Out of curiosity, which industry has caused more deaths and harm to the planet?

[Quixote1818]

Not taking a side here. Just curious what the answer is or what people think.

[Hannah Bell]

1. the military industry.

[tekisui]

Which is largely needed to do the bidding of the oil industry.

[Kennah]

47. True, but ...

... we used to go to war over salt, now we go to war over oil. The gateway drug is different.

Even if we had a sustainable algae based fuel, the military industrial congressional think tank complex would still exist.

[defendandprotect]

63. Capitalism can't survive without forceful backing ... military --

because Capitalism is an evil -

[ixion]

5. Indeed...

fueled happily by the aforementioned.

[Autumn]

7. That was my first thought. You beat me to it.

:thumbsup:

[Broken_Hero]

12. Beat me to it, nt

[ClayZ]

17. Bingo

[RainDog]

31. with depleted uranium weapons, wars for oil and gas...

the waste of resources...

not to mention the worst - the destruction of lives.

without a doubt the worst - and the reason for nuclear weapons and all that has come after.

[Gregorian]

43. Thank you. I'm glad to see it in the first post.

[Taverner]

71. "I'll take 'war' for 5000 Alex..."

Yep - war

Humans killing humans

Usually for reasons unknown to those very humans fighting

[phantom power]

2. Fossil fuels kill about 5 million people a year.

That's not even counting the eventual casualties from climate change.

[villager]

3. Or to paraphrase: "Who's more likely to harm you? A sociopath, or a psychopath?"

n/t

[Statistical]

4. You should have a third option coal. Or is oil/gas = all fossil fuels.

Coal makes oil look downright clean.

Hell coal power plants release more radioactivity than all nuclear power plants combined including the Chernobyl disaster. Not to mention the millions of tons of fly ash with mercury, aresenic, uranium, thorium, and about two dozen other toxins. The half life on coal fly ash is infinity. It never goes away. It can't be contained and there is 10,000x as much waste compared to spent nuclear fuel.

[Quixote1818]

11. I kind of think of it as part of oil and gas. Do you think I should add it to that column? nt

[Statistical]

14. No I figured that is what you mean.

Of all fossil fuels my greater hate is coal. Coal is death.

[LynneSin]

57. Now now - don't go sharing facts with DU, we'd rather just be reactive

I'd rather live near a Nuclear Power Plant than a Coal or Oil burning plant.

And I've lived near the WORST of the US Nuclear power plants

[Lone_Star_Dem]

6. Religions.

Hands down.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. I'd say it's tied with Military. after all,

they were tied at the waist for centuries. In some ways, they still are. (W's Crusade against Al Qaida?)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

23. Perhaps. I still think religious wars/crusades should be in their own category

I read once that more than 800 million people have died in religious wars throughout history. That's quite a death toll.

[defendandprotect]

65. Well, "Introducing the Cross with the Sword" required an armed religion ....

[Journeyman]

8. Anything that brings us into contact with mosquitoes. . .

[gateley]

9. I was going to say "Health Insurance" but that doesn't apply to the planet as much as here. nt

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. Strip/coal mining and Fracking are abou tthe worst things on the planet.

Even with everything done 100% "correctly" and no accidents... it still destroys entire areas and ecosystems.
Drilled oil is pretty bad, but only when there is an accident. Oil Sand excavation is just as bad as strip mining.

[hlthe2b]

13. No doubt oil industry has created more immediate harm...

However, nuclear waste and risk is "forever." So many lifetimes of potential risk will continue to haunt us.

[Statistical]

19. Fossil fuel waste isn't forever?

The half life on coal fly ash is infinity and there is far too much (billions of metric tons) to safely stored.

[hlthe2b]

22. My comment was limited to oil....

Yes, coal ash is not unlike nuclear waste as a nightmare for long term risk.

[sakabatou]

16. Fossil fuel mining/drilling.

[Pharaoh]

18. Other~ The Rebuplican Party!! n/t

[xchrom]

20. 'most' is inapproriate when thinking about the deaths or possible deaths of real people.

arguments about ten thousand or ten dead just seems in bad taste.

[Quixote1818]

28. Fewer deaths is always in better taste than more deaths.

Basic common sense.

[xchrom]

30. no -- it's a little inhuman.

all of those deaths -- whether a few or many -- represent suffering.

[Quixote1818]

32. Who said they didn't represent suffering?

The whole poll is about calling attention to suffering and destruction of Innocent life. Please don't put words in my mouth or try to make and issue where there isn't one.

