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L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

latimes.com

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Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#121

Post by foobarian »

bzbarsky wrote: post #118
macspoofing wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>yet, we're somehow entitled to any riches they may have left behind The kids of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are getting a miniscule amount of their fathers' wealth - how is that possible if supposedly they have a right to it? So you have it all backwards. The descendent are not entitled to the wealth of their parents or ancestors. The right to property (including disbursement through inheritance) is given to those…

This is very country-dependent. In a number of European countries, the children are in fact entitled to some minimal share of the wealth of their parents (in France this share is between 50 and 75%, depending on the number of children for example), and what Buffet and Gates are doing would be illegal, as I understand it.

I would not call 50-75% minimal :) Though I imagine you meant "minimum" - somewhat subtle difference.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#122

Post by x87678r »

While this dumping is horrific you also have to understand how beneficial DDT was:

> Between 1945 and 1965, DDT saved millions-even tens of millions-of lives around the world, perhaps more than any other man-made drug or chemical before or since.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/07/02/the-mosquito-k...

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#123

Post by [deleted] »

relix wrote: post #10
dusted wrote: post #2

It's amazing how little some people have cared, this was not that they didn't know, they certainly knew, otherwise, it'd not have resorted to hiding the stuff by dumping it into the sea.. It'd not be unreasonable to hunt down those responsible, and make them pay for cleaning it up. Sure, they're probably dead by now, but they probably left a lot of money. I don't think it's even relevant that "it was not illegal at t…

One of the first paragraphs of the article: at the time it was considered dumping the barrels in the deep ocean was sufficient because the vast amount of water would dilute the chemical. The shortcut they took was that they did not go that far into the ocean but instead kept much closer to shore and dumped the barrels there, as well as punctured them when they floated. The discovery that's lamented is the "shortcut d…

[deleted]

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#124

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

tsdlts wrote: post #109
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. Where's the line between knowingingly circumventing the spirit of the law by following the letter. For example Teflon has been replaced with chemically similar compounds that just aren't Teflon. It'll take decades for the studies to come in, in the mean time every human is being exposed to these chemicals in significant amounts. Then we have bpa, Neonicotinoids and other pesticides. We have cases…

Isn't this a regulation failure though? The fact that these chemicals who we don't know the full effects of are let to market is the problem. Preventative measures make more sense than criminalizing things only when we find out there's a problem. Also, what if the company has been acquired since then, is it still on the hook? What if they've since switched markets entirely? What if the company disbanded and the found…

It is 100% a regulation failure. The longer that companies are allowed to pervert government for private gain the louder and more extreme the demands from the disaffected will become.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#125

Post by bzbarsky »

foobarian wrote: post #121
bzbarsky wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very country-dependent. In a number of European countries, the children are in fact entitled to some minimal share of the wealth of their parents (in France this share is between 50 and 75%, depending on the number of children for example), and what Buffet and Gates are doing would be illegal, as I understand it.

I would not call 50-75% minimal :) Though I imagine you meant "minimum" - somewhat subtle difference.

The distinction is ... pretty tenuous in many cases (e.g. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/minimal meaning 1). But yes, "minimum" may have been a better choice.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#127

Post by Izkata »

LittlePeter wrote: post #34
gattilorenz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, DDT is like "IBM". It might mean "International Business Machines", but many people wouldn't immediately recognize it unless the acronym is used (while the opposite is true: if you know what the acronym stands for, you usually know the acronym as well). And I'm sure Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane wouldn't add much for most people that read a newspaper :)

Even from the context, it was not clear to me what DDT was. I suspected it was some chemical. I would have appreciated a sentence or two explaining why it is bad and what it does. What IBM is would typically be clear from the context: "IBM reported record loss in 2nd quarter of 2020".

Some decades ago, DDT was practically its brand name in the US, because of how well it worked on mosquitos. People used it in their backyards.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#128

Post by wing-_-nuts »

billyhoffman wrote: post #67
dusted wrote: post #2

It's amazing how little some people have cared, this was not that they didn't know, they certainly knew, otherwise, it'd not have resorted to hiding the stuff by dumping it into the sea.. It'd not be unreasonable to hunt down those responsible, and make them pay for cleaning it up. Sure, they're probably dead by now, but they probably left a lot of money. I don't think it's even relevant that "it was not illegal at t…

> I don't think it's even relevant that "it was not illegal at the time" The idea that a government can make something illegal and retroactively punish previous offenders is so colossally bad that in the United States the Founding Fathers wrote a prohibition against it into the Constitution. It's not an amendment, such as the right to free speech. They wrote it into Article 1 . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_f…

Corporations are not people. They should be liable for the ongoing harm they are doing because of their previous actions.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#129

Post by formerly_proven »

tsdlts wrote: post #55
dusted wrote: post #2

It's amazing how little some people have cared, this was not that they didn't know, they certainly knew, otherwise, it'd not have resorted to hiding the stuff by dumping it into the sea.. It'd not be unreasonable to hunt down those responsible, and make them pay for cleaning it up. Sure, they're probably dead by now, but they probably left a lot of money. I don't think it's even relevant that "it was not illegal at t…

"I don't think it's even relevant that it was not legal at the time". Imagine setting the precedent that the government can unilaterally decide to steal your property based on something your great grandfather did which wasn't even a crime. Do you not see how such a power might be abused in future when you can retroactively punish people for laws where the ink has yet to dry and that they never even committed?

Does ex post facto even apply to fining business? Doubtful. It doesn't even apply in civil matters against people.

Re: L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

#130

Post by josefx »

macspoofing wrote: post #77
dusted wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed how we generally do not bear any responsible for the wrongs of our parents? For instance, we are not forced to pay their debts, yet, we're somehow entitled to any riches they may have left behind? Seems asymmetrical to me. I'd say, yeah, I guess if you accepted the money, you should accept at least some of the responsibility for how they were amassed.

>yet, we're somehow entitled to any riches they may have left behind The kids of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are getting a miniscule amount of their fathers' wealth - how is that possible if supposedly they have a right to it? So you have it all backwards. The descendent are not entitled to the wealth of their parents or ancestors. The right to property (including disbursement through inheritance) is given to those…

> The kids of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are getting a miniscule amount of their fathers' wealth

Define "miniscule".

> how is that possible if supposedly they have a right to it?

Tax evasion 101

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