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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

#441

Post by danaris »

rodgerd wrote: post #416
danaris wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't see there being a very distinct difference between the beliefs of the left and right wings of American politics on this? You think "global oligarchy" is "apolitical", at a time when the right wing is pushing harder and harder for the very wealthy to, essentially, be able to do anything they want, while the left wing (such as it is in this country) is pushing to restrict their power and tax their weal…

While I agree that there are, in general, significant differences in positions on these things, this seems like a bad example to choose: after all, US rail workers went on strike over the safety, long hours, and being expected to work injured or sick, and President Biden signed off on laws making their strikes illegal. Unfortunately, at least in the English-speaking world, many nominal workers' parties have largely b…

Honestly, I agree with you on this; however, the grandparent didn't say "Democratic or Republican politicians," which is very much the source of the problem you describe. Their wording was "conservatives or the left", which I think it is fair to say includes the people who identify with those political orientations—and I think you'd have a hard time seriously arguing that "the left" in America, to the extent that it even exists, is not strongly in favor of labour unions and worker protections.

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

#442

Post by yamtaddle »

claytongulick wrote: post #162
unethical_ban wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, I don't see government ownership of society-critical industries with no opportunity for competition to be crazy. Tell me how you'd spin up a competing national rail line network.

Ayn Rand wrote a sci-fi/political philosophy book about this exact subject, named Atlas Shrugged. The main character in the book is a railroad executive struggling to keep her company afloat in the face of ruinous regulations that were designed to drive the rail systems towards nationalization. The flip side of course, that she fails to address completely in that book, is unethical behavior by private industry, such…

> political philosophy

Mmph.

Hm.

I guess if Dianetics is a work on metaphysics, sure.

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

#443

Post by xadhominemx »

shkkmo wrote: post #344
xadhominemx wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment referred to carcinogenicity.

Yes, it is classified as a carncinogen. > Carcinogenic classifications: EPA-K;A, IARC-1, NIOSH-Ca, NTP-K, OSHA-Ca, TLV-A1

Not from acute exposure!

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

#444

Post by t-writescode »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #400
jakelazaroff wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure how to reconcile “this is the only thing people are talking about” with “these stories have fallen off all the top news sites because nobody is clicking on them”.

This story should get more traction. It isn’t because it isn’t of general interest. Not because of a conspiracy.

This is not reflective of modern news practices. There isn’t interest because that interest hasn’t been spun up. When all attention has been pulled to manufactured stories, it’s reporters’ jobs to pull and manufacture interest into things that matter.

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

#446

Post by bakuninsbart »

briantakita wrote: post #381
olivermarks wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument against hyper capitalism causing more and more derailments is credible if you look into 'precision scheduled railroading' practices, aka shaving expense by eliminating unnecessary costs and 'optimizing Assets'. Sadly this has little to do with 'conservatives' or 'the left' and a lot more to do with our apolitical global oligarchy who own the politicians in power and many lobbying groups including 'climat…

Climate Change & the war on CO2 has sucked the oxygen out of the room wrt pollution with dangerous chemicals. Many in the environmental community are optimizing a single metric, CO2 emissions, & not focusing on the myriad of chemicals that cause widespread ecological damage. That coupled with the ongoing doomsday hysteria over CO2, it is easy to lose focus on pressing issues & the complexities in dealing with these o…

I'd be really interested in why climate change is a hysteria and not well-founded fear. Well founded studies say we are currently on track to reach 4°C higher average temperature by 2100, and a plausible rise in sea levels of that would be around 40 meters. Completely ignoring all other effects, this would be a catastrophe on a level we can hardly achieve otherwise. And 2100 isn't an end date, it would be kind of nice if the planet was usable a fair bit after that as well.

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

#447

Post by bakuninsbart »

junofan wrote: post #423
kevin_nisbet wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. This isn't really the same, but I've been thinking in simil…

You’re betting other people’s money in the second case, and they have a say.

That money was granted to them as a reward for contributing to society. Society has a say in how it can be spent.

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

#448

Post by [deleted] »

slenk wrote: post #267
Workaccount2 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the accident released a ton of nasty chemicals in one spot. However they are pretty volatile and naturally dissipate. If you see recent pictures from the crash site, nobody is wearing PPE and the EPA has deemed the area as safe to be in.

EPA also said the dust from the towers collapsing on 9/11 was safe.

[deleted]

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

#449

Post by manuelabeledo »

enriquec wrote: post #439
lynguist wrote: post #432

When I hear Ohio and trains I immediately think of the huge federal grants for building a higher speed rail line from Cleveland over Columbus to Cincinnati that were already granted. The same was granted for Wisconsin and Florida. And one by one their governors refused to use these grants to build the infrastructure, and one by one the federal grants were reassigned, until in the end Florida got 2.3 billion dollars f…

so... the grants were unnecessary? Also, how can someone see this catastrophe and still want to go with trains -- 200+ year old tech that is clearly environmentally destructive, doesn't solve last-mile, and can't be parallelized or re-routed, or even rescheduled easily

> Also, how can someone see this catastrophe and still want to go with trains

Perhaps because most of the industrialised world run tens of thousands of freight and passenger trains every day.

What happened in Ohio is not an inherent issue with trains.

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

#450

Post by manuelabeledo »

xadhominemx wrote: post #324
olivermarks wrote: post #309

Where are the environmentalists? This is a huge catastrophe that will have long term repercussions across a wide area. Are all the climate change organizations/lobbyists actually corporate sponsored and don't want to rock the boat? There is little information on why so many trains with hazardous cargos are derailing in north America. This could be sabotage by malevolent actors.

> This is a huge catastrophe that will have long term repercussions across a wide area. No it’s not, and no it won’t.

Care to share why you think that way?
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