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Banned in California

bannedincalifornia.org

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Re: Banned in California

#311

Post by palmotea »

danesparza wrote: post #287
kardianos wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the incorrect choices. You CAN actually do these processes, and still keep the environment clean. I believe in procedural symmetry: if you ACTUALLY care about people and the environment, then you wouldn't let other poorer do these thing. The USA being richer, can afford to do it right and safer, not through regulation, but through process. There is a difference. So what would you do if you ACTUALLY cared ab…

The person you are replying to mentioned their personal experience. Have you seen this work in person? It might help to talk about those facts. Also: I suggest rethinking your opening line. It's not very endearing.

> The person you are replying to mentioned their personal experience. Have you seen this work in person? It might help to talk about those facts.

The meat of their comment wasn't the personal anecdote, it was actually on government policy:

>>> You can sum this up with: Producing stuff without polluting the environment in most cases is impossible. Reducing the pollution costs a lot of money, and can make your product non-competitive.

>>> This is why you outsource to other countries and let them do it, because you simply do not care about them living in a polluted environment. Poison Outsourcing.

This is 100% about globalization: if some countries let their rivers catch on fire, the externality lets them out-compete anyone who tries to do the process cleanly. So if you let their externality-fueled products into your country, you just can't build similar things, because they wouldn't be price-competitive.

If labor and environmental standards were strong and global, or countries with high standards refused to trade with countries with low standards, we wouldn't have this situation. There would be an economic motivation to develop and implement cleaner processes.

Re: Banned in California

#312

Post by triceratops »

morkalork wrote: post #257
Fischgericht wrote: post #243

There is a reason these kind of things are no longer possible in much of the western world and especially Europe-like US states like California: After the deindustrialization people started to enjoy healthy air and clear water. As always when it comes to "the good old times" or "make great again", your brain will remember very selectively. I used to live next to a large river for about 35 years. As a kid, it was forb…

Wasn't there some magical thinking about how by outsourcing industries to those poor countries will bring them money and raise their standard of living to a point where they care just as much about their environment as us and it will all eventually equalize. Didn't quite pan out like that, did it.

Actually it did pan out. You just weren't paying attention.

Chinese cities had terrible air quality 20 years ago. Now they don't.

The Chinese and Indian governments have climate change plans that they're actively working on, sometimes ahead of schedule. The current US government has banned the words "climate change" in official documents.

Re: Banned in California

#313

Post by wolvoleo »

ecshafer wrote: post #295
GJim wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are so many of your citizens without even basic affordable healthcare?

They aren't. Anyone can go to the ER, and if you're poor it'll be billed through Medicaid. When I was young and poor, I had a multi-day hospital stay and multiple surgeries that totaled to $3.50 out of pocket. Urgent cares are everywhere and affordable.

ER isn't the only part of healthcare that matters. Most things can be prevented with easy access to GP level care.

ER is for accidents and when health problems get out of hand. If you end up at ER with a preventable problem the system has already failed you.

Only having free access to ER doesn't constitute healthcare.

Re: Banned in California

#314

Post by Delk »

ecshafer wrote: post #295
GJim wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are so many of your citizens without even basic affordable healthcare?

They aren't. Anyone can go to the ER, and if you're poor it'll be billed through Medicaid. When I was young and poor, I had a multi-day hospital stay and multiple surgeries that totaled to $3.50 out of pocket. Urgent cares are everywhere and affordable.

What do you do to address health concerns before they become ER-level?

Re: Banned in California

#316

Post by rini17 »

temp8830 wrote: post #290
kardianos wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the incorrect choices. You CAN actually do these processes, and still keep the environment clean. I believe in procedural symmetry: if you ACTUALLY care about people and the environment, then you wouldn't let other poorer do these thing. The USA being richer, can afford to do it right and safer, not through regulation, but through process. There is a difference. So what would you do if you ACTUALLY cared ab…

USA is already effectively priced out of manufacturing due to high labor costs. Doing things with the "correct choices" simply makes the impossible even more so.

