The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” • Hacker News Board

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#41

Post by dantheman » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

kaiju0 wrote: post #37

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…

It's the same when people move next to the airport and then complain about noise.

In general this can be solved with an extension of property rights, the industrial zone/airport/music venue etc can own the rights to "pollute" the neighboring areas, much like buying air rights in a city. Then it's clear when you purchase / rent / what level of noise / pollution you can expect.

This allows market forces to work, if after a certain time the city is bigger and that land is more valuable for quality housing then they can buy the rights from the polluter and shut it down.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#42

Post by nawgz » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #35

nawgz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when people now see articles like this and read 'cancer-causing' they'll think 'like Starbucks coffee, so I'm happy with that risk - not a problem'. Well, I can think of multiple site guidelines I see violated here too. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone sa…

> It is difficult to believe you think the discussion there is about risks analogous to drinking a cup of coffee. I don't think that! And that's the point - same warning, but not the same risk.

If you think the behavior of people who do not read the article will be unchanged by yet another discussion of cancer, I think you will perhaps be surprised to learn that people who don't care about privacy don't care about yet another discussion of government overreach and people who don't care about politics remain unbothered by news articles decrying fascism or communism.

The article was quite interesting, and showed some very good points. When you use words like "when people now see articles like this" to completely dismiss its very point, it ceases to feel like good faith discussion of anything besides some personal agenda you related to an article keyword.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#43

Post by njarboe » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't seem to change their behaviour due to those warnings. Nobody's going into a coffee shop, seeing that warning sticker and thinking 'ah whoops better get out of here' are they? The warning 'cancer-causing' has no effect.

This works, if you have 20 coffee shops, and one of them has "there's asbestos in this building" warning. If you have warnings literally everywhere, for minor things, that noone really cares about, because the risks are miniscule, people will start ignoring even the dangerous but identical-looking signs. "this item causes cancer" ... are we talking about asbestos, or are we talking about a roasted potato? If the labe…

I agree with your sentiment, but fear of asbestos is also another danger that has been highly exaggerated. Asbestos is only dangerous if it is particularized and inhaled in high quantities over a period of time. Men that changed breaks that had asbestos in them and thus lots of asbestos dust or men who worked on installing asbestos pipes and were cutting them all the time, were the ones who got cancer (or their wives who washed their dusty clothes). The fear of asbestos objects or buildings that have, say asbestos insulation on pipes in the basement, is not reasonable and another example of overblown fear that probably cost the US a hundreds of billions dollars (wild guess) that could have been spent much more productively on something else.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#44

Post by fundad » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

nawgz wrote: post #31

chrisseaton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you've chosen to use personal abuse? That's against the site guidelines here https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html please don't do that. I'm not making fun of it - I'm saying it's actively harmful because when people now see articles like this and read 'cancer-causing' they'll think 'like Starbucks coffee, so I'm happy with that risk - not a problem'.

> when people now see articles like this and read 'cancer-causing' they'll think 'like Starbucks coffee, so I'm happy with that risk - not a problem'. Well, I can think of multiple site guidelines I see violated here too. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone sa…

Every post is going to attract someone "just asking questions" about whether a normal, serious, hypothetical person would immediately be thinking about right-wing talking points instead of thinking about health and suffering.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#45

Post by ziddoap » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #15

csee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have changed my behavior in response to health info on labels, so this is anecdotal evidence against your assertion. PR campaigns have been known to work, e.g. alcohol in Russia in the 90s.

> Do you have any evidence for this statement? The fact that every coffee shop in California is still open, despite people being warned for years that they sell products that cause cancer. The vast majority of people clearly do not care about the warning. And what do you think is the benefit of putting unsupported warnings on things? Do you think it's actively beneficial? Do you think it's harmless? If it's beneficia…

It's not clear to me if you're arguing just about warnings on coffee or if you're arguing that all warning labels are useless.

>The fact that every coffee shop in California is still open, despite people being warned for years that they sell products that cause cancer. The vast majority of people clearly do not care about the warning.

Or they care, but have balanced the risks vs. their enjoyment of coffee. But they may see a warning on, for example, olive oil which contains lead, and decide to buy another product.

>putting unsupported warnings on things?

What do you mean by unsupported here? As in, not supported by science? Or by the people? Because I'm pretty sure it's well supported by science that certain products are carcinogenic and that consuming them, unsurprisingly, isn't very good. We can argue about what thresholds constitute a tangible risk, for sure, but either way the fact that some things cause cancer is surely considered "supported".

>that don't need warning about

Same question -- just referring to coffee or all labels on everything? I agree with this if you're just referring to coffee, but there are certainly labels that I do pay attention to and consider a warning useful.

I think there's a happy middle-ground here. If my favorite juice has lead, I want to know. If my favorite coffee shop has a 1 in 10,000,000 of causing cancer, I probably don't need the warning each day.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#46

Post by infecto » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

rhacker wrote: post #24

frazbin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, California has raised the bar, and to do so it had to take risks. In particular, it risked looking silly-- and in penis-politics looking silly in front of your opponents is an existential risk. The good news is, some of these risks paid off and became national standards. So, thanks to California, you are poisoned a little less every day. Speaking personally: fuck you for making fun of that effort!

I would remove the fu stuff. But I appreciate your appreciation of prop 65. Even if tons of products still have the warning, the amount of lead in various things has dropped significantly since implemented.

I wish your comment was the parent comment. It would be nice to understand what the benefits are because we all know about the silly cancer warnings in Starbucks.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#47

Post by toiletfuneral » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #41

kaiju0 wrote: post #37

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…

It's the same when people move next to the airport and then complain about noise. In general this can be solved with an extension of property rights, the industrial zone/airport/music venue etc can own the rights to "pollute" the neighboring areas, much like buying air rights in a city. Then it's clear when you purchase / rent / what level of noise / pollution you can expect. This allows market forces to work, if aft…

lmao this is so fucking stupid, “let’s NFT pollution then it’s poor people’s fault for not buying a seat at the dao for deciding what chemicals are in their air”

Free market cultist are so weird

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#48

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

nawgz wrote: post #42

chrisseaton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is difficult to believe you think the discussion there is about risks analogous to drinking a cup of coffee. I don't think that! And that's the point - same warning, but not the same risk.

If you think the behavior of people who do not read the article will be unchanged by yet another discussion of cancer, I think you will perhaps be surprised to learn that people who don't care about privacy don't care about yet another discussion of government overreach and people who don't care about politics remain unbothered by news articles decrying fascism or communism. The article was quite interesting, and sho…

> When you use words like "when people now see articles like this" to completely dismiss its very point

I think you're misreading my comments.

I'm not dismissing the article. It's the opposite. I'm saying that my fear is that other people will unfortunately dismiss the article, due to fatigue of being warned that things cause cancer.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#49

Post by dontcare007 » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #39

kaiju0 wrote: post #37

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…

Gonna have to side with city zoning being the wrong party here. It’s really the people who represent the tax base that should be protecting said tax base.

Yep, a failure on the part of the beaurocrats to deny the zoning changes.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#50

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

rezendi wrote: post #8

kybishop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence to back up this claim? I'm aware CA puts many warning stickers on various products... but isn't it possible that profit-seeking corporations are, in fact, using cancer-causing materials simply because they're cheaper?

https://www.popsci.com/california-coffee-cancer-warning/

This article is not very convincing. I mean sure, the thing about coffee was over the top, but they also stopped requiring that one.

Meanwhile the other examples it uses are that you have to be warned when you're being exposed to things like diesel exhaust. Which, um, actually does cause cancer.