[HN Gopher] Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after ...
___________________________________________________________________
Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train
derailment
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 515 points
Date : 2023-02-14 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| lynguist wrote:
| When I hear Ohio and trains I immediately think of the huge
| federal grants for building a higher speed rail line from
| Cleveland over Columbus to Cincinnati that were already granted.
|
| The same was granted for Wisconsin and Florida.
|
| And one by one their governors refused to use these grants to
| build the infrastructure, and one by one the federal grants were
| reassigned, until in the end Florida got 2.3 billion dollars for
| building a high-speed rail line Miami-Orlando-Tampa. That was
| also sabotaged by its governor.
|
| But because such a rail line is so incredibly economically
| effective a private company started to build it anyhow, just at
| lower speeds.
|
| I'm still flabbergasted about this.
| enriquec wrote:
| so... the grants were unnecessary? Also, how can someone see
| this catastrophe and still want to go with trains -- 200+ year
| old tech that is clearly environmentally destructive, doesn't
| solve last-mile, and can't be parallelized or re-routed, or
| even rescheduled easily
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Also, how can someone see this catastrophe and still want
| to go with trains
|
| Perhaps because most of the industrialised world run tens of
| thousands of freight and passenger trains every day.
|
| What happened in Ohio is not an inherent issue with trains.
| schainks wrote:
| If you're in the Ohio river basin, I recommend you install
| reverse osmosis and carbon filters on your tap water, which will
| effectively filter nearly all vinyl chloride. Ventilate rooms
| where you shower before / afterwords to ensure contaminated vapor
| doesn't stick around.
| aftbit wrote:
| Cincinnati Water Works uses granular activated carbon
| filtration already, and plans to shut the Ohio River water
| intakes during the period of maximum contamination (anticipated
| some time next week). Given that water demand is below peak in
| the winter (nobody watering yards or washing cars etc), the
| water in towers and reservoirs will likely be enough to last
| through the worst part of the plume. I believe they have 3 days
| of water during peak times, so likely more like 5.
|
| Source: chatting with a waterworks engineer after a tour of
| antique steam engine water pumps. They ran into the 60s!
| https://cincinnatitriplesteam.org/
| u8080 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxins_and_dioxin-like_compou...
|
| >PCDD/F-compounds were never synthesized for any purpose, except
| for small quantities for scientific research.[12] Small amounts
| of PCDD/Fs are formed whenever organics, oxygen and chlorine are
| available at suitable temperatures.[1] This is augmented by metal
| catalysts such as copper. The optimal temperature range is 400
| degC (752 degF) to 700 degC (1,292 degF). This means that
| formation is highest when organic material is burned in less-
| than-optimal conditions such as open fires, building fires,
| domestic fireplaces, and poorly operated and/or designed solid
| waste incinerators.[3] Historically, municipal and medical waste
| incineration was the most important source of PCDD/Fs.
| [deleted]
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" On Sunday, the EPA released a list, written by Norfolk
| Southern, of the toxic chemicals that were in the derailed cars.
| In addition to vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate, it mentions
| ethylhexyl acrylate, which can cause headaches, nausea, and
| respiratory problems in people exposed to it; as well as
| isobutylene, which can make people dizzy and drowsy."_
|
| This is anodyne phrasing that omits the lede, which is that this
| information was not previously disclosed. This expanded "list of
| toxic chemicals" was not public prior to Sunday.
|
| Here's ABC's reporting by way of comparison: _" There were more
| toxic chemicals on train that derailed in Ohio than originally
| reported, data shows"_
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/toxic-chemicals-train-derailed-ohi...
|
| (Another notable diff is that ABC describes ethylhexyl acrylate
| as a "carcinogen", linking to a CDC page as a cite. NPR's
| exposition reads differently: "ethylhexyl acrylate, which can
| cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems in people
| exposed to it;").
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Finally, what can these chemicals react into when in a blaze.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That's extremely well known, which is why the remediation
| strategy was to intentionally set them on fire.
| kurthr wrote:
| There's a small amount of phosgene, but mostly nothing worse
| than when they started (which are fairly nasty). Lot's of CO
| and CO2, but it's the liquid runoff that's more concerning.
| It'll be a haz-waste site for decades.
| mcguire wrote:
| And hydrogen chloride.
| gruez wrote:
| >Another notable diff is that ABC describes ethylhexyl acrylate
| as a "carcinogen", linking to a CDC page as a cite
|
| The linked CDC source doesn't really definitively say it's a
| carcinogen. The exact quote is "potential occupational
| carcinogen as defined by the OSHA carcinogen policy [29 CFR
| 1990]". Also, it's worth noting that the page is for "Ethyl
| acrylate", not "ethylhexyl acrylate". A google search for
| "ethylhexyl acrylate" turns up results for 2-ETHYLHEXYL
| ACRYLATE, which has a different CAS number, so it's unknown
| whether ABC is even referring to the correct chemical.
|
| [1]
| https://www.chempoint.com/products/download?grade=2716&docty...
| perihelions wrote:
| That's an egregious error. Good catch!
|
| At any rate, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate is *also* a "Group 2B:
| possibly carcinogenic". (I'd assume it's just the functional
| group that's interesting here, and the whole class is
| carcinogenic).
|
| - _" Methyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate,_ 2-ethylhexyl acrylate,
| _technical-grade TMPTA, and isobutyl nitrite were classified
| as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2B), based on
| "sufficient evidence" of carcinogenicity in experimental
| animals and no data or inadequate evidence in humans. "_
|
| https://sci-hub.ru/10.1016/s1470-2045(18)30491-1 ( _"
| Carcinogenicity of isobutyl nitrite, b-picoline, and some
| acrylates." The Lancet Oncology 19.8 (2018): 1020-1022."_)
| irrational wrote:
| Presumably we will have positive data on whether it is
| carcinogenic or not in a few years/decades as we watch what
| happens to the people In Ohio.
| legitster wrote:
| It's listed as a "possible carcinogen". Which would put it in
| the same category as caffeine.
|
| Although it's worth noting that while caffeine would obviously
| not be that dangerous of a chemical, a giant spill of it would
| still be an environmental issue.
| grecy wrote:
| > _which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory
| problems.... can make people dizzy and drowsy_
|
| I also love this phrasing that talks about the immediate
| uncomfortable reactions, but makes no mention on the extremely
| serious long-term implications of exposure.
|
| These chemicals won't just make you feel unpleasant in the
| moment, they'll kill you in the long run.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I mean, I guess "lung cancer" is _technically_ a
| "respiratory problem" but damn...
| atoav wrote:
| This. That's like saying a radiation exposure can make you
| "see funny lights" -- while being technically true, _this_ is
| _not_ the important thing to underline given a situation
| where such a danger is out there in the environment.
|
| Makes you wonder.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| I'm a bit torn on this one because the immediate symptoms are
| the ones that might indicate exposure and prompt someone to
| get medical treatment. If you're reading a newspaper or
| watching mainstream reporting then that's easily the most
| critical information to have communicated to you.
|
| Once you've got a medical record of exposure that also makes
| it possible to go after these companies for the long term
| effects, which should be communicated to you by medical
| professionals based on your exposure time and estimated
| dosage. I don't like that that's the requirement for our
| legal system, but it's the reality.
| chriscappuccio wrote:
| The dose makes the poison
| kalimanzaro wrote:
| I hear that often from apologists for the chemical
| industry. For vinyl chloride 250ppm for 4 hours is enough
| to give you tumors. It's less than ambient CO2 in the air.
| Some threshold doses are basically negligible.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > For vinyl chloride 250ppm for 4 hours is enough to give
| you tumors.
|
| No it's not! You've completely made that up.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Unfortunately a single rail car can carry in excess of
| 30,000 gallons of dosing, and a single train can have
| several millions of gallons all together.
| Filligree wrote:
| How many ppm is that?
|
| Tongue in cheek, but assume it all got spread out over
| the city, I suppose.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| This looks very difficult to calculate unless you're
| already familiar with the dynamics at play. Here's an
| extremely relevant paper from 2019 on the topic:
|
| https://www.consiltant.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/09/201909...
|
| > the speed [of evaporation] is determined by, among
| other things, the pressure in the system, temperature of
| the substance, substance properties such as boiling
| point, vapor pressure, molecular weight and density and
| of course the size of the hole.
|
| Trying to do napkin math of dividing 30,000 gallons into
| the volume of air over a city under a certain altitude
| seems like a pointless exercise given the very long list
| of parameters that would highly influence its dispersion.
| nimbius wrote:
| > can make people dizzy and drowsy
|
| LMFAO vinyl chloride is a multi-organ carcinogen...its
| literally one of the quickest ways to stage 4 right up there
| with Benzene exposure.
|
| phosgene was also part of the release when Ohio decided a
| "controlled burn" of the vinyl chloride was somehow a good
| idea. the plume could be seen from commercial flights.
|
| honest to god the damage control media outlets are attempting
| in the midst of what by every definition is just under a
| massive environmental disaster is just ridiculous. If this
| happened in China it would be front page news.
| gowings97 wrote:
| Our fearless US press is too scared to have on-site staff
| to cover the largest ecological land-based disaster since
| Three Mile Island. Or they've been told by the regime it's
| a non-issue? Not sure which is worse, but the outcome is
| what you see before you; back page coverage a week after
| the incident. Barely a blurb.
|
| Yes, these things take time to fully investigate. Where are
| the daily updates from the EPA though? Why aren't the major
| news outlets syndicating these daily EPA updates?
|
| This is relevant to more Americans than the war in Ukraine,
| which many news outlets have a dedicated section for in the
| header section (Business, World, Sports, etc.)
|
| I just checked US News & World Report and CNN front pages -
| not even listed.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Before you mock the press maybe take a look at how they
| are being treated in Ohio. This is from a press
| conference given by the governor last week.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQMLxBpiSu8
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If true, thia should be even bigger news - instead front
| pages are covered with chinese baloons
| gowings97 wrote:
| I would like to see Ohio law enforcement try that against
| ABC News, CNN, etc. (they won't)
|
| That's what makes this scary - the few independent
| journalists that are trying to cover this are being
| locked out, and the national journalists are nowhere to
| be found.
| gruez wrote:
| >Our fearless US press is too scared to have on-site
| staff to cover the largest ecological land-based disaster
| since Three Mile Island
|
| According to whom? Looking at this list: https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Category:Environmental_disaste..., it's not
| hard to find incidents that were arguably worse, eg. http
| s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Dan_River_coal_ash_spill
| or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_wast
| e_wate...
| gowings97 wrote:
| "...the outcome is what you see before you; back
| page/hardly any coverage a week after the incident.
| Nothing on the front pages a week after the incident.
| Barely a blurb."
|
| If they're there, whatever work they're doing is not
| making it onto front pages. The alternative explanation
| (subtext from the description above) is more likely -
| most major news outlets have not sent a journalist to
| cover this, neither are they covering EPA updates. If
| they were, why is their work not receiving daily updates
| on the news outlet front pages?
| gwright wrote:
| > honest to god the damage control media outlets are
| attempting in the midst of what by every definition is just
| under a massive environmental disaster is just ridiculous.
| If this happened in China it would be front page news.
|
| Is it damage control or just some strange calculation that
| it isn't a story that will attract page views?
|
| Both rationales are concerning, but they suggest different
| pathologies in our media ecosystem.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's honestly that there's not much story because it
| looks worse than it is.
|
| Chemicals are counter-intuitive. People don't have a good
| match for looks-scary to is-scary.
|
| I watch the Checmical Safety Board incident report videos
| from time-to-time. The most common killer in chemical
| plants? Carbon monoxide: odorless, colorless, tasteless,
| and simply displaces oxygen. You climb into an enclosed
| space, have just enough time to realize something's wrong
| (maybe) before you pass out, and never wake up. The
| methyl isocyanate that killed in Bhopal rolled along the
| ground creating a silent blanket of death.
|
| A giant black plume climbing into the cloud layer is
| scary looking but in no way correlated, one way or
| another, with the actual risk to public safety. Made for
| great 6 o'clock news footage, but the followup story
| really is just "Clean the soot off your house and maybe
| check your basement for any chemical that rolled away
| before it burned."
