coming up in this half hour women afford tires was sleep for years to achieve equality and to have more opportunities to succeed and prosper unfortunately these opportunities come with some hidden potentially deadly dangers more of that and it's everything you know is wrong and venezuelans revered chavez for the same reason that officials here in the united states aided him i'll tell you what their reason is and why we should be taking a page out of the chavez playbook in tonight's dilutive. today marks the two year anniversary of the fukushima nuclear disaster on march eleventh two thousand and eleven a magnitude nine point zero three earthquake struck off the coast of japan forming a massive tsunami that ravaged that country's eastern seaboard the earthquake and soon tsunami wiped out the plant's power and destroyed its cooling system was in meltdowns and several of the facilities reactors disaster was

a stark reminder of the dangers of nuclear power reigniting debate around the world and here in the united states about what to do with our own plants and that debate still rages on yesterday approximately forty thousand people marched through tokyo in opposition to prime minister shinzo aves proposal to restart japan's nuclear plants so it really learned anything from focus currently not going to a joint january report put out by environment america proximity of nuclear plants in the united states to major population centers risks polluting the water of around forty nine million people in the event of a meltdown and more disturbingly national regulatory commission the n.r.c. tasked with ensuring the safety and efficiency of our sixty five nuclear power plants as ignored important recommendations necessary to prevent a fukushima style disaster here in the u.s. there's talk about fukushima in the future of nuclear power in the united states or jordan weaver project scientist and science center fellow at the national resources defense council tyson. slocum director of the energy program public citizen and

paul gunter director of the reactor oversight project of nuclear thank you all for joining us today thank you great to be here paul you view started with us on the fukushima issue two years ago i think you were our first guest on that right david back keeping us up to date on what's the current status of what's going on in japan well there are still billions of becker rolls of radioactive gas issuing off of these ruptured containment and there is really no indian side right now at the you know the major concern is the first of all the instability of these elevated spent fuel pools where hundreds of metric tons of nuclear waste is basically in teetering buildings teetering pools and another earthquake could actually intensify this catastrophe to much much larger than what it is right now if if this fuel loses its cooling and we have these open atomic fires in the

atmosphere this this really threatens much of japan no it could be worse actually here no and we also have the ongoing release of radioactive water into the pacific ocean jordan you're a scientist what is the impact what is this what is the one of the health consequences of what's happened so far focus and if that sort of thing were to happen here in the united states what what could we expect well i think what we're hearing a lot is that you know a common phrase is no one died in fukushima due to radiation exposure and we feel it's a very narrow way of looking at it we do know that due to the migration of the plume after the accident that a number of a great number of the population were exposed to levels of radiation that will result and elevated cancers over their lifetime didn't number of the people who went in real early on they did it was not necessarily due to radiation exposure it was due to just the ongoing recovery efforts. and accidents during those efforts

but i think it was seven workers i believe were seven workers died during the rescue efforts so to say that no one died because of this accident is a little bit of a mischaracterization. in terms of the u.s. we you know we look at it in that in the way that. the susceptible population in fukushima was much smaller than what we see in a lot of nuclear power plants here in the u.s. we have many large metropolitan area areas with densely dense population such as los angeles philadelphia and new york city and we feel that there needs to be a different way of discussing these severe accidents in the us and how we regulate them so that we can possibly enforce some common sense decisions when it comes time to relicense or side a plant within say fifty miles of a million people so enticing to what extent has that you know public says that is on this issue to what extent have has there been a change in the dialogue about nuclear power in the united states is the result of

for which we really haven't seen much of a change in the dialogue the nuclear regulatory commission has made some proposals some of them are good but they haven't done nearly enough to respond to this. crisis and the president made very clear just hours after the disaster happened in japan he made a public pronouncement saying that this in no way was going to impact the future of nuclear power in the united states so what we see is from the political establishment the united states a preservation of nucular status quo at a time when we cannot afford the status quo and the real thing about nuclear power here is that it is not competitive i mean fukushima highlighted these serious safety and security concerns but what we have also going on here is fundamental changes in the economics in the dynamics of the of the economics were cheap natural gas and cost competitiveness of renewables and energy efficiency technologies make

