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English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

theguardian.com

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Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#31

Post by pjc50 »

nlperguiy wrote: post #8

How would there be a capitalist incentive not to do these things? Do we really need regulations? Why do these things happen? Why do people think it is acceptable to pollute?

I'm never sure whether people making posts like this are:

- really this naive

- just bright high school kids

- simply trolling

- completely blinded by doctrine ("capitalism is the supreme good, so how is it possible that it is producing a bad outcome? Something must be wrong with the universe")

- actually a google AI trying to learn about the world from first principles

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#32

Post by Shivetya »

nlperguiy wrote: post #8

How would there be a capitalist incentive not to do these things? Do we really need regulations? Why do these things happen? Why do people think it is acceptable to pollute?

this isn't just an issue of capitalism, pollution in communist countries was as bad if not worse as controls were either non existent or just ignored.

it mostly occurs because industries move faster than the science to study the effects of the by products and the desire by politicians to push economic growth and in some cases self enrichment. then the next generation down gets the results and ends up fixing it provided their method of government allows for it.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#33

Post by titzer »

pjc50 wrote: post #28
nlperguiy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure what a capitalist incentive is, but we have plenty of ways to potentially regulate this. Are you asking about technical feasibility of finding the actors responsible for it? I was thinking, in the framework of capitalism, what would the incentive be, other than regulation, to not pollute? Why does it not work, is the incentive missing? For example, there are companies like Clean Harbors that earn billions…

> Are they earning money because regulations need to be met? Yes? If there aren't regulations, then waste will be disposed of by the cheapest method, which usually involves dumping it into the atmosphere and/or water. This is how it used to be until environmental campaigning in the 70s and 80s got the regulations introduced in the West, and far more recently in China.

> the cheapest method, which usually involves dumping it into the atmosphere and/or water

The ironic thing is that we behave exactly like bacteria and animals and all other life, which have no choice but to expel their waste products directly into the environment. Properly adapted ecosystems have mechanisms for recycling all waste.

The difference with humans is threefold:

1.) We are too many, so the capacity of the environment into which we expunge our waste products can no longer handle the volume of waste we produce, forcing us to handle it with industrial processes.

2.) We produce waste types that the environment has no natural recycling mechanisms for, such as plastic, metal, and thousands of industrially produced chemicals, not to mention nuclear waste. We have only barely scratched the surface for recycling some materials, and the rest we literally just dump into giant holes or the oceans.

3.) We are busy destroying all the ecosystems that would naturally support us and recycle our waste, not only through loss of habitat, but mass dieoffs of insects, fish, etc.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#34

Post by pjc50 »

titzer wrote: post #33
pjc50 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they earning money because regulations need to be met? Yes? If there aren't regulations, then waste will be disposed of by the cheapest method, which usually involves dumping it into the atmosphere and/or water. This is how it used to be until environmental campaigning in the 70s and 80s got the regulations introduced in the West, and far more recently in China.

> the cheapest method, which usually involves dumping it into the atmosphere and/or water The ironic thing is that we behave exactly like bacteria and animals and all other life, which have no choice but to expel their waste products directly into the environment. Properly adapted ecosystems have mechanisms for recycling all waste. The difference with humans is threefold: 1.) We are too many, so the capacity of the e…

> We are too many

Almost all natural ecosystems are death-limited, usually through some combination of predation, disease, or starvation. This was the case for humans up until about the 19th century. We've killed our predators and have to a great (but not total) extent achieved victories over disease and starvation. But if we're not to become death-limited again we must become contraception-limited.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#35

Post by wav-part »

fsloth wrote: post #14
nlperguiy wrote: post #8

How would there be a capitalist incentive not to do these things? Do we really need regulations? Why do these things happen? Why do people think it is acceptable to pollute?

"Do we really need regulations?" Yes. You need to read on industrial history if this is not obvious to you. The nature of business and industry is such that they prefer local short term optimizations. In this context an environmental hazard is not considered a concern for various reasons, including, it incurs no immediate negative impact on the factory, the impact of one factory would be insignificant because everyon…

Why does this apply to one group of people (private industry) but not the other (govt) ? Both are money-seeking.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#36

Post by pjc50 »

wav-part wrote: post #35
fsloth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do we really need regulations?" Yes. You need to read on industrial history if this is not obvious to you. The nature of business and industry is such that they prefer local short term optimizations. In this context an environmental hazard is not considered a concern for various reasons, including, it incurs no immediate negative impact on the factory, the impact of one factory would be insignificant because everyon…

Why does this apply to one group of people (private industry) but not the other (govt) ? Both are money-seeking.

Government doesn't exactly have shareholders. Although campaign funding is tending that way.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#37

Post by wav-part »

titzer wrote: post #27
damal wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different countries have different priorities. That's the good thing about sovereignty. Don't like your current government's ideas? Replace them at the next election. On the other hand, you don't like the EU's ideas? Um... good luck with that. Just be glad that the EU's been relatively benign so far.

Yeah! Don't like your country's air pollution controls? Just move next door! Problem solved. Sorry to mock you, but environmental concerns affect us all. Earth is one giant connected system; everything eventually influences everything else. It's just a matter of the latency of the connections. Pollution is something we need to tackle globally, because many types of pollutants don't break down naturally or necessarily…

Strawman. Anti-BigGovernment != Anti-Environment.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#38

Post by Scarblac »

damal wrote: post #10
jimnotgym wrote: post #3

After years of rubbish in the UK press about the impact of regulations from the EU, they can add protecting fish, bird and most likely human health to the list of 'harm' done. I'm glad the EU still cares about the environment.

Different countries have different priorities. That's the good thing about sovereignty. Don't like your current government's ideas? Replace them at the next election. On the other hand, you don't like the EU's ideas? Um... good luck with that. Just be glad that the EU's been relatively benign so far.

You personally can't change your government, you only have one vote. Many voters together can change it.

That's not really different in the EU.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#39

Post by pjc50 »

nlperguiy wrote: post #22
fsloth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do we really need regulations?" Yes. You need to read on industrial history if this is not obvious to you. The nature of business and industry is such that they prefer local short term optimizations. In this context an environmental hazard is not considered a concern for various reasons, including, it incurs no immediate negative impact on the factory, the impact of one factory would be insignificant because everyon…

> You need to read on industrial history if this is not obvious to you. I'm asking questions to learn something from the discussion. Currently, my opinion is that regulations are necessary, but perhaps they aren't, and I would like to hear why. > Think of it as an algorithmic problem - local optimization seldom leads to a global optimum. Hence, sometimes global tweaks can benefit an entire system. To me, this sounds…

> Regularizing insecticides and pesticides will most definitely increase the costs

It will decrease costs but also decrease yield.

If only one farm does this, they lose money.

If it's imposed across an economy and imports of non-compliant produce are taxed, then the reduced yield drives up prices. This is effectively the EU approach.

Re: English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal

#40

Post by orf »

wav-part wrote: post #37
titzer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Don't like your country's air pollution controls? Just move next door! Problem solved. Sorry to mock you, but environmental concerns affect us all. Earth is one giant connected system; everything eventually influences everything else. It's just a matter of the latency of the connections. Pollution is something we need to tackle globally, because many types of pollutants don't break down naturally or necessarily…

Strawman. Anti-BigGovernment != Anti-Environment.

Sure, but in reality those go hand in hand.
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