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| We have a volunteer! Make way, somebody volunteers, its
| harmless.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| You say that like I don't live in sight of the plume,
| friend. I've _been_ volunteered. ;)
|
| I have more concern living in this part of the country
| about the lead in my pipes than the contents of that
| cloud.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Exactly this. Nobody claiming this shit is safe will put
| their lives where their mouths are. Nobody in this thread
| moaning about people not trusting the experts will
| consider moving their families into this town to show the
| rest of us how trustworthy they _really_ think the
| government is.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Does me not moving out of town count? ;)
| sct202 wrote:
| No need for a conspiracy when the spy balloons (Jan 28th)
| and Turkish earthquake (Jan 6) happened concurrently (Feb 3
| initial derailment, Feb 6 for giant black smoke from
| controlled release).
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > LMFAO vinyl chloride is a multi-organ carcinogen...its
| literally one of the quickest ways to stage 4 right up
| there with Benzene exposure.
|
| No it's not
| yebyen wrote:
| https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-
| prevention/risk/s...
|
| > Vinyl chloride exposure is associated with an increased
| risk of a rare form of liver cancer (hepatic
| angiosarcoma), as well as primary liver cancer
| (hepatocellular carcinoma), brain and lung cancers,
| lymphoma, and leukemia.
|
| If there's some fact in the parent comment which is in
| dispute could you please be a bit more clear about what
| it is? This is a very unhelpful comment from you.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Don't chide me. Parent comment is ridiculous and harmful
| fearmongering and hyperbole. Read your own link - there
| is no mention of carcinogenicity* from acute exposure and
| environmental a biological persistence is very low. I
| would be more concerned if I spent a career in a vinyl
| chloride production facility without proper ppe.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > Don't chide me. Parent comment is ridiculous and
| harmful fearmongering and hyperbole. Read your own link -
| there is no mention of harm from acute exposure and
| environmental an biological persistence is very low.
|
| Reading the Wikipedia link it's not so clear if only
| continuous exposure elevates cancer risk. However it also
| lists significant acute effects:
|
| > Prior to 1974, workers were commonly exposed to 1,000
| ppm vinyl chloride, causing "vinyl chloride illness" such
| as acroosteolysis and Raynaud's Phenomenon. The symptoms
| of vinyl chloride exposure are classified by ppm levels
| in ambient air with 4,000 ppm having a threshold
| effect.[17] The intensity of symptoms varies from acute
| (1,000-8,000 ppm), including dizziness, nausea, visual
| disturbances, headache, and ataxia, to chronic (above
| 12,000 ppm), including narcotic effect, cardiac
| arrhythmias, and fatal respiratory failure.[18] RADS
| (Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome) may be caused by
| acute exposure to vinyl chloride.[19]
|
| So I'm not sure if the previous post was harmful
| fearmongering.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| There were no severe acute effects - there were no
| hospitalizations, the vast majority of the vinyl chloride
| was intentionally burned, and the little that remains has
| very low environmental or biological persistence.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| As is so often the case, people who fearmonger about what
| could happen fail to notice that the medical
| establishment keeps quite good records on what _is_
| happening.
|
| We'd know about the acute effects by now from
| hospitalization, and we generally know about the chronic
| effects in the environment because this isn't even the
| first vinyl chloride spill.
|
| Is Paulsboro, NJ currently a cancer hotbed?
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a851
| 9/n...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Exactly! Vinyl Chloride is an extremely common and high
| volume industrial use chemical. If acute exposure could
| give you cancer, we'd have known decades ago.
| yebyen wrote:
| I wasn't chiding you, I am a layman and I genuinely had
| no idea what issue you saw in the parent comment. Read
| your own comment that I responded to again.
|
| The parent comment had multiple assertions in it, so
| there's literally no way for me to know what you meant by
| "no it's not" until you told me.
| shkkmo wrote:
| There is no language in that link that limits the risks
| to long term exposure. If you follow the OSHA link on
| that page, you'll see that the ERPG-3 is 20000 ppm;
| that's the level at which some people will start facing
| lethal complications after an hour of exposure.
|
| If you're gonna argue that there are no consequences to
| acute exposure, you gonna have to provide some sources.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| 20,000 ppm! Do you understand how high that is??
| shkkmo wrote:
| "The levels required for acute exposure risk ate very
| high" is factually quite different from "there is no risk
| from acute exposure."
|
| Additionally, an hour is also several orders of magnitude
| shorter than a week.
|
| I'm not saying that the residents are facing concerning
| exposure levels, however your attempts to dismiss that
| concern have been either incorrect or factually lacking.
| If you are trying to correct misinformation, you need to
| raise the bar.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Parent comment referred to carcinogenicity.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Yes, it is classified as a carncinogen.
|
| > Carcinogenic classifications: EPA-K;A, IARC-1, NIOSH-
| Ca, NTP-K, OSHA-Ca, TLV-A1
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Not from acute exposure!
| burnished wrote:
| High enough you could start using percentages!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > the damage control media outlets are attempting
|
| That suggests intent. While I am as cynical as the next
| person I wouldn't make a claim like that without also
| citing evidence to back it up.
| yunwal wrote:
| Time and time again, even media sources that we're told
| are trustworthy and rigorous show that they'll shill for
| corporate interests if given enough financial incentive
| and a promising enough narrative[0][1][2][3][4]. At what
| point do we just assume that financial conflict of
| interest is inherent in how media reports on issues?
|
| [0] - https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/15/lets-
| talk-about-t...
|
| [1] - https://theintercept.com/2022/08/17/new-york-times-
| dan-goldm...
|
| [2] - https://theintercept.com/2016/01/29/nyt-outside-
| spending/
|
| [3] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/16/
| democrats...
|
| [4] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tax-bezos-
| help-worke...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In general, there's no particular need to make the list of
| chemicals public. In the event of emergency, every container is
| stamped with one or two standard labels indicating the nature
| of the chemical threat and what firefighters need to do to
| address it; otherwise, it's as important to people as what's in
| the tractor-trailer in front of them on the highway.
|
| It might be worth having a discussion about the fact that the
| way train right-of-ways came into being give municipalities
| little recourse if they feel the trains shouldn't be cutting
| through their towns in _general,_ but given that they do, they
| 're basically privately-owned highways and it's up to the owner
| what's on them.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > it's up to the owner what's on them
|
| Does the owner accept full liability for, potentially, giving
| thousands of people cancer?
|
| Even if they pay modest compensation of a million dollars to
| each victim, thats already in billions.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _In general, there 's no particular need to make the list
| of chemicals public_
|
| Fitting username, I didn't realize you were a novelty
| account.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The username actually refers to an old They Might Be Giants
| song.
|
| They lyrics of the song tell the tale of a man who goes
| through life being paranoid about a massive, organized
| government operation spying on him personally.
|
| In the end, he's murdered and disappeared by his town's
| local mayor because he's inconvenient, the mayor's just a
| thug, and there _is_ no shadowy overarching organization
| watching over him.
|
| People believe in conspiracies because they feel the
| alternative (disorder, ad-hoc metastability, and a world
| full of people with short-term views making short-term
| moves to benefit their short-term ends impacting other
| folks with no particular plan, just simple, stupid apathy)
| is scarier. But most evil (and good) in the world is done
| by regular folks with partial knowledge doing their
| damnedest to survive, and we perceive patterns because
| we're pattern-perceiving creatures.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| It's certainty a fitting username for somebody who thinks
| the government should keep people in the dark.
|
| > _" In general, there's no particular need to make the
| list of chemicals public."_
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The government doesn't generally know the list of
| chemicals, so it's not keeping people in the dark because
| it has no information to divulge.
|
| We could certainly make it a rule that chemical manifests
| be lodged with such-and-such organization (the FRA, I'd
| assume), but we don't because that's not the history of
| how rail happened in this country. And in general, the US
| government tends to operate under a rule of "Ain't no
| problem, ain't no problem" regarding data collection,
| with rare exception (Americans get very jumpy about over-
| collection of data by the government, after all; "Why do
| you _need_ to know how many firearms I own? It 's my
| right to own them", etc.).
|
| ... I could certainly see an argument for changing this
| rule, but I can also see an argument for not; much as
| Americans are, broadly speaking, comfortable living in
| homes where lines of toxic volatile chemicals are plumbed
| directly into those homes (50,000 hospitalizations and
| 430 deaths due to CO poisoning annually; in 2020, 10
| natural gas explosions and 0 train chemical spills) and
| comfortable operating private individual vehicles on
| roadways (38,000+ deaths in crashes in 2020) and
| comfortable with non-licensed ownership of firearms (
| _carrying_ requires a license, ownership does not;
| 24,000+ suicides by gun in 2020), most people are most of
| the time comfortable with train loads of God-knows-what
| rattling down the old main street. And they 're
| comfortable with it because accidents like this, while
| not nearly as rare as they should be, are _far_ rarer
| than other risks Americans tolerate every single day.
| Risk-tolerance for convenience is just kind of an
| American tradition.
|
| ... like I said else-thread, I 'm likelier to suffer from
| the lead in my pipes living in this part of the country
| than the train fire.
| rcme wrote:
| > In general, there's no particular need to make the list of
| chemicals public. In the event of emergency, every container
| is stamped with one or two standard labels indicating the
| nature of the chemical threat and what firefighters need to
| do to address it
|
| What part of the hazard warning indicates what's required for
| environmental remediation? In order to properly remediate,
| you need to know what you're dealing with.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In general, no environmental remediation is necessary
| because the chemical doesn't spill. If it spills, of course
| there should be disclosure. Parent appeared to be
| expressing surprise there was no disclosure until an
| incident occurred; of course there wasn't.
|
| (Disclosure takes more time than we assume it should
| because freight is actually kinda disorganized relative to
| what most of us would expect given our information-
| saturated jobs; when a shipment leaves the depot and
| arrives, you can just check the contents of the train, but
| when it fails to arrive, you have to piece together the
| contents from multiple manifest sources and cross-check to
| make sure there weren't errors in that data).
| rcme wrote:
| That's not how I read the original comment:
|
| > This is anodyne phrasing that omits the lede, which is
| that this information was not previously disclosed. This
| expanded "list of toxic chemicals" was not public prior
| to Sunday.
|
| The accident happened on February 3rd. And the chemicals
| started being released on the 6th. Sunday was the 12th.
| That's a long time to wait to disclose the types of
| chemicals you're releasing in a town.
| jsonne wrote:
| I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away
| they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to
| the folks making the videos a massive red flag.
|
| In general I grow super weary of companies and the government
| downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow
| the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only
| years later do we actually see the horrific health and
| environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's
| too late for the folks that have been impacted. I feel so
| helpless like I wish there was a way to prevent this or create
| enough real accountability that people actually work to minimize
| these sorts of things but it never seems to pan out that way. My
| hunch is that the behind the scenes culprit of "why" this happens
| is rather banal, insurance covers it so people don't have to
| change, and it seems like those policies create a ton of moral
| hazard but I don't know the alternatives. I have no answers here
| it just feels like yet another weight on the side of the scale
| that the average person has very little control over their lives
| even for simple things like not being hurt by toxic chemicals in
| soil / drinking water. Feels easy to lose even more faith in the
| institutions that are supposed to protect us all.
| kritiko wrote:
| Moral Mazes has many good examples of how this happens.
|
| Aaron Swartz quoted one excerpt about an industrial accident
| towards the bottom of this blog:
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bizethics
|
| Management deferred replacement of a $6M battery and the cost
| of its failure was 100-150M.
|
| >People are always calculating how others will see the
| decisions they make. ... They know that they have to gauge not
| just the external ... market consequences of a decision, but
| the internal political consequences. And sometimes you can make
| the right market decision, but it can be the wrong political
| decision.
| laurentbh wrote:
| yeah, it's not that bad when you are in DC or on Wall Street
| mbostleman wrote:
| I'm finding it extremely hard to separate signal from noise in
| the social and legacy media spheres right now. I'm waiting for
| things to settle.