nuclear power a relic of the past but the problem is is that the nuclear regulatory commission appears intent on preserving. allowing these. reactors that are increasingly dangerous to continue operating and to that paul you've got a campaign. no place no no. let's freeze our fukushima's in fact what we've known since one thousand nine hundred seventy two that these fukushima style designs the g.e. mark one. should have been closed in one thousand nine hundred eighty two under the the advice of dr steven an hour then with the atomic energy commission he said shut these plants down containments are too small if you look at a mark one containment volumetrically is one sixth the size of say the three mile island containment so dangerous as these these larger reactors are these mark ones are accidents waiting to happen they're completely unreliable

and so this is what went down in focus is what went down we have many are there and we have twenty three of the mark ones and we have eight of these more which are equally vulnerable to over pressurization under accident conditions and so you know right now the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission staff has recognized that these reactors are so dangerous but they don't want to shut them down they want to put vents with filters on these containments and the industry is unwilling to afford that cost so we have. profit margins versus safety margins now being argued out in the commission and it within weeks or maybe a few months it's going to be voted on so we're seeing what very well is a politicized issue with significant safety consequences as these old aging bad

designs are continued to be pushed forward it's incredible tyson you're nodding are you involved in this and public citizen along with natural resources defense council beyond nucular and many other organizations and so it's really critical that viewers and listeners out there talk to their members of congress because we're not hearing enough from congress to put pressure on the nuclear regulatory commission to stand up and do the right thing you know in the past the nuclear regulatory commission has bowed to pressure from congress to side more with industry the former chairman of the energy committee in the senate pete domenici very famously boasted in a book that he didn't feel that the nuclear regulatory commission was doing enough to promote nuclear power and he called in the commissioners and said either you start promoting nuclear power or else i'm going to come down on the agency hard so the independence of the regulators has been called into question remains jordon the

my understanding is that nuclear power would even exist in the united states for wasn't for a government backstopping pricing anderson basically the government we the people being the insurer of last resort because nobody on wall street would be willing to fund any of these things so true. it's very correct i believe the current number for the price anderson the liability limit is around twelve and a half billion dollars and after that the u.s. government is assumed to take the remainder of any. fallout financial fallout if you will from a severe accident and even with that kind of like handout to the industry in addition to you know taxpayer funded federal loan guarantees and subsidies you compound that with the. like mentioned a low natural gas prices the all the ramifications are about to see due to the food she was disaster kind of playing out in the regulatory sphere this is going to cause even more problems for them and it's not an easy battle to begin with what is this earnest manas. is the new director of the

department of energy does the. pro nuclear why i guess you'd expect that if he's going to head up the department of energy but or maybe not i mean it seems if this is the most expensive least efficient most dangerous form of electrical generation in the united states and i'm guessing there's a consensus on this panel as to that than tyson why why is this guy running the dio we and will and because he's a reflection of president obama's priorities president obama has repeatedly said that he is an all of the above energy kind of guy and the problem is that we cannot afford this all of the above energy platform. has come out strongly in favor as natural gas as the benchmark of clean energy future it's not going to be natural gas it has to be renewables and efficiency we're not seeing enough emphasis on that and again the largest loan guarantee that is being offered by this administration

is for a new nuclear power plant in georgia eight point three billion dollars of federal taxpayer backed loans for a project that is already way over schedule and over budget nuclear power is not. feasible into the. energy systems. absolutely mazing jordan tyson paul thank you so much for being with us thank you tom. crazy alert james bond had octopussy hot flush cold as well just like the video speaks so. well we've got some different size weights.

