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America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

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Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#31

Post by therealpygon »

throwup238 wrote: post #30
therealpygon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly. It is definitely just about a pop-up and not anything else that was alluded to! How astute! You’re from the EU though I suspect that you’ve never even read that law in detail.

When complaining about poor regulations you chose a cookie popup as an example. You couldn’t think of anything less trivial? If that’s what your mind reaches for when you think of “poor regulations” you’ll have to forgive me for assuming you have nothing of substance to add to the discussion.

Your substance has been “I don’t know what I’m talking about, so you must not know what you are”. Impressive. I’d suggest reading more and assuming less.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#32

Post by [deleted] »

therealpygon wrote: post #31
throwup238 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When complaining about poor regulations you chose a cookie popup as an example. You couldn’t think of anything less trivial? If that’s what your mind reaches for when you think of “poor regulations” you’ll have to forgive me for assuming you have nothing of substance to add to the discussion.

Your substance has been “I don’t know what I’m talking about, so you must not know what you are”. Impressive. I’d suggest reading more and assuming less.

[deleted]

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#33

Post by breezybottom »

collabs wrote: post #6
markovs_gun wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff has to be made somewhere. This argument is essentially predicated on the idea that it's okay for some places to be polluted and for some people to have to deal with it but not for other places and people. What you're really saying is "When people talk about how they want manufacturing back, they conveniently forget the pollution impacts people who live here instead of China and India, where it's totally okay."…

It is supposed to get better over time though. I mean at least that's the sales pitch. Globalization was supposed to lift all boats. If you remember the air quality in Beijing used to be the absolute worst but it has allegedly improved a lot recently. I don't know where the flaw in the logic was but I think the idea was first you have to become wealthier and with more money comes a better quality of life.

It got better in Beijing because they moved factories to more rural areas, not because manufacturing is any less dirty.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#34

Post by [deleted] »

therealpygon wrote: post #31
throwup238 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When complaining about poor regulations you chose a cookie popup as an example. You couldn’t think of anything less trivial? If that’s what your mind reaches for when you think of “poor regulations” you’ll have to forgive me for assuming you have nothing of substance to add to the discussion.

Your substance has been “I don’t know what I’m talking about, so you must not know what you are”. Impressive. I’d suggest reading more and assuming less.

[deleted]

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#35

Post by somewhatgoated »

therealpygon wrote: post #25
somewhatgoated wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by we you mean the US this would require a dramatic change in the culture. Just look how USAmericans view the regulations and rules that are imposed on businesses in the EU - what you propose would require a much harsher regulation than in the EU currently and even the current regulations seem extreme to Americans and proposing regulations like that would probably be political suicide

You mean that because people take issue with the fact that the EU implements everything in almost the worst and most intrusive way possible? Sorry, you forgot to accept my view conversation cookie and I don’t want to be personally liable because you didn’t, so this response will be cut off in order to

I think this proves my point. The kind of regulations that GP proposed are just not realistic in US culture unless something changes dramatically.

I agree that cookie banners shouldn’t exist - but too many companies love to collect and sell my personal data so that is their current workaround. I would love for the EU regulation to clamp down on this as well but it’s a never ending process.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#36

Post by JKCalhoun »

derriz wrote: post #9
markovs_gun wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff has to be made somewhere. This argument is essentially predicated on the idea that it's okay for some places to be polluted and for some people to have to deal with it but not for other places and people. What you're really saying is "When people talk about how they want manufacturing back, they conveniently forget the pollution impacts people who live here instead of China and India, where it's totally okay."…

When people extol the virtues of manufacturing, I’m always reminded of the poll where 80% of Americans say that the country would benefit from a bigger manufacturing base but only 25% are interested in actually working in manufacturing. This isn’t an American thing btw - I’ve had arguments with brits and others who argue passionately that the country has been destroyed by the relative decline in manufacturing but whe…

I don't see a contradiction.

Whether I intend to work a factory job or not I can still decide that unemployment in the U.S., especially unemployment of blue-collar workers, would be better served by local industry than allowing for homelessness or a dependency on welfare. Never mind that there might also be national security issues addressed by local manufacture.

The opposite, expecting everyone in the country to aspire to white-collar professions, is to me much more clearly an elitist (or at least irrational) position to have.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#39

Post by p_j_w »

echelon wrote: post #15

I drive through Dalton anytime I visit Chattanooga (a cool hipster city on the border of Georgia and Tennessee). The scale of manufacturing there is wild. There are so many factories. Dalton makes something like 70-80% of the carpet in the world. They've had carpet factories there since I was a kid, but they're starting to expand into lots of other industries. They've begun massively ramping up on solar panel product…

> This little city is doing $10B in GDP. It's impressive if you've ever driven through there.

And all they had to do to accomplish this, apparently, was make their environment toxic. What a bargain.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#40

Post by SapporoChris »

pfdietz wrote: post #10
c0balt wrote: post #4

I feel for the people living there and being affected by the pollution. The long term effects of chemical pollution are ugly. But the CEO in the intro just seems like an odd choice. PFAS were known to cause issues for a long time, if you continued to use them for years then it is in your back too. Being "surprised" this might eventually affect your own product line just seems naive. You might have trusted 3M but just…

> PFAS were known to cause issues for a long time Has this actually been confirmed, or is this just the precautionary principle in action?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10237242/ Our review of industry documents shows that companies knew PFAS was “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested” by 1970, forty years before the public health community.
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