| seafoam wrote:
| Yeah, I used to do that.
|
| Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until
| it is too late.
|
| If you are potentially impacted, you have to do your own
| homework, and learn from your mistakes.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| For real. This looks really bad. Authorities in the area
| seem to be playing it like "it's safe until we have
| evidence that it's not," but who wants to volunteer to
| become the evidence?
|
| If you're in that area, it'd be prudent to get out if
| you're able. It's systemic contamination. You don't get to
| go back in time for a mulligan if it turns out to be bad.
|
| It's always played down. Nobody ever says "we really fucked
| up this time so you ought to fend for yourself." It's been,
| what, 10 days? There's barely coverage, and there's no
| transparency.
|
| There's still lead in the water in Michigan...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think it is still a good heuristic that most people
| should follow.
|
| Step 1: do I need to have an informed opinion
|
| Step 2: Do I need that opinion NOW
|
| Step 3: WHAT do I need to know NOW
|
| There is a vast amount of conspiracy theorizing that people
| could avoid by following this approach.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Step 4: Always carry a towel
|
| /s
| pathartl wrote:
| Absolutely. I live in a completely different state and
| I'm pretty unaffected by this whole tragedy/negligence. I
| could sit and speculate about what actually happened, but
| what does that do other than spend energy on something
| that I'm not actually involved with?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, There is something to be said about genuine
| curiosity, but in the face of a emotionally changed
| misinformation blizzard the best option is to take a step
| back.
|
| If you decide you are curious and _actually_ want to care
| about railroad safety, dont react to the current crisis,
| "hit the books" and read some actually informative
| material about past events.
| pathartl wrote:
| 100%. It's important to note that doing so also doesn't
| make you complicit. I have a general disdain for the "do
| your own research" type of people because often they're
| not trying to seek out actual education, they're just
| trying to bolster some sort of preconception they have.
| r00fus wrote:
| Well, first off, trains run everywhere. So if it happens
| in Ohio, it can happen near where you live too.
|
| Workers have been pushing to get a _single_ day of paid
| leave per month and threatening a strike - but rail
| bosses have greedily ignored them to give more money to
| their stockholders (ie, themselves too). Then Congress
| voted to force a bad deal.
|
| What you could do is to get informed and see the results
| of this blatant corruption.
| [deleted]
| kevin_nisbet wrote:
| > In general I grow super weary of companies and the government
| downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly
| follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and
| then only years later do we actually see the horrific health
| and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out
| when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. This
| isn't really the same, but I've been thinking in similar areas
| a lot lately in the context of climate change, and the debate
| around climate change, although debating any topic doesn't
| change many minds.
|
| If you bet on the scientific majority around climate change
| being wrong / non-existent / something we can't control, and
| end up being wrong, then the worst case scenario we make the
| planet uninhabitable (I'm going to the extreme here).
|
| If you bet that climate change exists and is man-made and end
| up wrong, we've unnecessarily invested a huge amount of money
| into reducing pollution, more efficient buildings /
| manufacturing / transport, and reduce the dependence on a
| limited set of oil producers to be able to hold supply of oil
| over nations.
|
| For something more immediate like health concerns with this
| derailment, is should the officials be more willing to be
| wrong? And message as such?
| peyton wrote:
| You're betting other people's money in the second case, and
| they have a say.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| In a civilized, democratic society that's always true. But
| it doesn't disqualify the original point.
|
| And it works both ways... Other people have spent trillions
| of US dollars on, for e.g., the war in the middle east.
| Some of my tax money went to that. I didn't have the
| ability to veto it.
|
| There should be a reasonable public debate and then people
| vote. Very often it involves spending other peoples money.
| That's just how it works.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| That money was granted to them as a reward for contributing
| to society. Society has a say in how it can be spent.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| They were either granted it or they weren't.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| Getting money from society doesn't come with a grant of
| immunity to it's rules. Are you saying that it should?
|
| If you use your money to start a business involving a
| giant tire fire in your back yard then society will,
| rightfully so, have something to say about it.
| danaris wrote:
| Unfortunately, the problem here is that _for the individual
| politicians_ , if you bet that climate change exists, the
| worst case scenario is that the big money turns against you
| and you lose office.
|
| If you bet that climate change doesn't exist or can't be
| fixed, so we might as well go on with the status quo, the
| worst case is that you get voted out by environmentally-
| conscious voters...after getting scads of campaign
| contributions from the big money, and with a good chance of
| getting a cushy lobbying post from them afterwards.
|
| These are the incentives we need to change.
| EGreg wrote:
| Many peopl say that capitalism should be laidsez-faire and
| government should leave us alone. But actually, government is
| on the SIDE of capital and corporations, and they constantly
| work together to keep the public distracted and divided enough
| to actually force these corporations to change:
|
| https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362
| RajT88 wrote:
| > It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying
| "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually
| see the horrific health and environmental effects of these
| sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that
| have been impacted.
|
| I recently learned that smaller versions of this even happen in
| the Lasalle/Peru area in Illinois with some regularity. It
| makes the local news, and maybe some Chicago news, but hardly a
| blip on national news.
|
| And this is people telling me they live miles away from the
| incident, and are experiencing fuzzy orange snow. It's curious,
| because this is getting more press coverage, and at the same
| time the conspiracy wingnuts are claiming the press is covering
| it up.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Imagine a world where journalists have enough time in the day
| to participate in a coverup
| samstave wrote:
| > _" journalists"_
|
| You keep using that word. I do not think that word means
| what you think it means.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_hGKT5FI78
| RajT88 wrote:
| There's a lot of self-styled "Citizen Journalists" these
| days of wildly variable quality.
|
| See: Jessica Reed Krause
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| The cancer rates in that area are wack. I know a teacher at a
| local school and the amount of children who are lost to
| cancer is outrageous. Every year at least. The town is 10,000
| people.
|
| Also, something similar happened just recently. <fortunately>
| the carus chemical plant explosion is but a tiny blip
| compared to the Ohio disaster. https://abc7chicago.com/carus-
| chemical-explosion-potassium-p...
|
| But it is terrible nonetheless.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Better to be a labelled conspiracy wingnut, as someone who
| maintains justified suspicion of those who hold power in our
| society (media, corporate barons, politicians), than to be
| too trusting and assuming all is well.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > labelled conspiracy wingnut, as someone who maintains
| justified suspicion
|
| If your suspicions were justified then by definition you
| wouldn't be a conspiracy wingnut. But most of the wingnuts
| think _everything_ is a conspiracy, which makes them no
| more useful than a broken clock.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| was I a conspiracy wingnut for thinking the war in Iraq
| was fought on dubious grounds? Don't have time to go down
| the rabbit hole. Let's just apply Mark Twain's quote and
| replace "read the newspaper" with "watch/read corporate
| news". He's still right.
|
| "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If
| you do, you're misinformed."
| XorNot wrote:
| Was the clock broken when it told me it 6.30 the other
| day?
| m000 wrote:
| A number of rescued foxes and other wild animals were also
| affected in the nearby area [1].
|
| [1] https://www.newsweek.com/fox-dies-owners-arms-after-ohio-
| tra...
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Yeah... but have you heard of the UFOs? They could be aliens!
| adammichaelc wrote:
| I don't think the downvoters get the joke.
|
| That's all I came to say.
|
| Carry on.
|
| Enjoyed the joke, btw.
| katbyte wrote:
| jokes are discouraged here.
| joseph_grobbles wrote:
| The "joke" is the tired "the other thing is clearly a
| distraction from the thing I think is most important".
| Yeah, everyone "gets" it, they just think it's incredibly
| lame.
| frereubu wrote:
| https://samf.substack.com/p/its-not-a-dead-cat
| anotherman554 wrote:
| "I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away
| they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to
| the folks making the videos a massive red flag."
|
| I wouldn't bother watching a Tiktok video unless the video
| maker is an environmental professional. Otherwise this is just
| the blind leading the blind.
|
| Here's a legal definition of environmental professional used by
| developers when they do a environmental assessment, from
| Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_I_environmental_s
| ite_ass...:
|
| Someone with:
|
| a current Professional Engineer's or Professional Geologist's
| license or registration from a state or U.S. territory with 3
| years equivalent full-time experience;
|
| or
|
| a Baccalaureate or higher degree from an accredited institution
| of higher education in a discipline of engineering or science
| and 5 years equivalent full-time experience;
|
| or
|
| have the equivalent of 10 years full-time experience.
| vkou wrote:
| You are correct about that, but it's also worth noting that
| there's also no point listening to a corporate press release
| that's telling you everything is fine, either, because we
| don't put press officers in prison for lying.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| We _also_ usually don 't have environmental professionals
| also working as press officers. If the press person even
| consulted with an environmental professional, the content
| has been filtered by both their lack of domain knowledge
| and their desire to put a good spin on things.
| vkou wrote:
| I will say the same thing about an environmental
| professional on the company payroll.
|
| The problem I'm concerned about isn't ignorance, it is
| cynical CYA-ism and a giant conflict of interest.
|
| You need a culturally-trusted institution to handle this
| sort of thing. I am not sure Ohio currently has one that
| can handle this, so I expect to not know anything until
| the lawsuits settle over the next decade.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| "hey look, here's a bunch of dead fish that weren't here
| yesterday"
|
| "show me your degree"
| rootusrootus wrote:
| "Prove it." would be my first respones. Followed by "Why
| are they dead?" and "Did you kill them yourself?" and "How
| often have you found dead fish anywhere?" and "How often do
| you look?" and "What killed these fish specifically?" etc
|
| I guess falling back to "show me your degree" might be an
| easy way to answer all those questions at once.
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| op00to wrote:
| How do we know they're dead from something specific? An
| expert could tell us the evidence for that. Some dipshit
| who posts a picture of some dead fish on TikTok can't.
| meltyness wrote:
| tears up your degree for your comments being against
| "professional ethics"
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| What are your qualifications for making that statement?
| dendrite9 wrote:
| There are plenty of other people who you might expect to give
| a reasonable update on how nature (in general) is dealing
| with something like a chemical spill. Gardeners, birders,
| fishers, even some walkers or runners are outside regularly
| and tend to have a feel for what is going on in the
| environment around them. There are people I trust when they
| say the fish are hiding in the afternoon because the river is
| too hot and they stop fishing to avoid causing too much
| stress. If one of them told me they were seeing dead fish
| more often after an event I would file that away as a mostly
| trustworthy source of information.
| XorNot wrote:
| Tiktok is unverified with no reputation attached to it.
| People can and _do_ fake things happening on Tiktok for
| views _all the time_. The parent comment claims "people
| have been showing" without linking any of the video
| evidence, which if it exists which makes this 3rd hand
| rumor already.
| smcl wrote:
| Are you:
|
| - weary of these getting downplayed (pron. _wee-ree_ = you are
| tired of it)
|
| - wary of these getting downplayed (pron. _way-ray_ = you are
| suspicious of it)
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Both are valid phrases, and both can be true, even at the
| same time.
| smcl wrote:
| They are! That's why I asked which it was.
| OJFord wrote:
| Those pronunciation guides confused me a lot before I scanned
| back, and read the words themselves (trying to ignore the
| pronunciations I'd already seen!) - so let me proffer:
|
| - weary 'weir[in a river]-ee'
|
| - wary 'wear[clothes]-ee'
|
| Which just goes to demonstrate how weird and multi-sourced
| English is, doesn't it. And also maybe we just pronounce
| these very differently (I'm British) - 'way-ray' is _way_ off
| to me.
| BalinKing wrote:
| Isn't "grow weary" a common phrase, though?
| ska wrote:
| so is "grow wary", which is the potential problem.
| snozolli wrote:
| "Grow wary" isn't a thing.
|
| https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=grow+weary%
| 2Cg...
| danaris wrote:
| Even if that's the case, it's very easy to hear "grow
| weary" and _conflate_ it with the similar word "wary",
| coming up with "grow wary" as a malapropism.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Always remember to mind the y-axis and scale when looking
| at and thinking about graphs. They can be deceptive even
| without meaning to.
