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Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

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Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#201

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mschuster91 wrote: post #111
brightball wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with almost anger at the suggestion.

It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. Simply said, wages are so low you can't really save up for anything - like what, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? Back in the Ford era, it was at least commonly understood common sense that people need to be able to afford products. Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and…

> It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt.

The system is headed for feudalism, where majority of the population will never own land/home, and will have lesser rights than those that do.

People who think this is a fantasy, should check what percentage of the population can afford a lawyer. it's like 20-30% tops

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#202

Post by dmonitor »

rescripting wrote: post #158
kneebonian wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you could argue that part of this was exactly the result of government intervention is one of the strikes that railway workers were working for was better safety rules and more time off and then Congress forced the strike to end.

Government intervention and government regulation are not the same thing.

most people against regulation are not against it because they think fewer rules is inherently better. this is a strawman. the strongest argument against regulation is that bad regulation can make a situation worse. the government preventing a strike is a bad regulation.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#203

Post by brightball »

paulmd wrote: post #190
brightball wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with almost anger at the suggestion.

I think there's pushback because it's kind of a "just buy more money" solution. On the whole, the problem isn't that people are buying $70k trucks and escalades that's keeping them poor. It's not having enough income. The difference personally between $70k and $90k is massive and the difference between $90k and $120k is massive. That's the difference between underfunding my retirement and no savings and still being f…

Just buy more money isn’t an accurate summary. If anything, Ramsey’s advice is aimed to helping people climb out of the pit.

Saving $1,000 for an emergency fund. Paying down debts one at a time with the “debt snowball” approach.

His advice doesn’t appeal to people who are making a lot of money at all and most of the push back is from people who will give you speeches about compounding interest rather than paying debt.

“Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.”

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#204

Post by danaris »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #135
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”At least it's easier to hold public officials accountable - you can get rid of them by voting - than to hold companies accountable.” I disagree because most of the public officials who would be accountable are appointed to these positions, not directly elected. The representatives we elect - mayor, house representative, senator, etc. - all have a good degree of distance from direct accountability. Plus, I feel like…

Those are solvable problems if we care to fix them. In what way can we fix corporate decision making when we have no say in how they operate except through the same government you're already saying we can't hold accountable?

Ah, you see, it's easy—you just have to have a few hundred million dollars, so you can buy a bunch of shares in the company. Then they might actually listen to you. /s

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#205

Post by nickjj »

YPCrumble wrote: post #187
bombcar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cube law thing - you can work out how much "air" there is for everything to spread into, and how much "stuff" there is but basically, the further away you get the rapidly it goes down in hazard. The western wildfires were absolutely mind-glowingly immense in ways we don't really deal with normally. Five tank cars is 30,000 gallons * 5 = 150,000 gallons, roughly 600 cubic meters. Safe exposure is 0.1 part per m…

This is a great answer, thank you. However this assumed the atmosphere is 45 km high and it seems very unlikely that these gases are light enough to go that high. If you assume the gases only go 1km in the air wouldn’t that assume a radius roughly 40x your initial estimate, or at least 1800 km to be within the 1 ppm threshold.

I wish more concrete data were shared. Having half the US affected is a big deal.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#206

Post by refurb »

marcusverus wrote: post #128
refurb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen chloride is not a chemical weapon.

> Primary forms of chemical weapons include nerve agents, blister agents, choking agents, and blood agents... Blood agents interfere with the body’s ability to use and transfer oxygen through the bloodstream. Blood agents are generally inhaled and then absorbed into the bloodstream. Common forms of blood agents include Hydrogen Chloride and Cyanogen Chloride. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Chemical-Weapons-Fr…

Wow, that's really inaccurate!

Hydrogen chloride does not interfere with transporting oxygen. I think someone made a typo and mean hydrogen cyanide (cyanogen chloride does interfere with oxygen transport).

Hydrogen chloride is found in pool chemicals, toilet bowl cleaner. Pretty sure we don't use chemical weapons to clean our toilets.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#207

Post by croutonwagon »

kibwen wrote: post #131

My brother lives less than 15 miles downwind from the site of the disaster. He's young, just graduated from trade school, found a welding job in the area and brought his wife and one year-old daughter. In 50 years I'm sure we'll consider this whole region a superfund site and hand out pennies to the people whose lives were completely upended as a result. It's a travesty how this has been handled. Massively rich corpo…

I was watching the Ohio governor guarantee the safety of the water and environment there and was just thinking to myself

"This guy will end up eating these words" as well as "this is why i dont like politicians".

He kept quoting the EPA, even after the interviewer mentioned the EPA certificiations didnt consider all the chemicals released. He still kept drilling the science says its fine. As if health science understanding and discoveries arent paved in blood at this point.

If i lived int he region i would probably be considering moving.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#208

Post by nonethewiser »

mattacular wrote: post #82

I see all the staunch supporters of deregulation across the board that normally come out of the woodwork on HN are strangely absent.

Did this happen due to decreased regulation? Or in spite it is of current regulations?

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#209

Post by aphexddb »

Some of the best reporting on this with actual data is coming from social media (as usual), versus from official sources. Here is someone reviewing the manifest of chemicals and number of spilled train cars: https://www.tiktok.com/@nickdrom/video/7199486059212868910

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#210

Post by nonethewiser »

rescripting wrote: post #158
kneebonian wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you could argue that part of this was exactly the result of government intervention is one of the strikes that railway workers were working for was better safety rules and more time off and then Congress forced the strike to end.

Government intervention and government regulation are not the same thing.

The government set new labor requirements on the rail industry. How is that not regulation?
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