Childhood leukemia doubles around nuclear plants
A new study in the International Journal of Cancer (Jan. 2012) confirms the Academy’s repeated warnings that nuclear power plants’ routine operations create an increased risk of leukemia among children who live nearby.
“The study found a doubling of occurrence of childhood leukemia between 2002 and 2007 among children under 5 years living within 5 km of nuclear plants – similar to the findings of a 2008 German study which found a higher risk of childhood leukemia among those living near nuclear power plants.
The new study was conducted by a team from a French Institute that had tried to discredit previous French studies showing that nuclear facilities impacted health.
14,000 U.S. deaths tied to Fukushima
“An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.”
Infant deaths were particularly high. Read more at the Radiation and Public Health Project website.
Stop taxpayer bailouts of the nuclear power industry!
The Administration and Congress are pushing increased subsidies for the nuclear power industry despite reliable estimates that there is a 50% chance the industry will default on new taxpayer-guaranteed loans.
For an overview of the problems with nuclear power, including its economics, how it hampers our ability to fight climate change and enhances the risks of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and cancer, read the Academy’s articles, “Japan’s Nuclear Kamikazes,” “The Nuclear Nemesis,” “The Nuclear Nemesis Redux,” and Chapter 5 of its 2007 book, Freedom from Mid-East Oil.
On many levels, cutting military spending makes more sense than cutting aid to cash-strapped states that are laying off teachers and police and cutting vital social services.
The U.S. military has been battling Congress to get it to stop wasteful "pork barrel" spending on programs the military itself doesn't want, such as F-22 fighter jets and the Boeing C-17.
Visit the National Priorities Project to see the cost of war and the trade-offs for your community.
 Don’t miss the Spring of Sustainability, a free online series of events March 26 to June 22, to transform your fear and frustration about the state of our planet into hope and action. This unprecedented event, produced by the Shift Network in partnership with Sustainable World Coalition, features more than 100 pioneers of sustainability from across the globe—including Rinaldo Brutoco, Jane Goodall, Bill McKibbon, Hazel Henderson, and Frances Moore Lappe—for 11-weeks of essential conversations to educate and engage participants in sustainable lifestyles. You can listen in live via your phone line or computer to as many sessions as you'd like, or listen to the replays later. Register for free.
 Join us May 25-28, 2012, in Honolulu, Hawaii for a community experience celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and the 25th anniversary of the World Business Academy. In the language of Aloha (sharing the breath of life), we gather in harmony to share our mana’o—knowledge, insight, and intuition—guided by Joseph Campgell’s thought shortly before his death in 1987: “It’s time to create new mythologies.” The time is now for each of us to remember our Hero’s Journey and our promise to live from a paradigm of connectedness. …more…  Birth 2012 and Beyond heralds a hopeful future by inviting readers to join a campaign that builds toward a global day of collective initiation: a Planetary Birth Day celebration on December 22, 2012. This groundbreaking book by Barbara Marx Hubbard with her Welcoming Committee of 12 evolutionary leaders calls for the inauguration of a sustainable planetary civilization. The book includes essays by all 12 leaders, including Rinaldo Brutoco’s essay, “Ascent of the Phoenix: Global Reconstruction.” The book will be released this May.
 The current business paradigm can be summed up in its four flawed principles, which include “The business of business is business,” and “A business exists to maximize value for its shareholders.” To understand how the business community can move beyond these fallacies and provide the will and “can do” spirit to face the enormous challenges that society faces, read “From Current Business Paradigm to Second Renaissance,” by Sam Yau, Chairman of the Board of the Esalen Institute and Rinaldo Brutoco, Founding President of the World Business Academy.
 Rinaldo Brutocco, the founder and president of the World Business Academy, recorded a message of thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement for fundamentally realigning the economic discourse in the United States. You can view the video on the Truthout.org website.
 Under the U.S. federal tax code, corporations ostensibly pay taxes on their profits at a 35% rate. Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 280 of the largest U.S. companies—all members of the Fortune 500—and found that between 2008 and 2010, the effective rate for the 280 companies was less than half that. During that time, 78 of the companies paid zero or less (i.e., received a rebate) for at least one year. Thirty paid nothing at all over the entire three years even though they collectively made $160 billion in profits during that time. The corporate share of federal government tax receipts has dropped from 32% in 1952 to 9% now, partly due to aggressive accounting to disguise U.S. profits as foreign profits, as well as unproductive tax loopholes and other subsidies. Congress should reject demands by U.S. multinationals for a tax holiday to “repatriate” the funds they shifted offshore to avoid paying taxes. Current and retired business people are invited to sign Business for Shared Prosperity’s petition in support of responsible corporate tax reform.
