Radiation leaking from American-designed reactors has made its way into Northwest milk and Northeast rain. Nowhere near enough to pose an immediate threat to Americans, say public officials. Yet the nuclear poison is wreaking havoc on Japan, and it is traveling great distances.

Officials have repeated two messages since day one of this tragedy. First, there’s no cause for alarm. Second, this will not alter government’s plan to subsidize more nuclear reactors.

These points anchored the company line before we had any idea what was happening at ground zero. It looks like investors are assured that nukes will continue fueling corporate profits, regardless of their inherent risks to public safety, environmental health, and government budgets.

Our tiny herd of dairy goats in the Pacific Northwest is probably a wee bit radioactive now. The kids that were just born are drinking milk that’s a little radiated, as will our family. Presumably the same fate awaits vegetables from our garden.

It’s comforting to hear that hazards from this exposure are less than those associated with sitting in front of a computer, flying in airplanes, or (my personal favorite) spending time near rocks. It’s also hard not to be skeptical when decision-makers seem less focused on public interests than corporate profits. Indeed, today’s title of “public official” is becoming an oxymoron.

When tragedy strikes, we want to think otherwise. We want to believe that conservative and progressive leaders care about safeguarding our environment. It remains to be seen whether enough members of both camps will join together to make sure that environmental protection is adequately funded.

We see the future of failed protection in the mass evacuation of Japanese citizens. North America’s phobias about food, air, and water quality are just a tiny taste of the reality across the Pacific. And the shared lessons involve more than flawed assumptions about nuclear power. The fallout from this disaster offers a broader wake up call.

Profiteers running the global economy have loaded Asia with pollutants like mercury, sulfates, ozone, and black carbon. Much of this mess pours into the atmosphere while making stuff that’s sold in America, especially products made in China. Many of us once worked in manufacturing jobs here that were exported to Asia by corporations seeking to avoid our environmental laws. Studies conducted at the University of Washington and elsewhere show that prevailing winds carry the blowback home.

We are all connected -- East and West, conservative and progressive and whatever. The connections are both enlightening and sobering. This column was written on a laptop made by Toshiba, for example, the corporation that built one of the failed GE-designed reactors in Fukushima.

Seeking deeper connections, I replay my meeting of a young Buddhist monk, eight weeks ago outside my bookstore. Shinko knew little English, and I knew no Japanese. Yet when we bowed in greeting, hands positioned in prayer, the gesture affirmed a mutual respect that transcended words. It felt spiritual, superatomic.

Later I learned that Shinko’s family temple is located in Fukushima, and that he returned to Japan one day before the big earthquake. Neither of the Buddhist priests who were with Shinko when I met him has heard from him as of this writing. I learned this from Jikan, a resident priest at the Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon.

Jikan recently returned to my bookstore looking for the Gospel of Thomas – a collection of sayings believed by some to be the words of Jesus. Before letting it go, I copied a verse that’s repeated almost verbatim in the gospels of Matthew and Luke: “A servant cannot serve two masters, for he will honor one and disdain the other.”

For some people, perhaps bowing affirms a common sense of servanthood that honors the gift of all life. That’s how it felt with Shinko, even though we were raised in different traditions.

At other times, the custom seems more like mimicked social formality. A handshake can mean much or little, after all.

I wonder at the difference as I look at photos of bowing officials with the Tokyo Electric Power Company -- the private utility that operates the Fukushima nuclear plant. Tepco has a track record of safety breaches, and regulators have had cozy relations with the corporation. Some things went very wrong because servants dishonored the public. The company’s stock has plummeted, yet many observers expect Japan’s government to bail it out.

These fallen relations are global, though customs vary for dealing with the consequences. In America, the company that operated the oil rig that exploded last year, killing 11 people and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, gave its executives bonuses for "the best year in safety performance in our company's history."

Apparently, the execs at Transocean Ltd. think they are entitled to take a bow. A similar hubris seems to govern General Electric, which last year amassed $14.2 billion in worldwide profits, yet paid no U.S. corporate taxes.

Is our society in servitude to economic predators who would choose ecocide rather than come about face? If so, no trickle-down profits will save us from the shameful freefall.

An earlier version of this post was published as a column in the Cannon Beach Citizen. It has been cross-posted at FireDogLake.com.