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Banned in California

bannedincalifornia.org

651–660 of 749 posts

Re: Banned in California

#651

Listen y’all, it’s not just that we aren't letting companies spew chemicals into the air. The permitting and regulatory process is so extremely hostile that even when you want to and are able to do so safely and without emissions, it’s impossible. Instead you have to ship things from out of state and other countries, which generates emissions and pollution itself that might actually be more than local production. Its…

There is a lot of manufacturing in California. There are a lot of new factories in California. California manufactures almost as much as most of the Southeast combined. (Note that CA manufacturing is spread across dozens of industries.) The difference is that successful businesses in California just do. They don't whine about problems caused by their own incompetence.

There is also a good framework of shadow organizations that will take cash and some of your problems away.

Re: Banned in California

#652

Listen y’all, it’s not just that we aren't letting companies spew chemicals into the air. The permitting and regulatory process is so extremely hostile that even when you want to and are able to do so safely and without emissions, it’s impossible. Instead you have to ship things from out of state and other countries, which generates emissions and pollution itself that might actually be more than local production. Its…

> The permitting and regulatory process is so extremely hostile that even when you want to and are able to do so safely and without emissions, it’s impossible. This didn't occur in a vacuum. Business interests and their aligned politicians fought successfully for a century for their freedom to destroy human health and life in pursuit of profit. Many died, many were injured and countless more had their lifespans cut s…

Now the regulatory industry is fighting to destroy productive society in the pursuit of profit. The value-added is fairly stagnant, but the costs have been growing dramatically.

Re: Banned in California

#653
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason to assume that there's a dire need for more shops to apply paint in cars in California? If not, regulating to prioritize the air quality over increasing competition isn't unreasonable.

Is there any reason to assume that air quality standards can be maintained only by 50-year-old paint shops, and not by newer ones built to higher standards? See also the counterproductive legacy of the anti-nuclear movement.

I think this requires us to buy the premise in the first place, which might be questionable.

Some guy’s website claims with big red scary graphics that this stuff is banned and these poor downtrodden business owners can’t operate.

I can’t imagine that nobody has opened an auto body shop in California in the last decade or two.

When it comes to businesses like large factories opening up that’s more of something that often gets approved on a case by case basis.

E.g., we can’t just say that the Chicago Bears are banned from building a new stadium in Chicago just because they aren’t willing to pay the costs required to do so and aren’t willing to meet the city’s requirements to get the approval vote they need.

Re: Banned in California

#654
post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All data points can be called confirmation bias if you frame them that way. The question is whether the data is accurate, not whether it's complete. The site isn't claiming regulations are the only factor, just that they're sufficient to make things impossible regardless of other factors.

“The question is whether the data is accurate, not whether it is complete” Oh so Lies of omission don’t exist? Deception researchers will be very keen to hear how that works. So if someone Mormon bubbles a photo of you that also has a kid in it, you’re fine being arrested for indecency and registering as a sex offender? After all, that’s just omitting a few pixels, not a lie or deception in your book.

Agree to disagree, I guess. Not everything interesting has to be comprehensive.

I think I'm done with this conversation now you're comparing a website about manufacturing to child porn. That's in bad taste.

Re: Banned in California

#655

There's an important distinction here, between "banned" and "has far cheaper alternatives". Things can appear banned even when they aren't merely because there is a new technology that's better and cheaper and it's a big investment so people go with the cheaper option. Nobody is building new coal in the US because it's so expensive, not because there's an outright ban. Now, part of the reason it's more expensive than…

It's like the death sentence in CA. The minority who wanted to abolish it couldn't get enough votes, so the actual process was systemically altered until it became too cost-prohibitive.

*This is not a post in support of death penalty, just how CA politicians have figured out ways to legally get what they want even if it directly contradicts the will of the people.

Re: Banned in California

#656

When I was a kid growing up in Texas, our ocean visits were to the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas coast, and you would grab little alcohol wipes for when you got out of the ocean, to wipe the oil off. Years later, swimming in Hawaii, I found myself looking for wipes. I mentioned it to a snorkel-outfit operator, and she looked at me like I was insane. They didn't even put damaging sunscreen in the water, and there was…

Crude oil floating in the ocean used to be a big nuisance in parts of California. It is a natural phenomenon, created by oil deposits on the ocean floor leaking into the environment. Santa Barbara was particularly famous for it. Extraction of that oil via commercial wells greatly reduced the natural seepage, which is why there is so little crude oil floating in that ocean water today. Oil drilling actually made the w…

There is still tons of tar on beaches in Santa Barbara county, mostly all from natural seeps.