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the some people the extreme cold just the chilling threats of this it's a cooling if you look you can see that the water in my body feels really warm now this is good for you. they plunge into icy water to make themselves stronger you can't get used to the cold when you control rated and you can struggle with. people of snow and ice picks as a frost. surviving the golden. rule. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down to

the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. decent it is going to pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout what's been like bilbies like three driving lessons some emergency vehicles. emission free cretaceous three transfer charges three. range mentioned three. three stooges free. download free blog just plug in video for your media projects a free media dog r t dot com. so sometimes you know what you know and sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes as the fires in theaters as everything you know. you know you think you'll fall off if you hear your right.

to say that you're really. really being you know is wrong. this past friday was international women's day to celebrate how far women have come socially politically and economically however new statistics suggest that increased opportunities for success come with hidden dangers so if you think more opportunities means a better life than everything you know is wrong joining me now is keli aboard a board a freelance journalist and contributor to the fix alter net and vice magazine the most recent piece alter net is titled addictions shrinking. gender gap keli welcome hello thanks for joining us so what are the new statistics showing us about as the gender gap in terms of opportunity and income shrinks certainly has over the last five decades anyway. the impact that that's having on wood. well fifty

six from around the world are showing a variety of different things. in terms of mental illness and mental health in countries that are more affluent women tend to have far more mental health issues and men as well but the gender gap there would be women presenting with a lot more mental health issues in terms of addiction and alcohol as this same thing tends to be two and they're likely true and they're likely related in the united states the gender gap between men and women using a list that substances and abusing alcohol has shrunk since the seventy's and eighty's. as well as in other developed countries this tends to be true women use illicit drugs. not quite the rate that men do but much closer than in developing nations is that is it possible this is a function of access and means rather than an actual change in

a person's life in other words women no have enough money to be to afford to be able to go to a psychotherapist or get diagnosed or they have enough money to be able to afford alcohol or drugs were as when they were basically the property of their husbands who were staying at home all the time they didn't have access to either of those things is it that or is it that the circumstances are actually driving women to become a little more you know to have more mental health challenges and to be more. more vulnerable more addicted. well i mean i think that's a great question and addiction and mental health are obviously very complicated issues social agenda attic cultural but i think it's probably a little bit of both i think that in more developed countries where gender roles tend to be more liberal where women are working women are outside of the home women you know how volition and can conduct their own finances that they would tend to just have more access. but i also think that there tends to be

a difference in the kinds of drugs and that and alcohol that women are abusing more than men so we have rates of women abusing tranquilizers which would be closely associated with mental health issues higher in developed countries reaching in sometimes surpassing the rate of tranquilizer youth in men. in traditional societies if you look at. early agricultural certainly pre-agricultural societies all around the world current indigenous societies aboriginal societies around the world what you find is that both women and men typically work two three four hours a day and spend most of the rest of their time you know providing for food and shelter and spend most of the rest of their time with family and friends and community and now in this post industrial world women and men are doing this go go go a tim twelve hour day seven days a week more and more crazy work could it be the we've just stepped beyond you know

what we spent one hundred sixty five thousand years evolving toward our evolutionary norm of of being tight with family and friends and going into the workplace both for women and for men you said women's rates of mental illness and drug addiction are hitting that of men's could be the both of us are being made crazy by society both genders. i mean i think that so when you're focal point doubtless in more traditional thady is the function of the family. to support or the community to support and engage with help people mentally and would therefore lower rates of mental health issues perhaps perhaps where rates of addiction in the united states you see as isolationist individuals are interacting more with technology than sometimes other human beings but i think that perhaps that could play a role that's interesting so what do we do both. well it was well i think important

thing to consider experts say across the board that women when we're trying to treat them for alcohol and drug addiction need different things than men do they need more support they need child care they need a lot of times women are reacting to past trauma that could be sexually based trauma which is far more prevalent in women who have used alcohol and drugs and it than men so i think as throughout the world and especially here in the united states we see this gender gap gap decreasing we see women using drugs and alcohol at a higher rate than they ever have before we need to feel well going one step beyond that how do we address this how do we help women in ways that perhaps are different from the way that we help men fast and kelly thanks so much for being with us today . right thank you for having me great talking.