Central/Eastern European here. Our labor costs are comparable or even lower than China today. And the manufacturing is still struggling. So it's not only that.

Re: Banned in California

#317

Post by drewda »

danlitt wrote: post #227
scoofy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics. You either make it doable or you don't.

This is too strong of a statement. There are perfectly sensible reasons to NIMBY certain activities. For instance, burning wood is probably ok in general, but a horrible idea in heavily populated cities. Obviously, California is not composed exclusively of heavily populated cities. But it does contain a lot of them! So it is not completely insane that the regulation is skewed in favour of this. Of course, for things…

That's exactly why the Bay Area Air Quality Management District exists (established decades before the federal EPA):

> Charged with regulating stationary sources of air pollution emissions, the Air District drafted its first two regulations in the 1950s: Regulation 1, which banned open burning at dumps and wrecking yards, and Regulation 2, which established controls on dust, droplets, and combustion gases from certain industrial sources.

> Much research and discussion went into the shaping of Regulation 2, but there was no doubt about the need for it. During a fact-finding visit to one particular facility, Air District engineers discovered that filters were used over air in-take vents to protect the plant's machinery from its own corrosive emissions! This much-debated regulation was finally adopted in 1960.

https://www.baaqmd.gov/en/about-the-air-district/history-of-...

Re: Banned in California

#318

Post by kspacewalk2 »

kardianos wrote: post #265
Fischgericht wrote: post #243

There is a reason these kind of things are no longer possible in much of the western world and especially Europe-like US states like California: After the deindustrialization people started to enjoy healthy air and clear water. As always when it comes to "the good old times" or "make great again", your brain will remember very selectively. I used to live next to a large river for about 35 years. As a kid, it was forb…

Those are the incorrect choices. You CAN actually do these processes, and still keep the environment clean. I believe in procedural symmetry: if you ACTUALLY care about people and the environment, then you wouldn't let other poorer do these thing. The USA being richer, can afford to do it right and safer, not through regulation, but through process. There is a difference. So what would you do if you ACTUALLY cared ab…

The trade-off to safety and caring about people and the environment is very often cost. Caring about the environment is not a binary concept, it is a matter of where your break-even point is between caring about the environment and absorbing higher costs.

Re: Banned in California

#319

Post by delfinom »

Fischgericht wrote: post #243

There is a reason these kind of things are no longer possible in much of the western world and especially Europe-like US states like California: After the deindustrialization people started to enjoy healthy air and clear water. As always when it comes to "the good old times" or "make great again", your brain will remember very selectively. I used to live next to a large river for about 35 years. As a kid, it was forb…

>than have a look on how the environment in the countries you will be competing with looks like,

You are absolutely relying on some very outdated tropes, especially because I know China is in your mind. China remains a production powerhouse and has radically overhaul the country environmentally in the last 15 years. It's pulling away fast and hard in green energy. It's a country that had to go from mass poverty to modern era in 50 years compared to the hundreds of years. They aren't perfect yet, not California level of drinking water from sewers, but I fully believe they'll get there and still be a production power house by not having delusions and anti-engineering drive decisions.

Re: Banned in California

#320

Post by kspacewalk2 »

rini17 wrote: post #316
temp8830 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is already effectively priced out of manufacturing due to high labor costs. Doing things with the "correct choices" simply makes the impossible even more so.

Central/Eastern European here. Our labor costs are comparable or even lower than China today. And the manufacturing is still struggling. So it's not only that.

In Central/Eastern Europe, the problem is increasingly one of demographics. You can sometimes find somewhat cheap labour due to shitty (geo)politics, stagnant economies and poorly trained workers, but big-picture-like, the age of labour abundance is over. These economies have nowhere to go but down, down, down, starved of talent due to the twin cancers of bad demographics and emigration. Some countries are better, some worse, but the overall trend is the same all over the region. Going gentle into that good night.

(China's predicament is not much better, with the added wrinkle that there's absolutely nothing whatsoever they can do about bad demographics due to their size, whereas Central/Eastern Europe can import people once we collectively get over ourselves and let go of uppity xenophobia).

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