Is life better than 50 years ago?
Half of all Australians think life is better than it was 50 years ago, according to a recent survey, with 33 per cent of the those surveyed believing it was worse.
The findings come from a global survey of 43,000 citizens of 38 countries including Australia, which found that those most positive about life today compared to half a century ago live on Australia's doorstep in the Asia Pacific.
There were big discrepancies by age group in Australia compared to other countries: 63 per of those aged 18-29 believed that life was better today compared to only 41 per cent of those aged 50+. This was the second biggest differential between young and old of any of the 38 countries that participated in the survey, behind only the United Kingdom.
What do you think? Is life today better than 50 years ago? What factors do you think have made life better or worse over the last 50 years?
Expert warns that Fukushima fuel cores have “melted into the groundwater”
Friday, May 20, 2016 by Greg White
March 11, 2016 marked the fifth year anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. Although the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has taken strides to decommission the power plant, they have yet to locate the missing nuclear reactor fuel, suggesting the cores have completely melted into the groundwater.
In 2011, a 9.0 earthquake rocked the coast of Japan, which spurred a tsunami that crippled three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Since there was no water to keep the reactors cool, they began to overheat and melt.
The melted fuel rods gave off hydrogen gas, which caused all three units to explode. More than five years later, no one is sure how deeply the cores melted into the Fukushima site. Remote control robots can’t even withstand the dangerously high radiation levels.
Radiation on the riseAfter the the third explosion occurred at the Fukushima power plant on March 15, 2011 in Unit 2, the radiation detected at the power plant was 400,000 μSv/h (microsieverts per hour), which can be lethal to humans if they’re exposed for long enough. To put this into perspective, 100,000 microsieverts per hour is enough to cause severe radiation poisoning.
In addition to contaminating the surrounding air, water and soil, radiation bleeding from the power plant has tainted shipments of vegetables and fish. Even in 2016, there have been reports of radioactive tea and seafood shipped from Japan.
TEPCO and the Japanese government have continued to undermine the severity of the disaster, while the mainstream media has been virtually silent in regards to the ongoing debacle.
‘Chernobyl on steroids’Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer and founder of Fairewinds Nuclear Energy Education in Burlington, Vermont, told media just a few days after the catastrophe that Fukushima was “Chernobyl on steroids.”
The reason for the comparison between Chernobyl and Fukushima is that the TEPCO nuclear reactors’ cores melted to the ground. More than five years later, many experts suspect the cores have melted through the concrete floors and contaminated the groundwater seeping into the power plant from nearby mountain runoffs.
At present, approximately 400 tons of groundwater flood the radioactive reactor basements each day. TEPCO’s only solution to the problem is to store the tainted water in a growing number of tanks. As of fall of 2015, almost 800,000 tons of radioactive water were being stored in more than 1,000 industrial tanks near the Fukushima site, reports Earthfiles.
Gunderson recently traveled to the Fukushima Prefecture for a month to gauge radiation levels in parking lots, sidewalks, grocery stories and nearby wildlife.
Commenting on the gravity of the situation, Gunderson said, “Scientists and engineers knew exactly where the nuclear core was at Chernobyl a year later. But not Fukushima! We’ve got three nuclear cores that are in direct contact with groundwater. Now that means the containment broke and water is coming in and there is contaminating the ground water. So, clearly the liquid releases from Fukushima are way, way more severe than Chernobyl.”
https://www.newstarget.com/2016-05-20-fukushima-fuel-cores-have-melted-into-the-groundwater-warns-expert.html
The Pew Research Center recently asked 43,000 respondents in 38 countries whether life is better today than 50 years ago. Back in 1967, the Cold War was tense, the United States was facing widespread riots, the war in Vietnam was escalating and Israel fought the Six Day War with its neighbours. In those days, somebody commuting to work would not be surrounded by people staring at their smartphones and hooked up headphones, while something like the internet was totally beyond comprehension. The research found a deep sense of division, despite all of the advancements made over the past five decades.
Considering that their country was being torn apart by a brutal war in the late 60s, it comes as little surprise that 88 per cent of people in Vietnam consider themselves better off today. Pew found that countries that are positive about their economic situation tend to be more upbeat today than 50 years ago. That can be seen in India which has seen its economy develop rapidly in recent years. 17 per cent of people in India say things are worse off today than in 1967 while 69 per cent think things are better. South Korea and Japan, two other countries who underwent massive economic transformations in the past 50 years, are also very positive.
In the United States, things are gloomier with 41 per cent of people feeling worse off today. France and Italy are also negative with 46 and 50 per cent of respondents feeling worse off now than in 1967 respectively.
https://www.statista.com/chart/12163/is-life-better-or-worse-than-50-years-ago/
Life is so much better for me than it was for my mother or grandmother. I don’t mean just now either. It was extremely hard work for women in past generations with no washing machine or mod cons.
Entertainment is abundant now. Movies are brilliant with the technology that movie makers have at their disposal. You can even watch recent films on big screens at home.
Modern technology is wonderful. If you are not able to get about much then the internet is a godsend.
Travel would be too hard for me so being able to visit destinations online makes me an armchair traveller. There is so much to read. You just type in a word or phrase and up pops a myriad of things to read and even research that would not be possible 50, 30, or even less years ago.
I often imagine what my mother would think if she was alive today. She would love the modern TV with the big colour screen and entertainment at the push of a button. Her life would be so much easier as well giving her more free time.
Lucky to be alive in 2017!