since news broke last week about the death of venezuelan president hugo chavez as reactions to that leader's passing have been pouring in while many would argue that chavez did incredible things for venezuelans people there are those especially here in the united states who don't have such a rosy view of the former leader that's where associated press business reporter pamela sampson comes in in a piece was tuesday speaking about the legacy of chavez samson wrote for the a.p. chavez invested venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state run food markets cash benefits for poor families free health clinics and education programs but those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering middle eastern cities including the world's tallest building in dubai and plans for branches of the louvre and the guggenheim museum in abu dhabi. you heard that right sampson appears to be arguing

the providing healthcare education and employment opportunities for millions of people is far less important than flaunting your wealth for the entire world to see with fancy buildings that the entire population out of crippling poverty is no thing compared to building a big glitzy building or opening up a new museum. if these were the feelings of just one journalist we could move on but the problem is that these sentiments are echoed throughout our country oil corporations have become so powerful and influential in our society that the idea of nationalizing our oil and using the money from it the way the venezuelans the saudis and the norwegians among others do to help the american people is according to could mention all wisdom crazy and absurd this is the reason why up until chavez is to earth but the us and venezuela have frosty relations at best chavez his decision to use his nation's vast sums of oil wealth to help his people instead

of adding to the bottom line of corporations irked many us politicians and government officials but what's really going on here why does so many americans believe that corporate luxury is more important than life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a society achieving safety and security is step one for hundreds of thousands of years humans achieve safety and security by giving it to each other and getting it in return it's what we did and similarly the more safety and security you gave to others the higher status you achieved archaeologists call societies like this potlatch societies or obligation societies as status is gained by giving away as much as you can for example a giant parties called potlatch is this is only a slight variation on the model but otoh chavez used in venezuela and it's why is

people loved him so much. by using his nation's oil wealth to give venezuelans access to education healthcare improved housing and better living conditions chavez gave safety and security to millions of people and resume rewarded with high levels of admiration and respect unfortunately our modern society has become infected with a sort of cultural mental illness. the late professor of native american studies at u.c. davis checked for us told me his people call it what to go by native american word meaning cannibal or thief. in western society we get safety and security for making money and then using that money to buy goods and services more goods and services you produce the more you are paid the more you are paid the more you were able to achieve health and safety and security this is the model that america has today and it's extremely mentally ill formants why some billionaires say things like oh i have thirty billion once i get forty billion then i'll be happy that's why

americans might think that shiny skyscrapers are more important than the social welfare of an entire nation but let's look at the numbers behind these two approaches to safety and security before i go chavez was president according to a british newspaper the guardian unemployment in venezuela was at fifteen percent as of two thousand and nine it was a seven point six percent before over chavez was president extreme poverty was at twenty three point four percent as of two thousand and eleven it was at eight point five percent meanwhile here in the united states millions of americans are consistently unemployed each year and in the last fifteen years extreme poverty in the united states has doubled. but number of u.s. households living on less than two dollars per person a day which is known as the extreme poverty line more than doubled between one thousand nine hundred six and two thousand and eleven from six hundred thirty six thousand to one point four six million americans according to the latest census

bureau data a staggering fifty percent of americans are either living below the low are either low income or living below the poverty the numbers here paint a pretty clear picture of the chavez approach to governance and his robin hood asking mental mentality work for venezuela during fourteen years in office chavez managed to drastically improve the lives of venezuelans while rebuilding an entire nation he knew that the best way to achieve safety and security was not by constructing lavish buildings but through maintaining a strong social safety net and ensuring the venezuelans had the resources that they needed to survive. america should take a page out of the chavez playbook every american should have a comfortable baseline from which to step out into the world and survive and prosper that means protecting this nation social safety net and strengthening

programs like social security and medicare it also means raising the minimum wage and making a living wage so that americans can abroad themselves and for and for their families country is only as strong as its people its time that america was strong. and that's the way it is tonight monday march eleventh two thousand and thirteen for more information check out our website the tom hartman dot com free speech that org. and hulu dot com slash the big picture and don't forget the marker see begins when you get out there get back to your it.

let me let me respond or don't let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our night. to do this right it was a space thing there again security we're being talked about surveillance. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours. from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more cattery down here the

bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for a snowball fight. to say it is jennifer pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of in life will be is largely a driving license of emergency vehicles are exceptions.