What should be done to polluters? What should be done to the CEO's of polluting companies?

by Toni_Roman

Article asks what society should do with its most heinous unrepentent evil-doers.

One in ten deaths in the capital of Mongolia is caused by air pollution. Great American Insurance Company argued in court that a pollution clause prevented the families of three people killed in a 2007 Houston office building fire from being compensated. It said the deaths were caused by smoke inhalation and not the actual flames and asked US District Judge Lee Rosenthal to rule that deaths caused by the smoke, fumes and soot not be covered by the policy. The policy had a specific exclusion for pollution and it mentioned smoke, fumes and soot. Pollution causes about forty percent of deaths worldwide according to a Cornell University study. This includes water, air and soil pollution. The World Health Organization says that the world annual death toll from air pollution is two million people each year. What is happening on our planet?

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Love Canal

pollution and polluting companies

 

Pollution is poison in your air, poison in your water and poison in our soil which goes into crops and livestock and therefore is poison in your food. Poison kills. People have been dying from water pollution since before we kept statistics. People have been dying from air pollution since Donora in 1948. And exposés of corporate records show that chemical companies have known at least since the Nineteen Thirties that most industrial chemicals are toxic poisons. This is what gets into your food. And then developers build suburbs on top of toxic waste dumps. Perhaps your home. This is why there are cancer clusters.

 

Big Corporations want to be legally considered "persons" [while using their lobbies to make real individuals non-persons] and have conned judges and the Supreme Court into going along with this legal fiction. Therefore, if corporations are persons, then they should be treated as persons.

 

 

Love Canal

crime and punishment

 

Pollution is a crime. That is a fact. It is not a debatable point. Murder is also a crime. So what happens when companies commit crimes? Corporations commit crimes but it is difficult (not impossible) to get a corporation into prison. So what happens when corporations pollute and murder? What should be done to companies that pollute and kill? What should be done to the CEO's of polluting companies?

 

 

  • life imprisonment with no chance of parole
  • capital punishment (death penalty) in cases of loss of life
  • extradition to Singapore for caning
  • water boarding
  • make pollution legally a form of terrorist activity (since these companies have been terrorizing us)
  • send to Guantanamo
  • send to the worst federal prisons in the continental United States and put them in the general population -- not powder puff Club Fed pampering
  • confiscatory fines to take away their ill-gotten gains
  • garnish their salaries to pay for cleaning up pollution
  • seize their personal assets {homes, cars, yachts, planes, art, Swiss bank accounts, investments, etc.)
  • make them do community service picking up roadside litter
  • make them do community service cleaning up hazmat (hazardous material)
  • make them do community service cleaning up creeks (pulling old tires and junk out of streams)
  • make them do community service helping city storm water departments unclog stopped up sewers
  • make them do community service helping state biologists get air samples downwind of polluting factories
  • make them do community service helping state biologists get water samples downstream of polluting factories
  • make them do community service assisting crews cleaning up Superfund sites
  • make them do community service assisting crews cleaning up toxic waste dumps
  • make them do community service cleaning up the mess after an oil spill
  • make them do community service cleaning wild birds and other animals covered in crude oil after a spill
  • make them do community service cleaning rivers and lakes after a fish kill
  • make them do community service in hospital cancer wards assisting orderlies by changing bedpans and mopping up vomit since cancer is caused by pollution
  • make them do community service visiting hospices
  • perp walks when they are arrested
  • being the butt of the jokes of TV comedians such as late night talk shows (Leno, Letterman, etc.) and Saturday Night Live

 

Love Canal

What can you do?

 