|
| https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=grow+wary&y
| ear...
| snozolli wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is, since you looked at the
| vanishingly uncommon phrase alone, giving the false
| impression of popularity.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| You said it's not a thing. It is, in fact, a thing. I've
| heard it and said it often enough to be sure it's _not_
| so uncommon that it 's reasonable to say it's not a
| thing.
|
| You also need to keep in mind what Google Ngram _is_.
|
| https://books.google.com/ngrams/info
|
| >> _" When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram
| Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases
| have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., "British
| English", "English Fiction", "French") over the selected
| years."_
|
| It's a collection of books. Books remain relevant, but it
| tells you nothing of usage outside that. You only have to
| run a search on Google to see that it's used in a wide
| range of unrelated contexts. It's not some obscure
| anachronism or regionalism.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Much like how irregardless is now considered a thing. One
| of these days "mute point" will be a thing too :). I
| better not look that up, maybe it already is. I often
| wonder what people _think_ they 're saying when they
| misuse phrases like that.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Grow weary (tired of) and grow wary (suspicious
| of/concerned about) are different things though.
| Irregardless is a modification of the already useful
| regardless. I'm not sure how they're comparable.
| snozolli wrote:
| _It is, in fact, a thing_
|
| It isn't. "Grow weary of" is a common phrase. "Grow wary
| of" are words you can put together, but it's not a common
| phrase.
|
| I've already posted all the evidence needed, and I grow
| weary of this misguided argument.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Your lack of familiarity with the phrase and
| misunderstanding your own source does not actually prove
| anything.
|
| Here, I'll give you a head start on doing what I
| suggested.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22grow+wary%22
|
| That sure looks like a phrase used across a wide range of
| contexts and unconnected fields, too wide to support any
| notion that it's obscure. There's even a non-English news
| outlet using it in its English coverage.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Where do they pronounce wary way-ray? I've always said it
| "where-y".
| smcl wrote:
| Scotland - and the emphasis is on the first syllable
| ("wea-" is about 1.5-2x longer than "ry", with the "r"
| short and rolled). But remember mapping pronunciation of
| spoken-English to Latin characters is a little bit
| ambiguous due to accents. For example you use the word
| "where" to help describe how you pronounce "wary", but for
| me that "wh" in "where" is slightly aspirated.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I think people combine leery and wary in their mind and end
| up with weary, which they don't intend. I see it a lot.
|
| In the case of the parent comment however, weary does work.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| The rare occasion that it does work both ways
| nerdponx wrote:
| And/or they've seen the word "weary" and assume it's
| pronounced like "wary", so they spell the word "wary" as
| "weary".
| smcl wrote:
| This is it - if you _hear_ the word "wary" and know the
| verb "to wear" before encountering the written word
| "weary" it's totally understandable to assume that is how
| "wary" is written and to mix them up.
|
| What I wanted to do with my comment is show this without
| coming across as a mean or pedantic - especially since in
| the context both work ok. I've no idea if I accomplished
| that, I probably come across as a dick but I _hope_ I don
| 't.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| A tad of _Yes, Minister_ wisdom [1]: "The Four
| Stage Strategy: Stage 1. Nothing is going to happen.
| Stage 2. Something may happen, but we should do nothing about
| it. Stage 3. Maybe we should do something about it, but
| there's nothing we can do. Stage 4. Maybe there was
| something we could have done, but it's too late now."
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak
| nabla9 wrote:
| Legislation passed under President Obama required trains
| carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes.
|
| The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
| [deleted]
| selimnairb wrote:
| And Biden and Buttigieg didn't make it a priority to re-
| implement the law while they had control of both houses,
| and instead shoved an unfair contract down railroad workers
| throats.
| gowings97 wrote:
| Fair point, but from what I've read the preliminary cause
| identified pertains to an axle (not braking) issue?
| TylerE wrote:
| The idea is that you stop quicker, before the axle
| actually fails.
| gowings97 wrote:
| So the train initiated a stop, the axle broke, and they
| did not stop in time? Why did they initiate the stop?
|
| First I've heard of this.
|
| *Update - NTSB is saying it was bearing failure -
| https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
| releases/Pages/NR20230214.as...
|
| ctrl+f for 'axle' or 'brake' from the NTSB statement -
| zero results
| TylerE wrote:
| What do you think the bearing is containing?
| stolenmerch wrote:
| Sure, but it's a little more complicated than that. A 2015
| act of Congress mandated that the Department of
| Transportation repeal the braking requirement if an
| analysis showed more costs than benefits. The act was
| mostly to address high profile oil tanker derailments,
| shipments which peaked around 2014. The Trump
| administration concluded, probably mistakenly, that an
| cost-benefit analysis justified it revocation. Of course
| there was much lobbying by the railroad and oil industries.
|
| Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg's department has
| no plans to reinstate an Obama-era rail safety rule aimed
| at expanding the use of better braking technology, even
| though a former federal safety official recently warned
| Congress that without the better brakes.
|
| The Biden administration has had every opportunity to
| reinstate the safety rule in the past two years.
|
| https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2018/12/20/trump-
| ad...
|
| https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-
| tra...
| e40 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| 1. Let's not pretend that this was a "crazy" Trump move.
| Any Republican would have done this.
|
| 2. Let's stop pretending both parties are the same. Yes,
| there are places where they overlap, but there are
| important places where there is NO overlap. Environmental
| action is the big area where there is little to no overlap.
| kneebonian wrote:
| And yet despite having a majority of the house and senate
| under Biden they've been unable to deliver almost
| anything except an unfair railroad contract.
|
| So maybe, just maybe, the 2 sides are willing to shout
| about different things but at the end of the day are in
| fact the same.
| e40 wrote:
| Razor thin margin in the Senate and at least 2 of the
| "Democrats" are not really going to vote on anything
| controversial. They have been shills, so far, for
| business interests.
| peyton wrote:
| Are you saying there was no possible way to get railroad
| safety through?
| e40 wrote:
| I'm saying the situation Biden has been in since he took
| office is very tenuous. There was a virtual tie on paper,
| with the VP breaking the tie, but 2 of the people on the
| Dem side were not at all cooperative with the agenda that
| Biden wanted.
|
| To say "the Dems could have done it if they wanted it" is
| not at all true.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Both parties primarily serve the interests of the 0.1%,
| hence the reduction in safety protections under Trump and
| the imposition of an unfair contract and the removal of
| the right to strike under Biden. Got to squeeze out every
| last fraction of a percent of profit to keep Berkshire
| Hathaway's stock price up.
| knewter wrote:
| But it was the Republicans' fault
| katbyte wrote:
| well it seems Dems put the rule in place, Republicans
| removed it, and then the Dems didn't act fast enough to
| re-instate it.
|
| if i where to point at who has the most fault it here
| would be the Republicans.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| If someone puts up a tent and someone else purposely
| burns it down, is the first person partially at fault for
| not rebuilding it when everyone gets rained on?
| gowings97 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| You posted two duplicate comments in this thread only to
| claim that it was Trump's fault?
| Maursault wrote:
| To be fair, besides the primary initiative of keeping all
| the wealth in the hands of a few, the secondary purpose of
| a Republican administration is to undo anything done by a
| Democratic administration. There was no way for Trump to
| know whether the legislation was good or bad. It could have
| gone either way, really.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| It's _felt_ like any republican 'rolling back' dem-
| initiated legislation tends to have more negative
| consequences for more people than positive benefits for
| others. I don't have any specifics in mind - if I think
| of any I'll edit/add here. But perhaps others have
| counter examples to correct my gut feeling?
| onetimeusename wrote:
| Would ECP brakes have stopped this, a serious question? I
| don't know if the severity of this warrants blame on a lack
| of ECP braking. There is a study done[1] that compared
| different pneumatic vs electronic signal brakes and ECP
| brakes could have potentially reduced the number of cars in
| a derailment but I don't know if it's a significant
| decrease in cars that are derailed, 50 cars derailed. It
| does not seem that way to me. But I could be wrong.
|
| [1]: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017_cassel
| ton_BM...
| r00fus wrote:
| Why does this sound really familiar? Because it's very close
| to the Narcissist's Prayer [1]
|
| That didn't happen.
|
| And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
|
| And if it was, that's not a big deal.
|
| And if it is, that's not my fault.
|
| And if it was, I didn't mean it.
|
| And if I did, you deserved it.
|
| https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Familiar arc vis a vis climate change discussions with
| American conservatives
| [deleted]
| gnulinux wrote:
| Anything involving government really. This is the decades
| old "starve the beast" [1] mindset. Let's make sure
| government is absolutely ineffective at every step of the
| way, and then later point out how ineffective the
| government is and propose an even more ineffective, under-
| resourced government. It's a vicious cycle, and a self-
| fulfilled prophecy.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
| [deleted]
| olivermarks wrote:
| The argument against hyper capitalism causing more and
| more derailments is credible if you look into 'precision
| scheduled railroading' practices, aka shaving expense by
| eliminating unnecessary costs and 'optimizing Assets'.
|
| Sadly this has little to do with 'conservatives' or 'the
| left' and a lot more to do with our apolitical global
| oligarchy who own the politicians in power and many
| lobbying groups including 'climate change' and
| environmentalists who are strangely silent on this major
| disaster as they were when the Nord Stream pipeline was
| destroyed.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| One thing on the ontology of capital: once enough capital
| (billions, trillions) is gathered in one single control
| point there is a phase transition: from a means towards
| an end (build X, destroy Y) it becomes a manner of
| escaping reality: with enough (crony or not) capital you
| can keep afloat a business no matter how bad it is, how
| badly run, how useless or how dangerous the products. Not
| that 'there is no skin in the game', but there is no
| skin, there is no game anymore.
| eastbound wrote:
| Whereas with government, you can keep afloat a government
| no matter how bad it is, how badly run, how useless or
| how dangerous it is. Except, as opposed to a company, it
| can't crash like Enron or be threatened by competition.
| It doesn't even need to fight to stay afloat.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| By _control point_ you can understand a corporation or a
| government, no need for false dichotomies: in the age of
| capital there is no beyond.
|
| Enron was a weak company, nowhere near the escape reality
| velocity: at peak, in 2000, they had a market
| capitalization of $60 billion, at the same time Microsoft
| was at $600 billion [1].
|
| Also, any company worth their capital knows very well
| that "competition is for losers" [2] and dreams of the
| ultimate consolidation [3].
|
| [1] The Largest Public Companies by Market Cap
| (2000-2022), https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/largest-
| companies-from-2...
|
| [2] Competition Is for Losers,
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-
| for-..., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k
|
| [3] The Consolidation Curve, https://hbr.org/2002/12/the-
| consolidation-curve
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| You can't. At some point disaster and dumb leadership
| conspire to push the people and elite to revolution.
| We're no where near that now, but don't be fooled that
| governments are untoppable. They aren't. Every former
| regime had its peak.
|
| You can see how structural faults in US government could
| produce the tinder. The threefold and interdependent
| issue of the US Senate and subsequently Electoral College
| resulting in Presidential and Legislative and ultimately
| Judicial representation by a smaller and smaller group of
| constituents. The reason we have legitimacy narratives
| today stems from this very structural fault.
|
| But tinder alone does not produce a fire. An unforeseen
| event poised to exploit the flaws of the fault and
| uniquely incompetent leadership conspire to make regime
| ancien.
| briantakita wrote:
| Climate Change & the war on CO2 has sucked the oxygen out
| of the room wrt pollution with dangerous chemicals. Many
| in the environmental community are optimizing a single
| metric, CO2 emissions, & not focusing on the myriad of
| chemicals that cause widespread ecological damage. That
| coupled with the ongoing doomsday hysteria over CO2, it
| is easy to lose focus on pressing issues & the
| complexities in dealing with these other environmental
| issues. The core tension here is should we narrow focus
| on a single metric or widen focus on the entire system?
| Also, Que bono for the different approaches?
|
| Instead of focusing so much on CO2, it would benefit
| humanity to adopt a more well rounded approach that
| addresses all pollutants, prioritizing the safe handling
| of extremely toxic chemicals & reducing the amount of
| toxic waste emitted by industry. Also, it would be
| helpful to take the approach that novel substances should
| be proven safe instead of assuming these substances are
| safe until proven unsafe.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| I'd be really interested in why climate change is a
| hysteria and not well-founded fear. Well founded studies
| say we are currently on track to reach 4degC higher
| average temperature by 2100, and a plausible rise in sea
| levels of that would be around 40 meters. Completely
| ignoring _all_ other effects, this would be a catastrophe
| on a level we can hardly achieve otherwise. And 2100 isn
| 't an end date, it would be kind of nice if the planet
| was usable a fair bit after that as well.
| olivermarks wrote:
| 'Climate change' is a hysteria because there is so much
| money involved in green tech. anyone with an ounce of
| common sense is an environmentalist, but there have been
| so many predictions of impending doom (which is your
| fault, repent and atone for your sins) that the genuinely
| important issues tend to get buried in the tsunamai of
| doomy junk science that is drip fed to Guardian readers
| and anyone else who will listen.
|
| There is a real danger of the $$ cult of climate change
| $$ undermining important environmental issues.
| MrMan wrote:
| this is vile bullshit - we need to invest trillions to
| possibly arrest climate change, so yes there will be a
| lot of money in it for someone.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Apologies for offending your religious beliefs but there
| are an awful lot of now very rich snake oil salesmen out
| there who are doing a lot more for their cronies wallets
| than for the planet.
|
| Be more mindful of where trillions of tax payer money is
| 'invested' would be my advice and try to see both sides
| of the religious divide.
