101–110 of 189 posts
This is a pretty typical growth pattern. Industrial zone establishes and city is set far away in a safe area. City expands and resident need cheap housing. The cheap housing is built near the industrial zone as that is how economic forces work. People then see this and say they built industrial next to the poor people when the opposite occurred. Now the industry is giving cancer to poor people and needs to be punishe…
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This pollution impacts people who don't work at these facilities, and if you start looking at them many employ less than the nearby Walmart.
The people employed by the facilities can afford to raise families, whereas the people employed by Walmart cannot.
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Sorry, but that seems a bit ignorant. A lot of the things we rely on every day have toxic byproducts. I’m not saying this is good, but by your logic you should give up your car because someone moved in to the lot next to you and built a house.
There is a difference between a person driving a car, and a factory spewing off a criminally high level of carcinogenic chemicals. > A lot of the things we rely on every day have toxic byproducts And we should stop and fix that. Why do we accept this as ok? > by your logic you should give up your car because someone moved in to the lot next to you and built a house. My logic says we should phase out cars that we know…
Of course. But it is not always easy. You can’t always wave your hand and make non-harmful alternatives. Sometimes it is due to incentives, but also sometimes it is really just chemistry or physics.
See the “tin whisker” phenomenon when they took lead out of solder.
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> The engineers didn't set out to create processes that resulted in toxic by-products, your statement is not helpful at all. if the engineers did not set out to create a process free from polluting carcinogens, then they did something wrong.
When you have a campfire (or fire in your fireplace), you are releasing polluting carcinogens. When you heat olive oil to the smoke point, you are releasing carcinogens. If/when you do those things, are you also doing something wrong?
Dont bring your olive oil to the smoke point
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That completely lets the companies off the hook for dangerous and unnecessary pollution. Even if nobody was around, they should have an ethylene oxide scrubber. That is a major source of teratogenic emissions per the article. Also, it strikes me as extremely speculative on your part that this is a zoning issue. How do you know that these plants didn't shift product mixes or expand after there were established communi…
I’m responding to a post which mentioned zoning issues. Generally, this is an article about “sacrifice zones” - I’m confused. Putting zoning aside, companies have no motives outside of growth and profit. That’s why governments exist to protect the population they represent. From people, companies, foreign invaders, etc.
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Property rights. If the adjacent property is unsafe due to your actions, you should pay to fix the problem.
If someone buys the adjacent property after you've made it unsafe without breaking any laws, who pays?
That wasn't your property to make unsafe. If it's your own property that you've made unsafe, then sell it, I'd consider it on the buyer, unless you hid that it was unsafe
Jesus, this story is going to have all the bad takes. People's main takeaway from the article is, "it's just the way cities grow," "it's the zoning board's fault," "people moved near a cancer cluster, it's their fault," "you should be able to pollute an area you pay for." Seriously? The problem is the government allowing private corporations to poison the environment to benefit the bottom line of the corporations. I…
I disagree with the notion that regulations are inherently harmful to corporate profits. Foreign competitors do generally exist in other countries with different regulations, which complicates the matter in the real world; but in a healthy, homogeneously regulated market, a new regulation should increase the operating costs of all suppliers more or less equally. Assuming that there's a sufficient amount of competition to keep profit margins reasonably thin, the increased cost of regulatory compliance should be passed onto customers in the form of higher prices.
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Sorry, but that seems a bit ignorant. A lot of the things we rely on every day have toxic byproducts. I’m not saying this is good, but by your logic you should give up your car because someone moved in to the lot next to you and built a house.
There is a difference between a person driving a car, and a factory spewing off a criminally high level of carcinogenic chemicals. > A lot of the things we rely on every day have toxic byproducts And we should stop and fix that. Why do we accept this as ok? > by your logic you should give up your car because someone moved in to the lot next to you and built a house. My logic says we should phase out cars that we know…
By exporting it to a poorer country? Because that's what happens.
Let's hope shining light on this brings pressure for change.