  • send letters to Sixty Minutes asking them to do more investigations of the worst polluters
  • sue polluters as an individual
  • sue polluters as a class action
  • find a test case that will go beyond civil and criminal action to the Constitutional right to life which is denied by air, land and water pollution
  • demand that city, county and state police arrest them
  • demand that the FBI investigate them
  • demand that local prosecutors and county district attorneys prosecute them
  • demand that US Attorneys prosecute them
  • demand that judges throw the book at them and remove judges from the bench who go light on polluters
  • demand that US Representatives and US Senators vote for tougher pollution laws (make it second only to treason or mass murder as a felony and capital crime)
  • vote for candidates with proven anti-pollution records
  • vote against candidates in the pocket of polluters (this is most politicians right now)
  • vote for the Green Party candidate whenever the Green is running for an office unopposed or is far ahead in the polls (since the Republicans are pro-pollution and the Democrats are not aggressive enough)
  • boycott the products and services of polluters as a consumer
  • look through your investments and sell off all investments in polluters
  • demand that your church or denomination sell off all investments in polluters -- especially if you are on a finance committee at church
  • demand that Congress impeach Inhofe and all other members of Congress that impede the military's move to green
  • pray for a cleaner world without pollution
  • join an environmental organization that targets polluters to drive them into bankruptcy
  • start an environmental organization that targets polluters to drive them into bankruptcy
  • volunteer for an environmental organization that targets polluters to drive them into bankruptcy
  • donate money to an environmental organization that targets polluters to drive them into bankruptcy
  • persuade everyone you know to only do business with companies that don't pollute (family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, total strangers)
  • turn every man, woman and child against polluters as devils who literally release sulfur (the brimstone of the Bible) into the air, as well poisoners, and as criminals who stack warehouses and yards with barrels of waste and then declare them bankrupt to avoid the expense of proper disposal
  • give free or paid lectures, go on tours
  • start a petition to have your town, city, county or state government only do business with companies that don't pollute
  • teach children to not litter
  • instead of letting those plastic bags float around, use them for litter bags in your car
  • use public waste receptacles instead of throwing trash on the ground [It is your America. Take pride in it.]
  • test the water in public water fountains or have it tested
  • test the water in the nearest pond or creek
  • test the drinking water in your home: test your tap water and test your bottled water
  • test your well water
  • monitor the air quality inside your home and out in your backyard [This used to be expensive but now there are inexpensive micro-sensors. There are even T-shirts that turn color if the air going into your lungs is bad.]
  • read the labels on what you eat to check for ingredients. If the ingredients are dangerous or if it does not list ingredients (like ice cream) or if the list of ingredients is vague, then do not eat it. It is poison. Aluminum compounds contribute to Alzheimer's.
  • recycle
  • compost
  • buy an electric car
  • install solar panels at home
  • build or install a residential windmill or wind spire or wind turbine (unless you can afford one of those humongous industrial windmills the size of Texas)
  • install double pane windows at home]
  • install a geothermal HVAC
  • insulate your home
  • find a job with a company that does not pollute (on average, non-polluting companies pay higher wages)
  • go cold turkey on oil companies: convert your existing car to electric by pulling out the infernal combustion engine and installing an electric motor and replacing the gas tank with a battery rack)
  • go cold turkey on oil companies: lube with all synthetic from a company that does not pollute (in other words, not the Big Oil companies or their subsidiaries)

 

Love Canal
Love Canal

If you are in industrial management:

  • don't do business with polluters as an executive of a responsible company
  • pull your company out of the US Chamber of Commerce since they are climate change deniers and fund denier organizations
  • stop all air, land and water pollution by your company
  • see one hundred percent of that emission coming out of the smokestack as dollars blowing away in the wind: not only does air pollution represent legal risk and higher insurance premiums for your company but there are actually markets for the different things in that exhaust even if you do not know about them. The heat is also something that could be sold.
  • see one hundred percent of the effluent going out of the conduits into the local streams or rivers as dollars pouring away: water pollution is legal exposure and jacks up insurance of course but those waste chemicals are raw materials and that waste water is sell-able.
  • see one hundred percent of the solid waste and trash of your factory as dollars if you only knew who wanted the stuff. It is cash money if you figure out who wants it. It is lawsuits and higher insurance costs if you do not figure out this puzzle. Don't let your company be the only one that cannot figure out recycling and zero waste. Stupid companies are bankrupt companies.
  • adopt zero waste as your corporate philosophy
  • support Draconian law enforcement against polluters: one, because your company does not pollute and two, because it will bankrupt your competitors who do pollute
  • in your politics, have no mercy on polluters because they are either stupid or evil (either way, they are in the way)
  • throw polluters out of the country club
  • throw polluters out of the city club
  • make polluters persona non grata in all business round tables and business discussions
  • make polluters persona non grata at all business conferences and business conventions
  • make polluters persona non grata at all industry trade associations and trade shows
  • do not let your company give money to a polluters' lobby in Washington
  • pull out of ALEC
  • ostracize and shun the Koch Brothers
  • ostracize and shun Rex Tillerson
  • come out of the closet and admit that you think the oil, coal, gas and fission industries should not even exist because they are killing the planet

 

smokestacks
smokestacks

if you are in the financial sector:

  • don't lend to polluters because they are criminals and, as such, you would be aiding and abetting a crime
  • don't insure polluters
  • do forensic accounting to expose all the hidden costs of pollution
  • don't invest venture capital in polluters
  • don't help polluters make private placements or public offerings
  • don't merge with polluters [There are many CEO's who can tell you horror stories of inheriting messes from acquired companies.]
  • disinvest from polluters
  • advise your clients to disinvest from polluters or get sued when they can validly claim that you should have told them the downside
  • get out of oil, gas, coal and fission any way you can (before the lawsuits, the revelations, and the bad stuff starts)
  • invest for the long term in the best managed solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and wave power companies

 

Grim Reaper
Grim Reaper

Hold Polluters Accountable for the Full Cost of Their Negligence

Go Get Them!

Don't let them get away with killing your parents and killing your children and killing your grandchildren.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your family.  Do it for America.  Do it for God.  But just do it.

 

Updated: 10/11/2012, Toni_Roman
 
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Rose on 12/20/2013

Corporations are going to try to get away with whatever they can - it's up to governments to hold them to account, and up to citizens to force governments to do their jobs. The problem is most citizens are apathetic.

Toni_Roman on 03/29/2013

Amen to that.

Sheri_Oz on 10/12/2012

What a lot of punishments. What a lot of things one can do to fight this terrible phenomenon. It takes longer than it should to get companies to take the anti-pollution laws seriously.

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