Re: Banned in California

#657
This website gets a "very difficult" to "impossible" rating for usability: tiny, dense text, dim & blurry fonts and the modern UX that insists on reinventing how people navigate a webpage. Ironically it WAS made in California.

Re: Banned in California

#658

Plating operations are a huge headache. They have corrosive plating baths. They have to do some chemical processing on site to neutralize the corrosive chemicals and get them down to a neutral pH. Some years ago, a plating company in San Jose dumped a plating bath into the sewer system. This was so toxic that it killed the bacteria that reduce organic sludge at the sewerage plant. This knocked the whole plant offline…

a plating company in San Jose dumped a plating bath into the sewer system. This was so toxic that it killed the bacteria that reduce organic sludge at the sewerage plant. This knocked the whole plant offline, releasing untreated sewerage into the bay. The lower bay was toxic for a week

toxic because of chemicals and toxic because of the release of untreated sewage (bacteria) are sufficiently different that I thought I'd point out that you kind of mix them here. Also, toxic because of high concentrations (e.g. pH) that will dilute vs toxic cumulative forever chemicals are different orders of magnitude altogether.

This incident you describe seems like a one-off and fairly benign compared to long term patterns that lead to superfund sites. Till this company dumped that batch, they weren't dumping batches, i.e. the system was working.

I'm not up on the latest, not a civil engineer or public health authority, but it is generally recommended in many seaside places not to swim at the beach after rainstorms. the influx of large volumes of water into the sewage treatment systems means that they overflow and raw sewage is released. These systems are being improved all the time, but it's a known problem and civilization hasn't collapsed. Some natural creatures like sewage outflow. When Boston moved their outflow pipe from the inner harbor to deeper water in Cape Cod bay, the lobster population collapsed. Maybe we should have called it the lobster poopulation.

Re: Banned in California

#659
post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion! When I read phrases like "Battery cells require electrode coating with toxic solvents (NMP), electrolyte handling, and formation cycling. This is exactly why Tesla's Gigafactory went to Reno." I (as someone not very familiar with the subject) thought it's strange that California should regulate what kind of chemicals can be used in an industrial process. Of course, they don't - but…

...because dumping stuff into the middle of what is already a barren wasteland isn't actually a problem.

It’s not like the health of the public stopped Lonnie from installing a bunch of generators near poorer neighborhoods in Tennessee.

Re: Banned in California

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course it would be great if a level field would be created by making sure other competing regions follow the same environmental standards.

But what will be the result? The product now has equal cost to be produced, but the market is gone.

People consume cheap stuff because it is cheap. If it is no longer cheap, they will not consume.

US americans just need to make up their minds. Do they want keep getting more and more and more cheap stuff? Fine. Then go on exploiting other regions of the planet. Or do you have enough cheap stuff now? Ok, then nobody needs another factory.

Many on HN are living in a society where it is normal to use a TELEPHONE for only two years before throwing it away.

What would happen if you instead used it for 5 years? No more factories needed. Problem solved. You don't have to compete, as there is no competition.

The result of charging the true cost of T-Shirt to the consumer is not that everybody now has 100 Fair-Traded-Ecofriendly T-Shirts at home that they don't wear. They will notice that 10 T-Shirts are more than enough if you wash your clothes once per week.

What I am trying to say is: The demand is only there due to the option of exploitation. Take away the part of ruining other peoples lives to get cheap stuff, then it's no longer interesting and will just stop.

So of course you can take the detour, try to re-industrialize, and then find out that your people do not actually like this kind of work, and that they for sure also aren't willing to buy your stuff at the price you are asking.

There is a reason nobody would be so stupid to produce "Make America Great Again" merch in America. Your target audience would not buy it if it was made in America.

It is pragmatic to simply skip this step and end up with the same result: You'll just consume less.

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