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11653723/How-Al-
| Gor...
| danaris wrote:
| You really don't see there being a very distinct
| difference between the beliefs of the left and right
| wings of American politics on this?
|
| You think "global oligarchy" is "apolitical", at a time
| when the right wing is pushing harder and harder for the
| very wealthy to, essentially, be able to do anything they
| want, while the left wing (such as it is in this country)
| is pushing to restrict their power and tax their wealthy?
| olivermarks wrote:
| Two wings of the same party. At this point because the
| DNC are currently so powerful they are parochially
| dominant (and extremely corrupt), the pendulum will swing
| soon and the power will shift to the RNC (who will no
| doubt also be extremely corrupt).
|
| The unelected bureaucrats actually run everything in the
| US and at a state level. In California where I live we
| currently have a supermajority Dem state government, but
| regardless of this a handful of unelected bureaucrats
| from the Gray Davis era run everything in Sacramento
| behind the scenes.
|
| The idea the DNC 'left wing' is pushing to restrict the
| local elite's power and tax them is laughable. They just
| have a few noisy straw men to placate voters and fill
| their air waves. (I'm a registered Dem FWIW. I loathe the
| party these days).
|
| We need a big parochial political shake up!
| danaris wrote:
| > Two wings of the same party.
|
| It is so hopelessly obvious that this is not the case at
| this point that I think it is fair to treat it as
| malicious.
|
| One party is actively tolerating and promoting neo-Nazis.
| It has made its _explicit_ goal the defeat of the other
| party _at the expense of governing the country_. It
| supported an _armed coup attempt_ in order to try to
| overturn the legitimate election results.
|
| The other is still often frustratingly bogged down in
| process and captured, in some ways by industry, but is
| clearly at least _trying_ to govern the country and make
| things better for people.
| olivermarks wrote:
| [flagged]
| rodgerd wrote:
| While I agree that there are, in general, significant
| differences in positions on these things, this seems like
| a bad example to choose: after all, US rail workers went
| on strike over the safety, long hours, and being expected
| to work injured or sick, and President Biden signed off
| on laws making their strikes illegal.
|
| Unfortunately, at least in the English-speaking world,
| many nominal workers' parties have largely bought into
| worker-hostile policies under Blair, Starmer, Clinton,
| Albanese, and so on.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Exactly.
| danaris wrote:
| Honestly, I agree with you on this; however, the
| grandparent didn't say "Democratic or Republican
| politicians," which is very much the source of the
| problem you describe. Their wording was "conservatives or
| the left", which I think it is fair to say includes the
| _people_ who identify with those political orientations--
| and I think you 'd have a hard time seriously arguing
| that "the left" in America, to the extent that it even
| _exists_ , is not strongly in favor of labour unions and
| worker protections.
| olivermarks wrote:
| I think the grandparent was really referring to
| extremities at the tips of the two wings - the cargo
| culting 'democratic socialist' movement the DNC pays lip
| service to, and the extremes of nationalist'USA first'
| 'patriots' the RNC pays lip service to and the DNC's
| coastal media corp friends love to endlessly frightened
| their viewers about.
| WalterBright wrote:
| With an all-powerful government running things, you get
| Chernobyl.
| pmezard wrote:
| With an all-powerful company running things, you get
| Bhopal.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying
| "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually
| see the horrific health and environmental effects
|
| Yeah but most of the time the panic spread on social media
| actually does get it wrong.
|
| I am familiar with nuclear matter and the amount of insane
| social media post about any little nuclear thing is pretty
| crazy and have no scientific bases.
| 0x008 wrote:
| This is basically the plot of "white noise" with Adam driver (on
| netflix).
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Which oddly enough was filmed in the town this happened in...
| the universe is weird.
| 0x008 wrote:
| Oh wow. Well that probably means it happened before?
| yabones wrote:
| Lots of people saw this coming. This isn't a surprise, but
| it is horrifying. The safety concerns were a large part of
| the railroad workers union's complaints a few months ago,
| which was squashed by the US gov. All the corners have been
| cut to extract more value for shareholders, and there's
| nothing left to squeeze out.
| gazpachotron wrote:
| [dead]
| penneyd wrote:
| I take it that nobody is thinking sabotage?
| saul_goodman wrote:
| Yea, oddly this has not yet bubbled to the surface of
| this story. Your government at work!
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I thought that there were just some people from the town that
| were extras and it was filmed elsewhere in Ohio?
| time_to_smile wrote:
| Which is based on the famous Don Delillo novel. This reads a
| bit like describing LotR as "that movie with Viggo Mortensen".
| 0x008 wrote:
| Yes that is right. Forgive me, but don delillo is not so
| famous outside of the English speaking world so I did not
| think of mentioning it, although I have seen his name in the
| end credits.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| White Noise had several plots over chapters. The plume scenes
| were a fantastic balance of hilarious and scary:
| Summary: Chapter 21 Jack finds Heinrich on the roof,
| looking through a pair of binoculars at a distant black cloud
| of smoke. Heinrich informs Jack that a train car has been
| derailed. Later, they both return to watch the cloud. Heinrich
| says that the burning chemical in the air is Nyodene
| Derivative, or Nyodene D., a toxic substance that causes lumps
| in rats. The radio has already listed nausea, skin irritation,
| and sweaty palms as potential symptoms of exposure. Jack tries
| to reassure Heinrich that the smoke won't come toward them and
| continues to act comfortable and indifferent. He sits down to
| pay the bills, even as rumors of increasing danger come in over
| the radio and phone. Sirens begin to blare through the
| neighborhood, but Jack declares that such things can't happen
| in a town like theirs. New symptoms are reported on the radio,
| and the cloud is given a new name: the airborne toxic event.
| Heinrich tries to get his father to acknowledge the danger, but
| Jack declares that he is a college professor, not to mention
| the chair of a department, and can't imagine someone like him
| fleeing something like an airborne toxic event. The family
| anxiously gathers for dinner as the air raid warnings grow
| closer.
|
| https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/whitenoise/section7/
|
| https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohio-train-derailment-white-noi...
|
| https://twitter.com/Marfoogle/status/1625323668397256704
| [deleted]
| nabla9 wrote:
| Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying
| hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes.
|
| The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
| fragmede wrote:
| > Electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes are a type
| of modern railway braking system which offer improved
| performance compared to traditional railway air brakes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronically_controlled_pneu...
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| You posted two duplicate comments in this thread only to claim
| that it was Trump's fault? Anything else to contribute?
| petesergeant wrote:
| In case you're wondering why this story is getting pushed quite
| hard:
|
| > At the same time, [Chinese] state media has begun focusing on a
| different narrative - a derailed train carrying hazardous
| material in Ohio.
|
| > Though the incident happened in early February, Chinese news
| outlets are now devoting significant coverage on the topic,
| citing US media reports. US officials have performed a controlled
| release of toxic chemicals from the train to prevent
| contamination.
|
| > It has since become a significant talking point on social
| media. On Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, the main Ohio
| train hashtag has been viewed more than 690 million times since
| the weekend, with more than 40 hashtags created on the topic.
|
| > Many Chinese netizens have expressed worry that the incident
| would turn into a global environmental crisis, and anger over the
| relatively sparser coverage of the train incident in US media
| compared to the balloons.
|
| > "Turns out the Wandering Balloon was being used to take the
| heat for Ohio," a post liked nearly 3,000 times reads.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990
| iscrewyou wrote:
| Early February? We are barely halfway through February now.
| Phrasing early February makes it seem like it wasn't in the
| last two weeks!
| realce wrote:
| So you're saying that being concerned with the massive
| corporate attack on the health of innocent people is actually
| Chinese propaganda?
|
| And one of your "sources" is a post liked 3k times in a nation
| of over 1 billion people?
| pessimizer wrote:
| And the fact that it was "liked" by Chinese people silently
| used to imply that it's obviously evil. It may be that
| Chinese people are not stupid, and that the Chinese
| government has no desire to censor the smart things that
| Chinese people say that are also supportive of China.
| legitster wrote:
| Keeping in mind this story is almost 3 weeks old now and only
| got traction starting on Friday when it mysteriously went viral
| on TikTok.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >Though the incident happened in early February
|
| AKA last week? Bizarre way to try and make it seem like it
| happened longer ago than it actually did
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Are you also going to try to tell us the alleged Chinese
| balloon caused the derailment?
|
| There is so much "blame China" posting happening recently. It
| makes me wonder if it's authentic posts or a coordinated
| effort.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I don't think that's what he's saying - but rather that
| Chinese-controlled media is blowing this out of proportion to
| distract you from the chinese spy balloon story (reserving
| judgment whether this is actually the case - it's plausible,
| but would still be surprising - I just think that's what OP
| is trying to say, not that the balloon itself had anything to
| do with the derailment).
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I understand his intended message, I was just being snarky,
| which I accept is crappy of me and against the guidelines.
| Just tired of the mindless xenophobia and American
| exceptionalism despite the US being objectively one of the
| most, if the _the_ most, problematic countries on the
| planet.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Just tired of the mindless xenophobia and American
| exceptionalism
|
| The BBC is not American, though?