 Upswings in food prices present a major threat to food security in developing countries. In 2010-11, rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. The effectiveness of U.S. and EU food aid is severely undercut by practices that waste taxpayer dollars and make it harder for small farmers in developing countries to compete with food imports and sell their products in local markets. The Center for American Progress has identified five reforms that would make foreign agricultural programs more effective while saving U.S. taxpayers more than $2 billion.
 The Nike Foundation and Liberty Mutual Insurance have been named winners of 2011 EthicMark® Awards for advertising that “uplifts the human spirit and society.” Rinaldo Brutoco announced the winners of the annual EthicMark® Award, founded by Academy Fellow Hazel Henderson, October 2 at the 22nd annual SRI in the Rockies Conference in New Orleans. Liberty Mutual won in the for-profit category for an ad, “Responsibility: Doing the Right Thing,” which fosters discussion about what it means to do the right thing. Nike Foundation won in the not-for-profit category for “The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking,” which shows that “investment in girls in developing countries can unleash the world’s greatest untapped solution to poverty.” Several other media campaigns won honorable mention, including:
 Remarkably diverse groups across the U.S. political spectrum are calling for a high and rising price on carbon as part of their deficit-reduction strategies. This is a potentially momentous development that could spark the end of the political logjam in the U.S. over energy and climate change policy. A carbon tax imposed at the point that high-carbon fuels enter the economy would create an unprecedented market opportunity for the clean tech sector. The funds collected should be returned directly to citizens to compensate for higher energy costs. Read “The Market is Lying: Why We Must Tax Carbon, Not Subsidize It” at Truthout.org.
 Meridian University’s interview with Academy President Rinaldo Brutoco has launched the University’s new series Creative Enterprise: Voices of Transformation, “a series of interviews with visionary social entrepreneurs, executives, and authors whose work embodies the core emphases and values of the Creative Enterprise MBA at Meridian.” Meridian states: “The series will evolve as an emergent library of inspiring voices articulating views of how business, non-profits and hybrid organizations can help transform our culture into one that is productive and life affirming for far more of its citizens.” The series expands the question whether we are making enough progress as a society, “challenging us to consider sustainability and social entrepreneurship in the context of wider notions of applied wisdom and transformative innovation.” Meridian invites you to listen to or download the interview with Rinaldo and participate in the rest of the series.
 The uprisings sweeping Egypt and the region have put a renewed spotlight on the illicit capital flows that let corrupt rulers and terrorists launder money and stash assets overseas, draining resources from developing countries and feeding a growing global income inequality. Egypt reportedly loses $6 billion/year in illicit outflows, which are growing faster in the Middle East and N. Africa than in any other region. To learn more:
 Dr. Joseph Romm, who writes an award-winning blog, ClimateProgress.org, reviews the most important recent scientific presentations and studies in his post, “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice.” He writes: “Any one of these would be cause for action — and combined they vindicate the final sentence of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe: ‘It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.’” …more…
|
“When you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labor, you are in truth loving life, and to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.” -Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Sign up for our e-newsletter, Currents in Commerce, an eclectic collection of short takes on business, society, energy, and the economy. Subscriptions are free for individuals. We offer special rates for organizations. View the most recent issue.
 Please join us on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 11 a.m. PT for our next monthly radio show, New Business Paradigms: Conscious Commentary on Business and Society. To join the call live, dial (347) 989-8946. To download free podcasts of past episodes or listen to them on demand, visit our website directory of past shows. Subscribe to the show on iTunes.
 Join the World Business Academy yourself or sign up your favorite entrepreneur or scholar today!
 Visit our "Take Action!" page to find service opportunities that fit your unique talents and skills, empower your community, and align your spending with your values.
 The Academy has become a partner of the American Sustainable Business Council and will be working with it to mobilize business organizations and create a vibrant, just, and sustainable economy. Please join the Business for Democracy campaign, a collaborative effort of companies and business leaders in support of government by the people—and opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s radical Citizens United decision that allows corporations to spend unlimited money to support or oppose candidates for political office.  Winning the mind-game of golf—and life Most of golf gets played in your own head, not on the grass. Golf Mind: Unlocking the Real Game, the full-length DVD filmed at the Academy’s 2006 Fairways to Transformation Tournament, shows you how to detach from desired outcomes so you're free to be fully present in your golf game—and in your life. Featuring Academy Fellow Deepak Chopra, famed course designer Robert Trent Jones, Jr., golf pro and TV commentator Tina Mickelson, Esalen's Michael Murphy (Golf in the Kingdom), Dr. Joe Parent (Zen Golf ), and Fred Shoemaker (Extraordinary Golf ), this remarkable DVD contains the keys to unlock the transformative potential of the game of golf. It is now available through Netflix and the Academy’s online store.
|