[xchrom]

37. If you don't want words put in your mouth then dont

Make bad - no awful - comparisons like this.

[Quixote1818]

46. How about this comparison since you are the only person on DU having trouble with this

Would you rather do something that gave you a 90% chance of death or something that gave you a 10% chance of death? Clearly the deaths either way are just as tragic and the lives just as important, but something that has a lower probability of death is preferable and more moral if it leaves more people alive. Get it?

[xchrom]

50. i get that you are making inhuman comparisons about peoples suffering.

the 50 0r 60 workers left at fukushima are being exposed to 4 rem per hour of radiation.

they will die and die very badly.

i choose not to compare them to others deaths re: air pollution -- it's all awful.

and little of it necessary.

[Quixote1818]

52. I think I can see how the post might come across as insensitive if I was taking a side

I can promise you that I wasn't taking a side. Just trying to create discussion and debate. I would like to see both industries reduced drastically and see solar and other clean runnable energy utilized.

[Johonny]

36. does seem the scale of the two industries not really easy to compare

not sure why people keep trying to push the comparison.

As people point out in the tread not really hard to think of things really bad like mining for heavy metals. But the scale and time periods make all these thing not really comparable. Seems like push polling to get a result to satisfy your line of thinking.

[xchrom]

39. +1

[Quixote1818]

49. See my post below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=653560&mesg_id=653939

[daggahead]

21. Auto industry. n/t

[Sonoman]

24. Money - no profit, no war.

It's really quite simple.

Sonoman

[flvegan]

25. Animal agriculture.

[DFab420]

26. Mining.

Whether it is nickel for the Prius battery

Or coal

Or fracking

Or conflict diamonds

Or the conflict materials we need to make our cell phones.

It's Mining that kills and harms the most.

[TheKentuckian]

27. Other: Financial Sector

Enslaves billions and kills millions off the books.

[jacquelope]

29. Which industry has caused more deaths?

The one that keeps steering us away from clean and renewable energy research & development.

What saddens me about this newly kindled rage against nuclear energy is that we'll not see a surge in clean/renewable energy R&D. Instead we'll be driven back to fossil fuels - most likely, coal.

[Quixote1818]

33. Great post. Thanks nt

[girl gone mad]

34. The jury is still out..

wouldn't you say?

[Quixote1818]

41. The question that comes to mind is how many nuclear accidents

would there be if we relied on it as much as oil, gas and coal? Also, after using nuclear for hundreds of years into the future and hundreds of earthquakes and natural disasters. Someone crunching the numbers and probabilities deep into the future would be the only real "apples to apples" way to evaluate things. Better to get away from them both in my opinion. :)

[Spider Jerusalem]

35. The fossil fuel industry generally

not just oil and gas but also coal, which accounts for a not isignificant percentage of carbon emissions (about 50% of US CO2 emissions are from transport, and about 20% from electricity generation...which is mostly from coal-fired power plants).

[Zoeisright]

38. They're all bad. Clean energy is the only answer.

And anybody who whines about how "solar energy isn't feasible", bite me.

[damntexdem]

40. As bad as coal and oil are, nukes are nearly forever.

At least in human terms -- our lives and their half-lives just don't mix.

[FLPanhandle]

56. Global warming isn't forever?

Probably the biggest environmental impact out there.

[Obamanaut]

42. Munitions. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

44. Oil and Gas are FAR worse

[Cleita]

45. War and religion of course, but it doesn't make the other two

all right.

[Jersey Devil]

48. Divorce lawyers

Is it even close?

[Tx4obama]

51. Oil/coal/chemicals, HC, military, NRA, GOP, are all guilty. nt/

[gratuitous]

53. Tobacco?

I dunno. But as long as there's obscene profit to be made while killing tens, hundreds and thousands of thousands, we're not going to quit this ride anytime soon. It gets dressed up in so many guises, it's hard to tell, sometimes, just what's doing the killing. But it's usually greed and the lust for more by those who have plenty. Right now, the popular excuse is "creating jobs," but it shifts with the prevailing ethos. There's never been a shortage of those who are doing it for God or country or some other convenient excuse that will either fool enough of the populace to let them get away with it, or create enough confusion that opposition doesn't or can't coalesce against them.

If it didn't happen so often, with such depressing regularity, it would be almost comic. It's especially disheartening when folks who should know better make excuses for the greedheads or otherwise try to divert attention from their murderous ways.

[L. Coyote]

54. DEFENSE!!

[RegieRocker]

58. Give this person a big STAR

you're right.