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| The UK and the BBC have a long history of being lackeys
| for the American war machine [0], there's been ongoing
| tension between the UK/BBC and China for years [1], and
| American and UK intelligence agencies work very closely
| together and have made joint anti-China remarks
| increasingly often.[2]
|
| Lastly, despite the exact link being BBC, it's also
| pushed plenty by American media outlets.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/14/media/bbc-china-
| battle/index....
|
| [2] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/06/politics/fbi-mi5-wray-
| china/i...
| kvathupo wrote:
| > which I accept is crappy of me and against the
| guidelines
|
| Just wanted to say I appreciate online commenters
| admitting when they were wrong/off-color. A welcome sight
| anywhere on the Internet!
| mbauman wrote:
| It's rather amusing that there are other comments here
| talking about how the balloon coverage is American media
| distracting you from the derailment.
| legitster wrote:
| The idea that China has the power to flip a "whataboutism"
| switch that impacts Western media is actually pretty impactful,
| if true.
| aftbit wrote:
| I've seen a ton of people acting like one of these events was
| intended to cover up the other. Usually people saying that the
| balloon shoot-downs were entirely manufactured and/or overblown
| to distract from the train derailment. I don't think that's
| likely... I think they're just both interesting stories
| happening at the same time, but the media can only have one
| "top story". The balloon stuff is fantastical and geopolitical,
| the toxic release is fantastical and environmental.
| shock-value wrote:
| I don't know or care what Chinese internal media is reporting
| -- this is a significant story in the U.S. that is getting less
| play than it should. It's an ecological disaster with
| potentially significant health concerns, and likely involves
| corporate negligence as well as a failure of governance by both
| political parties who recently forced rail workers back to work
| despite complaints related to possible causes of this
| derailment (and others).
|
| The spy/balloon thing is way less significant and has been
| ongoing by both sides for years or even decades if my
| understanding is correct.
| manmal wrote:
| Another comment here brought up that this topic is big on
| Tiktok, which is indeed affiliated with the Chinese
| government.
| shock-value wrote:
| As far as I am concerned, if the Chinese state is pushing a
| grassroots recognition of this event that could lead to
| accountability and improved safety practices, then they are
| doing us a public service.
| legitster wrote:
| > It's an ecological disaster with potentially significant
| health concerns
|
| Counterpoint, we deal with hazardous chemical spills all the
| time, especially when you factor in all of the semi crashes
| that don't make headlines. There is a very robust set of
| clean up procedures set aside for these chemicals ahead of
| time, and they are being followed. What we are watching now
| are the automatic precautions of our system kicking in as
| intended - like taking soil and water samples and testing air
| quality.
|
| The system is working as intended - we only think it's a
| disaster because we are being told it is on social media. And
| often the evidence of the system working is being used to
| argue it's not.
|
| Outsider efforts that seek to undermine these efforts or make
| big deals of the mundane should be taken with a grain of salt
| for the same reason ballot recounts shouldn't be proof that
| our election process is broken.
| notthemessiah wrote:
| You must live on another planet if you think we have a good
| record on cleaning up hazardous spills, in an era where oil
| wells that can't be plugged continue to bleed into our
| oceans. Most cleanup operations are matters of triage, we
| almost never are able to undo the damage, in the best case
| scenarios, ecosystems are able to recover over time, but in
| many places, ecological damage might as well be permanent.
| Entropy is not to be trifled with.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-energy-oil-spill-gulf-
| of...
| legitster wrote:
| I mean, I live near the Hanford nuclear site. Despite the
| unseen horrors this patch of land has seen, people
| continue to grow food in the area and live to ripe old
| ages.
|
| For sure, I don't really know how much continued damage
| the gulf spill might have caused. But I have been
| swimming in the Caribbean since the spill and didn't
| particularly worry about it anymore at the time.
| localplume wrote:
| I mean thats being pushed onto the Chinese domestic population,
| probably to drown out any coverage of the balloons for them.
| Maybe its bleeding over to US media but I suspect its more
| propaganda for them than a concerted propaganda effort for
| foreign audiences.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| It went viral on TikTok
| GAN_Game wrote:
| [flagged]
| sam0x17 wrote:
| This is a really glaring example of mismanagement on the federal
| government's part. Apparently the number of staff who maintain
| the rails was cut some time before the incident, and this is the
| main reason the rails were not properly maintained and this
| accident was allowed to happen.
|
| Meanwhile the transportation department is still celebrating
| their accomplishments and acting like we don't have a huge
| disaster on our hands https://www.newsweek.com/pete-buttigieg-
| ignores-ohio-train-d...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Why is Federal government at fault, and not, you know, the rail
| company that owns the railroads and collects the revenues?
| shawn-butler wrote:
| In my mind because Biden/Buttigieg had Congress impose a
| labor contract to prevent a strike a few months ago and rail
| safety due to labor cuts by these same rail companies was one
| of the issues workers were concerned about?
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Yeah anything short of meeting the strikers demands is
| insane. I still can't believe that's not what went down.
| These are possibly some of the most important workers in
| the country, and they can't even get sick days.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| It sure does seem weird that something as fundamentally
| efficient as trains are supposedly so hard to run
| economically that _treating workers properly_ just isn 't
| economically feasible.
|
| Of course it is feasible, but the transit corps are only
| interested in maximizing profit and the government backs
| them up. They could run these trains with 10x the crew,
| with full top-tier benefits, and still turn a sustainable
| profit. But right now these companies are being run as
| paperclip maximizers and _merely sustainable_ profit isn
| 't good enough for them.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Capital always behaves this way, it isn't really
| surprising. What's embarrasing is the federal government
| and the news coverage making it seem like the strike was
| a huge risk and the only way to deal with it was to
| forcibly silence them when the obvious solution is to
| meet their demands. It's like such a thing never crossed
| their minds, and it's nuts.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Both are.
|
| Are you really a pilot? You should know better than to treat
| blame as finite and indivisible.
| davesque wrote:
| This might be an unpopular opinion, but the speed at which this
| story has overtaken social media has made me skeptical. That
| coupled with the fact that the story practically doesn't exist in
| mainstream media. And in this case I just don't buy the whole
| "lamestream" media narrative. The mainstream media was all over
| the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. There's no reason they
| wouldn't be interested in giving more coverage to this story if
| it were worth covering.
|
| Something about this story's rise to fame has seemed really
| inorganic to me.
| yunwal wrote:
| Flint is a great example because it only gained attention
| because residents started complaining on social media and in
| public forums[0][1]. Despite widespread protest and refusal to
| drink the water, and mass sickness, official sources maintained
| that the water was safe to drink[2]. National news media picked
| up the story almost 2 years after the switch in water treatment
| systems[3]. Even _still_ EPA officials refused to acknowledge
| issues with Flint water, with Obama drinking Flint water at a
| press conference to convince people it was safe[4]. It wasn 't
| until _2017_ , 2 and a half years after the switch, that media
| and official consensus was that Flint constituted an emergency.
|
| So yeah, keep your pitchforks out people!
|
| [0] - https://midmichigannow.com/news/local/flint-residents-
| avoidi...
|
| [1] -
| https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015...
|
| [2] -
| https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/01/22/w...
|
| [3] - https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/watered-down
|
| [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k
| legitster wrote:
| It's not a conspiracy. The amplified version of the story
| originated from Chinese state media as a direct response to the
| balloon story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
| china-64633990
|
| > At the same time, state media has begun focusing on a
| different narrative - a derailed train carrying hazardous
| material in Ohio.
|
| > Though the incident happened in early February, Chinese news
| outlets are now devoting significant coverage on the topic,
| citing US media reports. US officials have performed a
| controlled release of toxic chemicals from the train to prevent
| contamination.
|
| > It has since become a significant talking point on social
| media. On Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, the main Ohio
| train hashtag has been viewed more than 690 million times since
| the weekend, with more than 40 hashtags created on the topic.
|
| > Many Chinese netizens have expressed worry that the incident
| would turn into a global environmental crisis, and anger over
| the relatively sparser coverage of the train incident in US
| media compared to the balloons.
|
| > "Turns out the Wandering Balloon was being used to take the
| heat for Ohio," a post liked nearly 3,000 times reads.
| vuln wrote:
| > The mainstream media was all over the water crisis in Flint,
| Michigan.
|
| Different victims and different
| person/people/organizations/administrations to blame.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| It went viral on TikTok. Was that entirely organic? Or did the
| Chinese government throw some tinder on the fire? It's pretty
| bad that they have the capability.
| davesque wrote:
| Not sure if you misread it but I said it was _in_ organic.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes I was agreeing with you. It's very possible it was
| inorganic.
| bingo00 wrote:
| Maybe I missed it but does anyone know where these things were
| going/delivered to? What's the use for chemicals like this? I
| can't seem to find any info.
| fragmede wrote:
| Vinyl chloride (VC) is used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC),
| an inert plastic material used in all sorts of things, but is
| well known as the PVC in PVC pipes which are used everywhere.
| whyage wrote:
| Health concerns also grow in East Palestine
| ck2 wrote:
| This happens every day around every fracking site on a smaller
| scale but add them all up and it's even bigger than the train.
|
| Oddly no-one seems to care about that.
|
| If the train was carrying gasoline would people say "oh well what
| can you do, we need gas"
| mcguire wrote:
| Also,
|
| https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/east-palestine-train-de...
|
| https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/east-palestine-train-de...
| logn wrote:
| I've had a hard time finding any information about the geography
| of impacted areas (air and water) other than sporadic reports on
| water testing.
| Kyragem wrote:
| Ohio voted for Trump yet Trump removed many of Obama's train
| safety regulations including better braking systems.
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| I mean I'm no Trump fan, but Ohio is also notoriously a swing
| state. Not sure it's remotely fair or relevant to talk about a
| fluctuating margin of voters as characterizing a state.
| cachecrab wrote:
| Unfortunately it hasn't been much of a swing state since the
| orange man came on the scene. Not to say that Ohio deserved
| this though.
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| It would take a lot more calls to random.randint(0, 1) than
| that for me to think something was wrong. Especially since
| we're actually talking about values that rarely go outside
| 0.4 and 0.6.
| thekingshorses wrote:
| Ohio is not a swing state.
|
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| R R R R
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_Ohio_state_governme.
| ..
| passwordoops wrote:
| So Biden, through the Department of Transport and Pete
| Buttigieg couldn't put those regulations back in place? Or were
| right in forcing striking rail workers back to work instead of,
| oh I don't know, supported them on basic issues like safety?
|
| Yes Republicans are bad. But so are Dems, and their voters
| refusing to hold the party accountable for obvious failures.
| It's why the country is going to shift. R's pass bad policy,
| and D's cry about R's instead of governing
| themitigating wrote:
| How do you know the crash was the result of missing
| regulations?
|
| Republicans are against government regulations,you know "big
| government" and all that, so why would they do a better job?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Democrats are against government regulation, they worship
| B. Clinton and he deregulated everything.
|
| Both US parties, as usual, support regulation that damages
| the other party's prospects or damages the competitors of
| their own donors.
| themitigating wrote:
| False equivalence
|
| Clinton was president in the 90s, prove he removed more
| regulations than Republicans, finally Republicans are the
| only ones who compalin about regulations
| slantedview wrote:
| > How do you know the crash was the result of missing
| regulations?
|
| ""Would ECP brakes have reduced the severity of this
| accident? Yes," Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior official
| at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), told The
| Lever."
|
| https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-
| rule...
| themitigating wrote:
| This regulation was put into place during the Obama
| administration ( I don't know if it was implemented) then
| the Trump administration removed it.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Unfortunately this issue has multiple factors that
| contributed, and weakening the legislation and regulations
| that were put in place to avoid issues like this by the
| Obama administration:
|
| "The sequence of events began a decade ago in the wake of a
| major uptick in derailments of trains carrying crude oil
| and hazardous chemicals, including a New Jersey train crash
| that leaked the same toxic chemical as in Ohio.
|
| In response, the Obama administration in 2014 proposed
| improving safety regulations for trains carrying petroleum
| and other hazardous materials. However, after industry
| pressure, the final measure ended up narrowly focused on
| the transport of crude oil and exempting trains carrying
| many other combustible materials, including the chemical
| involved in this weekend's disaster." [0]
|
| Subsequently by the Trump Administration:
|
| "The AAR lobbying group concurred that "the costs of the
| ECP rule substantially outweigh its benefits," and claimed
| the mandate would cost them about $3 billion -- or roughly
| 2 weeks of their operating revenue in a typical year. The
| FRA estimated the brake requirement would cost about half a
| billion.
|
| Trump's Transportation Department ultimately rescinded the
| brake rule in late 2017." [0]
|
| According to federal investigators, there was a mechanical
| issue with a car's axle, which basically ends with a
| derailment. The ECP brakes may have lessened hazard by
| braking all the cars immediately, classifying the train as
| HHFT may have meant the train would be going slower than it
| was, I couldn't find any data about the speed the train was
| moving at.
|
| This seems to be an area of bipartisan consensus, putting
| the interests of big business above those of the people.
|
| [0] - https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-
| safety-rule...
| Pegasus930 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Sakos wrote:
| No.
|
| The problem is how they treat the elections like a popularity
| contest without regard to how it affects them or their
| quality of life. It sucks how this will affect them. It
| really does. However, these are the consequences for voting
| in people who don't give a shit about you in the slightest.
