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Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

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Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#351

Post by prof-dr-ir »

johndevor wrote: post #181
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't see a lot of people talking about this disaster getting no coverage Oh my god this is the only thing people are talking about. Please don’t do this. Let’s talk about the actual disaster instead of spinning up another useless whirlpool of meta-debate.

The NYT does not have this barely at all. There should be a giant picture of the mushroom cloud on their front page to reflect the severity (potential or real) of the situation. It's shameful.

I think that it is the NYT's policy to not put giant pictures of potential disasters on their front page to avoid being sensationalist.

I would not fault you for disagreeing with that style. Most importantly I think that it risks missing important events: at first they are either not verified (or not verified to be important, like here) and a few days later they are no longer newsworthy. But at least it seems that there is some logic to it.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#352

Post by xxpor »

shadowgovt wrote: post #197
Julesman wrote: post #108

I see a lot of these responses starting with "The reason." I don't see many people talking about institutional bias. I don't see a lot of people talking about this disaster getting no coverage while the media is stuck on shooting down balloons. I don't see many people talking about the fact that if this was anywhere close to wealthy people that it would have been headline news. I don't see many talking about the abso…

> This is a total disaster that will impact the health of people in the area for generations. [citation needed]. Vinyl chloride breaks down quickly (especially when it's all set on fire) and doesn't bio-accumulate. That's why the OSHA standards for it are for career-long exposure. Its byproducts are also pretty volatile and should burn through biology and dilute quickly. There's no 4-alarms here because it's not a 4-…

Right. It's essentially impossible to be both highly reactive and build up persistently in the environment. It'd just react!

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#353

Post by avidphantasm »

nabla9 wrote: post #330
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tad of Yes, Minister wisdom [1]: "The Four Stage Strategy: Stage 1. Nothing is going to happen. Stage 2. Something may happen, but we should do nothing about it. Stage 3. Maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do. Stage 4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes. The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.

And Biden and Buttigieg didn’t make it a priority to re-implement the law while they had control of both houses, and instead shoved an unfair contract down railroad workers throats.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#354

Post by s1artibartfast »

seafoam wrote: post #201
mbostleman wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm finding it extremely hard to separate signal from noise in the social and legacy media spheres right now. I'm waiting for things to settle.

Yeah, I used to do that. Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until it is too late. If you are potentially impacted, you have to do your own homework, and learn from your mistakes.

I think it is still a good heuristic that most people should follow.

Step 1: do I need to have an informed opinion

Step 2: Do I need that opinion NOW

Step 3: WHAT do I need to know NOW

There is a vast amount of conspiracy theorizing that people could avoid by following this approach.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#356

Post by xxpor »

alldayeveryday wrote: post #83
Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

Before everyone loses there mind, because this story has oddly been on blast 2 weeks after the incident: VC is a gas a room temperature. None of the VC cars were ruptured in the crash. They were vented and ignited by workers to avoid explosion. Burning VC produces carbon oxides, HCl, phosgene, and formaldehyde. HCl, Phosgene become hydrochloric acid in the atmosphere. The total amount of hydrochloric acid this could…

The EPA famously declared the air safe following 9/11. Their credibility is, at least for me personally, negligible. The flint water crisis and the Gold King Mine are other examples. People are rightfully worried and angered. Your dismissal of them as "losing their mind" or "hysterical" is at best tone deaf, and at worst an intentional tactic to downplay the event. Appeals to governmental authority falls flat when th…

The EPA has absolutely nothing to do with Flint.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#357

Post by gowings97 »

nabla9 wrote: post #330
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tad of Yes, Minister wisdom [1]: "The Four Stage Strategy: Stage 1. Nothing is going to happen. Stage 2. Something may happen, but we should do nothing about it. Stage 3. Maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do. Stage 4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes. The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.

Fair point, but from what I've read the preliminary cause identified pertains to an axle (not braking) issue?

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#358

Post by LarryMullins »

shadowgovt wrote: post #313
LarryMullins wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, there's no particular need to make the list of chemicals public Fitting username, I didn't realize you were a novelty account.

The username actually refers to an old They Might Be Giants song. They lyrics of the song tell the tale of a man who goes through life being paranoid about a massive, organized government operation spying on him personally. In the end, he's murdered and disappeared by his town's local mayor because he's inconvenient, the mayor's just a thug, and there is no shadowy overarching organization watching over him. People b…

It's certainty a fitting username for somebody who thinks the government should keep people in the dark.

> "In general, there's no particular need to make the list of chemicals public."

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#359

Post by stolenmerch »

nabla9 wrote: post #330
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tad of Yes, Minister wisdom [1]: "The Four Stage Strategy: Stage 1. Nothing is going to happen. Stage 2. Something may happen, but we should do nothing about it. Stage 3. Maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do. Stage 4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes. The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.

Sure, but it's a little more complicated than that. A 2015 act of Congress mandated that the Department of Transportation repeal the braking requirement if an analysis showed more costs than benefits. The act was mostly to address high profile oil tanker derailments, shipments which peaked around 2014. The Trump administration concluded, probably mistakenly, that an cost-benefit analysis justified it revocation. Of course there was much lobbying by the railroad and oil industries.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s department has no plans to reinstate an Obama-era rail safety rule aimed at expanding the use of better braking technology, even though a former federal safety official recently warned Congress that without the better brakes.

The Biden administration has had every opportunity to reinstate the safety rule in the past two years.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2018/12/20/trump-ad...

https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-tra...

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#360

Post by mkr-hn »

rootusrootus wrote: post #346
mkr-hn wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it's not a thing. It is, in fact, a thing. I've heard it and said it often enough to be sure it's not so uncommon that it's reasonable to say it's not a thing. You also need to keep in mind what Google Ngram is . https://books.google.com/ngrams/info >> "When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., "British E…

Much like how irregardless is now considered a thing. One of these days "mute point" will be a thing too :). I better not look that up, maybe it already is. I often wonder what people think they're saying when they misuse phrases like that.

Grow weary (tired of) and grow wary (suspicious of/concerned about) are different things though. Irregardless is a modification of the already useful regardless. I'm not sure how they're comparable.
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