[RegieRocker]

55. The tobacco industry

NO NUKE PLANTS

[defendandprotect]

59. Obviously, we don't really know yet -- !!

I'm guessing Global Warming which is taking away our ability to survive on this

planet -- and possibly also the planet!

That was created by religious theories of "Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion

Over Nature" which were licenses for the few to profit via exploitation of Nature,

Natural Resources, Animal-life -- and even other human beings according to various

myths of inferiority.

Capitalism being its economic system which exploited nature and humans -- and moved

the wealth and natural resources of nations from the many to the few.


Guess the answer then is -- Organized Patriarchal Religion - Male-Surpemacist Religion --



But -- any moment we may find that we're going out with a nuclear bang?

In fact, for days now I've been feeling as though I'm an extra in the movie "On The Beach" -- !!

[defendandprotect]

60. Wouldn't fail to cite MIC, ExxonMobil/Religion: "Manifest Destiny" - "Man's Dominion Over Nature"

[Lucian]

61. Who cares about opinions.

Look at the facts.

[Quixote1818]

64. Thats what this thread is about. People posting links and facts and creating discussion

It's interesting how it took a turn I didn't expect with issues like the Military, Religion etc. being brought up.

[UTUSN]

62. Religion. #s 6 & 45 beat me to it. n/t

[defendandprotect]

67. Me, too -- see #59 and #60 --

[WilliamPitt]

66. Military industry

It has been around since ancient times.

[GSLevel9]

68. other

WAR incorporated.

[old mark]

69. Agriculture. I think we were better off as hunter/gatherers, maybe a million or so

people on the whole planet. I think we went wrong after that.

mark

[quaker bill]

70. The "defense" industry

#2 the gun industry.

#3 the auto industry.

[readmoreoften]

72. Finance.

[Zorra]

73. Defense Industries by far, but because of the large number of people that have died

slow painful deaths from collateral poisoning from the oil and nuclear energy industries, it is impossible to estimate which one of hese industries has been more lethal.

If we count the immediate death toll from atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent death toll from radiation poisoning from radiation poisoning, the numbers of known people killed by the nuclear energy industry increase dramatically. I guess we can only speculate about the numbers of people that have died or suffered from horrible diseases like cancer and leukemia that were directly caused by radiation exposure. But since nuclear energy usage on any significant scale came into existence after 1945, we can have a possible indication of the harm done to innocent people by examining the cancer rates from 1945 to the present.

Here is an interesting statistical analysis:

Over all, for women of all ages and all breast cancer types, the incidence of the cancer, the second leading killer of women, dropped by 7 percent in 2003, or about 14,000 cases, the researchers said. It was the first time that breast cancer rates had fallen significantly, something experts said was especially remarkable because the rates had slowly inched up, year by year, since 1945

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E5DA1231F936A25751C1A9609C8B63

Here are some stats on Japan after the bombings:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Death Toll
The Human Toll
What Is Radiation?
"Pika Don"
Thermal Radiation
One Mile from Ground Zero
Thermal Radiation and Blast Winds
What Does Radiation Do to Living Things?
Lethal Radiation Effects
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Death Toll
Fallout Radiation Skin Burn
Thyroid Injury to Children
How Radiation Affects Pregnant Women and Children
if you count wars fought for oil, such as Iraq, the oil industry has been far more lethal than the nuclear energy industry. Still, it is impossible to know the real rates of destruction for either the oil or nuclear industries because of the large numbers of cancers they have caused that have been chalked up to

Leukemia in Children
"Hibakusha": Those who Survived and How They Survived
U.S. Citizens Killed and Erased from History
Peace Ambassadors in an Unpeaceful World
Children of the Atomic Bomb

The mortality was greater in Hiroshima because the city was located in a flat delta, in contrast to Nagaski’s Urakami Valley. The Nagasaki-Urakami is enclosed by mountain ridges that shielded the city. Nevertheless, the instant lethal effect revealed consideration of the use of these annhilative weapons in warfare can be tolerated by man now that nukes of far greater destructive power are now available.

The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) are over conservative.

At no time during the period between 1943 and 1946 were facilities allotted, or time provided, for the Medical Section of the Manhattan Engineer District to prepare a comprehensive history of its activities. Regulations forbade notetaking. Official records were scanty. There were few charts and photographs.

http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html

Statistics on people killed by windmills solar panels have been impossible to find.

I forgot-Don Quixote-was he killed by a windmill, or did he just try to fight one?

[ROFF]

74. Coal

n/t

[NorthCarolina]

75. Without a doubt, religion. nt