| Pegasus930 wrote:
| [flagged]
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| It is beyond parody to try to blame Trump for this after
| Biden's recent rail worker action and the fact that he
| hasn't been president for two years now. Biden has had
| plenty of time to correct any alleged awful thing Trump did
| in regards to this industry.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Even if there were a discussion to be had about how the elected
| officials supported by Ohioans let them down, the phrasing here
| doesn't inspire useful conversation.
| spyda wrote:
| How can you possibly blame the victims of this catastrophe?
| These are real people who lost their town to criminal levels of
| corporate negligence.
|
| Your take is gutless.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Aside from the irony, the democrat party will make _way more_
| friends if they or their campaign strategy acknowledged that
| people vote on _way more causes_ than whatever the party is
| saying makes you a better person.
|
| The senate is 50-50, there's never a wave. Time to try
| something else.
| thekingshorses wrote:
| The senate is 50-50 because each state gets 2 seats. Votes
| are not 50-50.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| not sure what you interpreted to write that, its a
| reflection of the same reality either way
|
| people in the areas where people would need to be swayed,
| are not.
| takoid wrote:
| Here is the USDOT press release from 2017 on this:
| https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/usdot-announces-intent-repeal...
|
| Can anyone speak to whether these electronically controlled
| pneumatic brakes would have prevented or lessened the severity
| of this derailment in Ohio?
| [deleted]
| falcolas wrote:
| The cause was an overheated wheel bearing melting and
| dislodging the axle, causing a derailment.
|
| The overheating was detected, and ignored. The quote is, as I
| recall, "The next sensor will detect it if it's a problem."
|
| Could the electric brakes have helped? Not sure in this
| specific case. In other cases? Probably. Air brakes are
| remarkably cool technology (how the valves work still boggles
| me from time to time) but they are still, in the end, civil
| war era technology that's probably due for an upgrade.
| aednichols wrote:
| I am amused by how much remixing of facts is happening. On
| Reddit, I learned that the railroad was negligent for not
| replacing the rails since the Civil War.
| wil421 wrote:
| That's because the Anti-American bots and click farms are
| much more prevalent on Reddit. Not to mention I have a
| feeling a huge amount of active users are teens and
| repeat the same BS without checking.
| slantedview wrote:
| There were more factors to this derailment than the ones
| you mention. In recent years train companies have forced
| longer trains than ever to be driven by a single worker,
| the sort of thing that would make it hard to notice a train
| car is on fire. They've also forced train car inspections,
| the sort of thing that might catch a faulty bearing, to be
| done faster than ever, in the push for endlessly increasing
| profits.
|
| The workers were raising these and other complaints last
| year, and our national leaders told them to take a hike,
| preventing them from striking.
| falcolas wrote:
| Yes, these definitely helped contribute to the derailment
| (and every derailment that occurs these days).
|
| But, IMO, ignoring the hot-axle warning they _did_ get
| was unconscionable (and as I understand it, it wasn 't
| the engineers who ignored it, it was dispatch).
| aednichols wrote:
| Noticing defects while underway has been automated by
| trackside detectors for decades, ever since the removal
| of the caboose and associated crewman. In this case, we
| know the detector went off as designed, and what happened
| - or did not happen - next was the problem.
| downvotetruth wrote:
| The concerning concept is that dragging an axle is going to
| cause a significant additional load on the engine given it
| was not on a slope (no load shift) that should have made the
| engineer to stop and ask what is being dragged regardless of
| other technical aids rather than "let's try to drag it for a
| few more miles and see if it gets knocked loose to make
| rate".
| lstodd wrote:
| A single axle in a train of several hundred, over
| continuously changing slope, rail and weather conditions?
| It most certainly won't be detected until it derails.
| aednichols wrote:
| We do know that the crew was notified of the hot axle by an
| automatic defect detector. I don't think we know yet what
| their reaction was.
|
| If they didn't brake... then the brake technology had no
| effect. If they did brake, more sophisticated brake control
| systems could definitely stop it faster, and would reduce
| internal stresses that can could contribute to derailment.
|
| My personal speculation is that the crew tried to gamble and
| get the train to a more convenient stopping location, either
| of their own volition or as directed by dispatch.
| r85804306610 wrote:
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_la..
| .>
|
| "The rise of precision scheduled railroading has resulted in
| resource and staffing cuts; to compensate railroad companies
| have enacted strict attendance policies for employees. These
| policies eliminate any free time which workers have, requiring
| them to be effectively on-call for weeks at a time. Workers
| have complained of increased levels of stress and fatigue."
|
| "Unions representing about 17,000 workers threatened to strike
| over the points system, but BNSF Railway sued and won a
| restraining order to prevent the unions from striking. The
| Railway Labor Act grants Congress the authority to intervene in
| any railway or airline strike. Under this authority, the
| National Mediation Board has mediated negotiations between
| multiple freight railroads and unions starting in June 2021."
|
| "Early on September 15, Biden announced a deal had been reached
| to prevent a strike, including an immediate 14% wage increase,
| but only one day of paid leave per year rather than the 15 days
| of paid sick leave unions wanted." "In late November, after
| some unions had rejected the agreement, Biden asked Congress to
| pass the agreement into law."
|
| "Writing for Jacobin, Barry Eidlin, associate professor of
| sociology at McGill University, said the message sent to the
| rail workers by the president and Congress was "shut up and get
| back to work." The Biden administration's intervention in the
| dispute was condemned by over 500 labor historians in an open
| letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh."
| themitigating wrote:
| How do you know Biden forcing them back to work has anything
| to do with the crash?
| r85804306610 wrote:
| i'm responding to op's callous and partisan take.
|
| also the comment originally read "What does it have to do
| with the crash", which was immediately edited to "How do
| you know Biden forcing them back to work has anything to do
| with the crash?"
|
| i will respond to the last one i saw: i don't. i'm pointing
| out that the wikipedia article about the 2022 union strike
| makes an argument that the strike was explicitly about
| safety. here's a vice article that goes into awful and
| terrifying details
| <https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp9m8/what-choice-do-i-
| have...>. biden's forced solution did not address the
| original safety concerns beyond "1 day of sick leave".
|
| (edit: 2 minutes after posting this i got downvoted. the
| level of political discourse...)
| dls2016 wrote:
| > "The rise of precision scheduled railroading has resulted
| in resource and staffing cuts; to compensate railroad
| companies have enacted strict attendance policies for
| employees. These policies eliminate any free time which
| workers have, requiring them to be effectively on-call for
| weeks at a time. Workers have complained of increased levels
| of stress and fatigue."
|
| My brother went to a recruiting drive last year for railroad
| engineer job openings (coincidentally along the Pittsburgh-
| Harrisburg corridor). He said they started the meeting by
| kicking out anyone who was even ten seconds late. The job
| description only got worse from there. I could see how the
| pay and benefits would be worth it for some small slice of
| the population... but you have _zero_ outside life.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Working on the railroads is one of those professions in the
| US traditionally done by slaves or near-slaves. Just like
| agricultural work, food service, cleaning, and household
| help.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Where are the environmentalists? This is a huge catastrophe that
| will have long term repercussions across a wide area.
|
| Are all the climate change organizations/lobbyists actually
| corporate sponsored and don't want to rock the boat?
|
| There is little information on why so many trains with hazardous
| cargos are derailing in north America. This could be sabotage by
| malevolent actors.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > This is a huge catastrophe that will have long term
| repercussions across a wide area.
|
| No it's not, and no it won't.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Care to share why you think that way?
| neogodless wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783940
|
| 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
| legohead wrote:
| Saw an interesting video about Precision Scheduled Railroading[1]
| saying it is related to this accident. Not sure how accurate it
| is, but definitely worth checking out. I'd never heard of it.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-fdkGsnf4
| cs702 wrote:
| More and more, this is starting to look like a major f#ck-up by
| Norfolk Southern.
|
| Given the geographical extent of the derailment's impact (well
| over 100+ miles, encompassing Pittsburgh and surrounding areas),
| it's not hard to imagine how it will lead to the kind of class-
| action lawsuit that can hobble or even bankrupt the entire
| company.
|
| Ugly, ugly, ugly.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I'm not one that usually advocates for nationalization, but with
| these rail companies, this should be done.
|
| For multiple reason:
|
| - These companies make absurdly huge profit that could be
| reinvested into the network to improve the network for everybody
| (electrification, passenger transport). And these are not some
| complex tech companies that the government couldn't operate.
|
| - These companies are blocking passenger travel and don't care
| that they are doing it, all other approaches to prevent this have
| failed. With the current structure there is no change for the US
| ever to develop a serious passenger rail infrastructure, either
| inter-city, regional or S-Bahn style. Many local government and
| states might want to do more train stuff but currently don't feel
| empowered to do so any trying is often not even worth it.
|
| - They are removing anything not absurdly profitable, shifting
| things from rail to trucks. And then trucks use government funded
| road and highway infrastructure instead. Its just bad intensives.
|
| - Current companies have a bad track record and there are way to
| many derailments, and this is serious strategic concern for
| logistics that the government should really take better care off.
|
| Just for reference, with the current profit of these companies,
| the US could easily executed a systematic program of
| electrification, track and signaling upgrades. Vastly improving
| both the amount of cargo that can be transported and the
| passenger that can be transported, and doing so in a much more
| substantial way.
|
| While trains are energy efficient, and its better then trucks,
| currently they use very dirty locos with no plan of changing it
| (some mild greenwashing but nothing real). Some of these train
| companies are literally some of the largest individual users of
| fossil fuels (behind things like DoD) and no plan for change
| anytime soon.
|
| It would also make transporting cargo from city-to-city easier if
| these cities are currently in the domain of one of the competitor
| companies. This is a real problem for shipping.
|
| If the US wants to seriously drive modal share of cargo and
| passenger transport to green energy efficient trains, its the
| only way I can see it gone work.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Prediction: nobody gets any resolution except the lawyers.
| mc32 wrote:
| Vultures gotta vulture, be they lawyers or the politicians who
| will swoop in to sympathize with the people once enough concern
| is registered and magically becomes a touchstone issue.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| NBC suit and mask is starting to go from "crazy prepper
| territory" to sane supply keeping.
| colpabar wrote:
| We live in a country where everything important is owned and
| controlled by billionaires or hedge funds who also control the
| government via bribery. Events like this make me think that
| it's much, much crazier to trust the government to keep us
| safe.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That would be great if it were true, unfortunately railway
| accidents are merely a reality of transporting dangerous
| chemicals hundreds of times per day.
|
| If we want to blame the railroad union not getting any time
| off or sick leave, there are no secret cabals of the rich -
| that is purely the white house.
| colpabar wrote:
| > If we want to blame the railroad union not getting any
| time off or sick leave
|
| A huge part of what they were striking over were safety
| concerns. Maximum train lengths, minimum crew sizes (did
| you know trains can be run by a single person and the
| government has no issue with that?), and required
| maintenance were all things the union was fighting for, and
| were all totally ignored by good old union joe.
|
| > there are no secret cabals of the rich
|
| lol. lmao even.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > did you know trains can be run by a single person and
| the government has no issue with that?
|
| So, let's add additional regulation and oversight. Let's
| just make sure we vote in people who want to add
| additional regulation and oversight. I'm sure American's
| vote this way... next time.
| colpabar wrote:
| The "most union friendly president in history" just
| signed a law making it illegal for the union workers to
| strike, and forced them to accept the terms they had
| already rejected. Who the fuck are we supposed to vote
| for if this is what we get with the people who are
| supposed to care about regulation?
| mindslight wrote:
| > _If we want to blame the railroad union not getting any
| time off or sick leave, there are no secret cabals of the
| rich - that is purely the white house._
|
| The cognitive dissonance required to write these two bits
| right next to one another... Some blame surely does land on
| the White House for the union busting. But there would have
| been no union busting without those cabals of the rich
| turning the screws to begin with.
|
| This divide and ignore half the problem is at the very root
| of our political decay.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The make up of the federal government changes greatly every
| two years. Our states probably have a similar turnover. This
| is why it's important to vote, not only in general elections,
| but also primary elections. Seats shouldn't be safe for
| incumbents who let this happen or anyone who takes huge
| donations from the billionaires or hedge funds you're talking
| about.
