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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#81

Post by _-___________-_ »

dfxm12 wrote: post #76
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

It just goes to show the priorities of the electorate. If one assumes people vote in their own best interest, the question then becomes, what are they interested in? Maybe not the physical health of themselves or their children...

Nobody runs on a platform of contaminating the drinking water and then covering it up, so you can hardly say that this outcome represents the interests of the electorate.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#82

Post by bradstewart »

CptFribble wrote: post #67

This problem has been brewing for a long time, and is likely worse than any of us can grasp. Here's an enlightening read: (warning: it's long) https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-b...

There's a movie, Dark Waters, about this as well. Great watch.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/

EDIT: Spelling.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#84

Post by freehunter »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #81
dfxm12 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just goes to show the priorities of the electorate. If one assumes people vote in their own best interest, the question then becomes, what are they interested in? Maybe not the physical health of themselves or their children...

Nobody runs on a platform of contaminating the drinking water and then covering it up, so you can hardly say that this outcome represents the interests of the electorate.

Plus there are a million things to worry about and everyone prioritizes the issues differently. I don’t want to drink water that will give me cancer in 50 years, but if the only candidate running on a platform to clean the water also wants to [insert some policy I strongly disagree with], they’re probably not going to get my vote.

Not to mention the entire USA, all 330 million of us, only get ONE president, each state only gets ONE governor, etc. Its hard to say “the US doesn’t want [blank]” when all of the candidates policies need to match such a large and diverse group of people.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#85

Post by nck4222 »

Frost1x wrote: post #57
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

>Democracy is mostly a facade

in the US anyway.

But I agree, the US government isn't functioning 1) as originally intended or 2) for the benefit of the majority of the people it 'represents.'

Although it's worth noting that 'as the forefathers intended' carries more weight than it typically should. Their intentions were mostly based on philosophical guess work, as they didn't have a whole lot of empirical data or existing republics/democracies to base their new government on.

It honestly seems like like they intended the US government to function a lot more similarly to the EU than what we currently have. Although the EU has its own sets of problems, but at the very least seems more representative of the people than the US government.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#86

Post by amalcon »

Frost1x wrote: post #57
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

Campaign duration limits run into the same free-speech issues that campaign finance limits run into. It's all well and good to restrict what the office holder is doing, but how do you stop "unrelated third parties" from "expressing their genuine political beliefs" without simultaneously stopping real unrelated third parties from actually expressing their genuine political beliefs?

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#88

Post by chrshawkes »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

This sounds very much like something communist Russia did during the Chernobyl incident. Why are our governments so corrupt?

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#89

Post by anoplus »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #80
anoplus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I think modern crowd-funding is inherently designed for trust, otherwise people won't fund. Taxes are not an option for the payer - for a reason - but still I think its lacking on the trust element, which is fundamental to a functioning society. Maybe then the crowd-funded bodies are meant to keep an eye on the government to do its job.

Trust? How many crowd funded campaigns fail to deliver on their products? Even to their initial backers?

Yes, but at least people can choose whether to back or not.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#90

Post by samatman »

anoplus wrote: post #28

I would be interested to know what is the current trust level of the residents on the gov and EPA in the different states. Not far from my living area a new gas rig started operating where the gov, contractor company and EPA (EPA of my country that is) argue the chemical emissions doesn't pose health risks (same for sea water pollution risk), while self-funded environmental organizations argue otherwise and show inco…

Air-quality safety (among other things) is assured by the EPA, and it's done a lot to undermine that trust in the last couple of decades.

Electronics safety is assured by UL, a private company. To date, they've maintained the public's trust in their services.

If Consumer Reports publishes an exposé of UL taking kickbacks to certify substandard equipment, I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a competitor.

With the EPA, I mean... I can't vote out the leadership of the EPA. I can very indirectly vote for a change there, and hope it happens, if that vote happens to align with my other interest, but there's no granularity, no way to hit them in their pocketbook, which I line once a year regardless of my feelings on the matter.

Now, there are some immediate differences between the two, which are obvious enough that I'm not going to bother elucidating them. But it's an instructive comparison. I'd say the UL model is underutilized.

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