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Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

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Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#281

Post by duckmysick »

WalterBright wrote: post #213
pessimizer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were to tally up how much airtime each news story gets, plotted against the general tone of the coverage, you'd probably come up with something resembling the news room agenda It's not like it's subtle. There have been hundreds of Chinese weather balloon stories in the past week. Have there been hundreds of stories about this? US companies make money from stories about Chinese weather balloons. They lose mon…

WA state passed a law that says a cop cannot chase a suspect unless they committed a violent crime. This resulted in a surge of crimes where the suspect driver just flips off the police and drive off. Common crimes resulting from this: 1. catalytic converter thefts 2. thieves steal a car, ram it into a store, loot the store, drive off in another stolen car

Catalytic converter thefts are up across the country. Does it mean all other states passed similar laws too?

Or maybe there are other reasons, like their high value and relative ease to steal.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#282

Post by reverius42 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #214
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I explained to my sister that this was "Bhopal[1]" level bad and she didn't believe me because "If it was that bad the news would be covering it." Sigh. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

To the question: "How could it be that bad?" Here is my reasoning: Poly Vinyl Chloride is exceptionally toxic, the plume from this event is east of New Palestine into Pennsylvania based on radar data from both news stations and the National weather service. Health effects of exposure are dramatic at high levels (death), and delayed at low levels (cancers) (so there is both initial health impact and "long tail" impact…

Correction: this is Vinyl Chloride (VC), a precursor to (and much, much worse than) Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) (side note: I've mostly been hearing that PVC is largely inert and relatively fine, as part of the clarifications around vinyl chloride).

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#283

Post by yunwal »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #205
sebkomianos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! May I ask why "you don't care", though?

Other apathetic here. There's a certain amount of background cosmic dice rolls and related instances of suffering all the time. Plane crashes, house fires, robberies, lottery winners etc. Its all just noise. Like a log of lightening strikes. There's nothing interesting to be learned looking at individual instances, and those instances don't really affect your life. The next illogical step in the process is to figure…

Derailments of this type have been increasing a lot over the past few years due to premature automation of rail lines and increased length of freight trains. Ultimately this is a story about cutting costs at the expense of lives and the environment.

https://railroads.dot.gov/accident-and-incident-reporting/tr...

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#284

Post by yread »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34772687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34759611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34676114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34762965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34770772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783940

It's also on top of reddit for like 3rd day with very psy-opsy title

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#285

Post by TomSwirly »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #204
Natsu wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the people in Ohio wondering if they're going to be in a Flint-like situation, WTF these chemicals the average person has never heard of are, and what's going to be done about it are all interesting subjects. Alas, I haven't heard much about them from those knowledgeable enough to chime in on the subjects and I'd love to. As for balloons, they got boring last week, other than some airspace closures that only…

> the methods might be new, but not the fact of it It’s a diplomatic escalation with global geopolitical ramifications. If you have any business or personal exposure to China, or anything in Southeast Asia, that’s directly relevant in a way lives in Ohio, unfortunately, are not. Also, Ohio is out of immediate crisis. Now is the time for investigation and litigation. The train has derailed. Yet balloons may keep comin…

Man, your priorities are totally inverted.

> The train has derailed. Yet balloons may keep coming

The balloons may keep coming - the environmental disasters are certain to keep coming.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#286

Post by TomSwirly »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #257
naasking wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not novel that a train derailed spilling toxic chemicals into a small town literally weeks after Congress forced a settlement on train workers who wanted to strike partly over safety concerns? On the facts it's frankly a huge scandal. I think the coverage tells quite a different story though, namely distractions on external "enemies", like Chinese balloons, providing cover for corporate sponsors that fund the po…

> not novel that a train derailed spilling toxic chemicals into a small town literally weeks after Congress forced a settlement on train workers who wanted to strike partly over safety concerns? No, it's not. Over a thousand trains derail every year [1][2]. We have superfund sites under millions of Americans [3] that even locals can sometimes barely muster a bother with. We also have no evidence this derailment was c…

You: "We are constantly fouling our environment in the most horrible ways, so there's no point in even thinking about it!"

> Over a thousand trains derail every year

How many of them are filled with toxic chemical substances that force the evacuation of a town?

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#287

Post by trashtester »

wnevets wrote: post #139

I got to know, do the pro nuclear crowd really want to live down wind of a nuclear power plant when they will be run by the same business processes and deregulation that lead to this disaster, Fukushima, the BP oil rig disaster, etc?

I would much rather live next door to a nuclear plant than almost any other type of large scale power plant, including wind and hydro (assuming I was downstream to the hydro).

Being afraid of a nuclear plant is like being afraid of flying.

In fact, flying is way, way more dangerous. Even if you ONLY consider radiation exposure, a few hours in a plane per year will eclipse the increase in exposure the average person living next to a nuclear plant will receive.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#288

Post by TomSwirly »

WalterBright wrote: post #213
pessimizer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were to tally up how much airtime each news story gets, plotted against the general tone of the coverage, you'd probably come up with something resembling the news room agenda It's not like it's subtle. There have been hundreds of Chinese weather balloon stories in the past week. Have there been hundreds of stories about this? US companies make money from stories about Chinese weather balloons. They lose mon…

WA state passed a law that says a cop cannot chase a suspect unless they committed a violent crime. This resulted in a surge of crimes where the suspect driver just flips off the police and drive off. Common crimes resulting from this: 1. catalytic converter thefts 2. thieves steal a car, ram it into a store, loot the store, drive off in another stolen car

And yet almost all the rest of the world has these rules, and we don't see crime waves.

To me, you're describing the incompetence of your police forces.

> thieves steal a car, ram it into a store,

This is really considered a non-violent crime in the US?

I live in a city where car chases would be impossible. And yet there are criminals here, and they have a higher apprehension rate than in the US.

If this crime happened here, they would use drones, helicopters and roadblocks. They get way ahead of the escaping criminal. The different police departments cooperate well here, so you can't just drive to another area.

Which is why, generally, criminals dump their car almost immediately and try to escape on foot.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#289

Post by TomSwirly »

nimbius wrote: post #104
refuse wrote: post #5

I've heard about this, but it is surprising how little coverage it gets compared to other things. If you were to tally up how much airtime each news story gets, plotted against the general tone of the coverage, you'd probably come up with something resembling the news room agenda (you'd also have to weigh it against other stories developing at around the same time). I have to wonder why a story of environmental disas…

Unsurprising. Even the love canal disaster in the US faced massive disinterest before it was quietly revealed to have been a cataclysmic environmental contamination. It boils down to this: - rail fired a ton of employees a while ago and is now seeing serious issues due to mismanagement - government oversight is a moderate Republican masquerading as a liberal democrat and just wants the clout from successful negotiati…

Quibble: "uninterest". "Disinterest" means "impartiality". Disinterest is good.

I can't quibble with any of the rest of your argument, though.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#290

Post by trashtester »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #211
mc32 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's simpler? With the balloons you have someone to point to and pin the blame who is not you. With derailments and the recent acrimonious railworker labor agreement still in the rearview, the blame can't be cast far away; so the play is to ignore it and hope it fades.

> the blame can't be cast far away From whom? The implicit assumption in this is that the powers that ended the railroad strike are perfectly aligned with the media. Or that bipartisan Congressional idiocy doesn’t get called out in the press. There are loads of powerful people who would benefit if this became a story. They’re not because it’s a bad story for national interest. Nobody died. It’s getting cleaned up. It…

Conservatives don't want to stir up anti-industry sentiments.

Progressives don't want to stir up anti-railroad sentiments.

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