that will create jobs how? Dear God, I hope this isn't true. And, worse case scenario, if it is true, I hope there's other, good stuff in his plan. Here's hoping. Closing note: I think the post may be only humor as the link to the Oregonian is to The Onion, instead. Link to original story: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/06/1013775/-Obama-Jobs-Plan-Leaked?via=siderecent

For the purest "Libertarians" out there

To libertarian extremists who want a world with no government: Move to Somalia: That's what a world with no functioning government looks like.