|
| Edit: I mean: the makeup of our government _may_ change
| greatly every two years - this is why it is important to
| vote!
| agency wrote:
| If the makeup of the federal government changes every two
| years, and yet nothing ever meaningfully changes, what does
| that say about the importance of voting?
| kortilla wrote:
| It was legal to have a gay marriage 20 years ago. Is that
| not a meaningful change?
| kibwen wrote:
| If oligarchs spend tens of billions of dollars buying
| media companies in order to influence how people vote,
| what does that say about the importance of voting?
| mindslight wrote:
| That the outcome of the voting is very important to those
| oligarchs.
|
| If football teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars
| on their players, what does that say about the importance
| of football?
| pessimizer wrote:
| That applying your program after it has been voted
| against is a lot more expensive than applying your
| program after it has been voted for?
| kevviiinn wrote:
| These are both the same statement, and I agree
|
| Also note the influence of oligarchs on the politicians
| themselves
| cmmeur01 wrote:
| The class of people in the government doesn't change.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Maybe in your district this is true (and some districts
| are more homogenous than others, for sure), but I'll
| challenge you to really take a look at the candidates of
| your next primary election. You'll probably find find
| meaningful differences between their political
| philosophies, even if class isn't among them. As an
| example, though, AOC and Joe Crowley are different in
| many meaningful ways. As are Connor Lamb and John
| Fetterman. These are cases where I think people of the
| political insider class were defeated by challengers that
| people didn't think fit the proper mold.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Also: if you live in a non-swing state, consider voting in
| the primary of whichever party is most likely to win the
| election, even if that isn't the party you'll likely vote
| for. AIUI although you can't vote in more than primary you
| can still vote for whomever you want in the regular
| election regardless of which primary you voted in.
|
| The idea being that in such states (mostly red or mostly
| blue), the primary effectively _is_ the election, since the
| minority party has such little chance of winning the final
| election.
| colpabar wrote:
| I agree. I don't know if this is true in every state, but
| in some this requires you to update your voter
| registration.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Some states have open primaries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_Unite
| d_S...
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| A lot of people living in a small town in Ohio felt the same.
| Just stay away from the urbanization and cities and the
| government won't bother you... until a quasi-national freight
| train comes rolling through your town with a literal chemical
| dumpster fire in tow.
| passwordoops wrote:
| That a "Doomsday Preppers: Where are they now?" follow-up
| sequel has not yet been produced is highly disappointing
| aftbit wrote:
| I thought about the one who was worried about a flu pandemic
| all through 2020. I wonder if she stayed as paranoid, and how
| long she managed to avoid getting COVID.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| They call it a derailment, but isn't "explosion" a better word
| choice? Seems like downplaying.
| legitster wrote:
| The "explosion" was part of an intentional burn as part of the
| prescribed cleanup plan:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154760911/ohio-train-derailm...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Before everyone loses there mind, because this story has oddly
| been on blast 2 weeks after the incident:
|
| VC is a gas a room temperature. None of the VC cars were ruptured
| in the crash. They were vented and ignited by workers to avoid
| explosion. Burning VC produces carbon oxides, HCl, phosgene, and
| formaldehyde. HCl, Phosgene become hydrochloric acid in the
| atmosphere. The total amount of hydrochloric acid this could
| possibly produce would hardly register in the water table.
| Formaldehyde would be trace too, similar to fruits and
| vegetables.
|
| EPA site details without the hysteria:
|
| https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=1593...
|
| List of cars in the accident:
|
| https://response.epa.gov/sites/15933/files/TRAIN%2032N%20-%2...
| akira2501 wrote:
| Is there any reason to assume the burn, under these conditions,
| would be complete enough to fully consume the product such that
| there would be zero danger to the environment?
|
| These are guys on a side of a track ostensibly just winging it.
| I think it's reasonable to assume the "under laboratory
| conditions" assessment might not completely apply to this
| scenario.
| perihelions wrote:
| You didn't read the article, in the particular the new list of
| chemicals they released that were previously undisclosed. (It's
| not just the same story on repeat). I don't think organic
| acrylates conveniently break down in water; I suspect they'd be
| persistent environmental pollutants, in addition to being
| carcinogens.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The list in the article is the same one I linked to.
| perihelions wrote:
| I'm responding to the substance of your comment: _" The
| total amount of hydrochloric acid this could possibly
| produce would hardly register in the water table."_ The
| other stuff will certainly register, and if you didn't
| mention it, then it can read to imply a negative.
| ajross wrote:
| This take needs more coverage. In fact the current freakout is
| almost entirely due to the deliberate burn and the big plume it
| caused, with almost no one taking the time to explain that the
| combustion products are simply much safer than the products
| that were leaking.
|
| But everyone wants to cover how it smells in East Palestine and
| not what the options were.
|
| (And to everyone replying with "But it's ACTUALLY about the
| train safety issue": no it isn't. This train was sitting in a
| pile for more than a week and no one cared. People only cared
| once they could see the plume.)
| lm28469 wrote:
| > This train was sitting in a pile for more than a week and
| no one cared.
|
| No one cared because it wasn't reported in the media, even
| today it barely is. I've seen locals talk about it since day
| 1 on reddit and twitter. The fact that it didn't make much
| noise in the media until now is a good indicator of
| authorities trying to minimise the issue.
| mindslight wrote:
| The ultimate problem is the breakdown in trust of our
| institutions to get this right - the overriding incentives
| are wrong at every level. Burning a product because it would
| have otherwise needed to be recovered and transported under
| pressure seems like exactly the kind of amoral tradeoff a
| company would take, not particularly caring about the
| combustion products apart from what they can legally get away
| with.
|
| As far as the actual technicals, your assertion that " _the
| combustion products are simply much safer than the products
| that were leaking_ " would seem to just be the opposing take
| in a fact-free debate. First, combustion products have been
| dispersed in the air. And second, with large quantities of
| anything, trace amounts of impurities or other combustion
| products become significant.
| ajross wrote:
| > Burning a product because it would have otherwise needed
| to be recovered and transported under pressure
|
| I don't think that's correct. It was leaking. No recovery
| was feasible. The options at hand were "let it leak" or
| "burn it", and burning it was the right choice.
|
| Now, maybe you don't believe that. And of course I believe
| it on faith. But real chemical engineers are making these
| decisions, not yahoos on HN. And the fact that you perceive
| a "breakdown in trust" of those engineers doesn't make them
| wrong. If you want them to be wrong you need to provide
| evidence yourself.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _It was leaking. No recovery was feasible_
|
| I do not see how leaking would preclude recovery. It's
| likely "feasible" is shorthand for _economically_
| feasible. And from the manifest linked elsewhere in the
| thread, all but one vinyl chloride cars are listed as
| "car did not leak".
|
| > _the fact that you perceive a "breakdown in trust" of
| those engineers doesn't make them wrong_
|
| No, what would make them wrong (as in, not doing
| everything they can to minimize harm) is the
| orders/incentives coming down from management. Boss says
| to do the cheapest option possible, they look at the top-
| line combustion products and regulations regarding
| releasing them, and sign off on the cheaper burn plan. We
| get the same thing in software with the zeitgeist of user
| surveillance. It's an overwhelming ethical violation, but
| everyone's gotta eat and if you rock the boat it costs
| you personally.
|
| > _If you want them to be wrong you need to provide
| evidence yourself_
|
| I'm not responsible for releasing chemicals into
| residential areas, nor for lighting them on fire. It's
| incumbent upon the railway and responders to prove that
| their actions were justified and correct in minimizing
| the damage to bystanders.
| snozolli wrote:
| _But real chemical engineers are making these decisions_
|
| Are they? What proof do you have?
|
| Personally, I've seen management and bean counters
| override engineers constantly, so I tend to assume that's
| standard.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The cars weren't leaking, they were vented and ignited
| because they had the potential to explode otherwise. The
| other cars were burning from the crash, and an explosion
| would make the situation exponentially worse.
| [deleted]
| fabian2k wrote:
| You're assuming that the vinyl chloride burns perfectly and all
| of it will be converted without residue, which I don't think is
| a safe assumption. The products of burning it are less
| problematic than the original, but setting it on fire doesn't
| simply solve all problems here.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It should not be seen as business as usual when these kinds of
| things happen. It was at least tolerable due to my ignorance
| when you talked about these chemicals boiling off, but then to
| say "no biggie that petroleum spilled everywhere, I'm sure it
| burned off too."
|
| The whistle has been blown on the rails and the rail companies
| for some time, and now a catastrophe has occurred.
|
| We should be severely punishing the rail companies if not
| nationalizing them. We should make sure every citizen is taken
| care of and their homes are safe to live in.
|
| I don't have to believe in a conspiracy theory to be angry at
| negligence causing an environmental disaster in a city.
| xwdv wrote:
| Nationalizing is an overreach. This is why events like this
| have to be downplayed because if you don't the vultures will
| swoop in with their own agendas and try to stir up emotions
| to garner support for unpopular causes.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I don't see why nationalizing critical infrastructure is
| off the table. I know it's unrealistic because our federal
| government is so feckless they can't even apply safety
| regulations or stand up for workers.
|
| I'll let the citizens of East Palestine know they need to
| stay calm lest someone propose a policy solution you don't
| like.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| It's confusing to me why you think nationalizing the rail
| company would solve any problem. The government can't
| even keep us safe when it's telling the rail company what
| to do. In fact, the issue here doesn't seem to be "rail
| company not listening to government" so much as
| "government not listening to rail workers." So you think
| that same government - which just legislatively forced
| those workers back to work - can _run_ the rail company,
| while complying with all the same (and new) regulations,
| and also not turning it into a loss-making operation
| funded by taxpayers in perpetuity (or at least as long as
| the country /economy still exists)?
| kneebonian wrote:
| Well given the way they've been running Amtrack I don't
| trust their ability to run shipping.
| Sakos wrote:
| Unpopular causes like regulating train safety and disaster
| handling/cleaning?
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| Airlines are regulated heavily and safe without
| nationalizing / seizing ownership.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Airline accidents kill hundreds of people outright. The
| media gives those stories tons of attention ( _If it
| bleeds, it leads_ ) and accordingly the airline industry
| knows it must take safety seriously to protect their
| profits.
|
| Meanwhile the chemical industry kill the gods only know
| how many thousands of people over the course of decades
| with a steady trickle of statistically correlated
| illnesses, but the media doesn't cover it and the
| consumers of chemical goods feel insulated from harm
| which seems very abstract and indirect to them. A
| consumer buying a chemical good is not _directly_
| imperiled by the chemical industry in the same way as an
| airline flier is threatened by airline crashes.
|
| It doesn't take a genius to figure out why the airline
| industry is better at safety than the chemical industry.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| Yes I agree, that was my point. Though I was comparing
| train derailments overall, not chemical spills. Chemicals
| are needed for society.
|
| Nationalizing trains will not help. Nationalizing
| chemical transfers won't help either if it's the same EPA
| in charge that said 9/11 debris was safe or this spill
| was okay.
|
| Heavier regulations on trains may be needed, especially
| when transferring hazardous loads, but nationalization
| would be horrendous.
|
| All that be said, investing in pipelines is a much safer
| form of transfer for these chemicals. Trains are too
| risky.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| [flagged]
| unethical_ban wrote:
| In theory, I don't see government ownership of society-
| critical industries with no opportunity for competition to
| be crazy. Tell me how you'd spin up a competing national
| rail line network.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| It's not worth replying. "Is this a joke?" is not asking
| if it's a joke. It's an worthless insult. Nothing more.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Agreed they were low effort, so I put in little as well.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Ayn Rand wrote a sci-fi/political philosophy book about
| this exact subject, named Atlas Shrugged.
|
| The main character in the book is a railroad executive
| struggling to keep her company afloat in the face of
| ruinous regulations that were designed to drive the rail
| systems towards nationalization.
|
| The flip side of course, that she fails to address
| completely in that book, is unethical behavior by private
| industry, such as super trains with one engineer, unsafe
| working conditions, etc...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > political philosophy
|
| Mmph.
|
| Hm.
|
| I guess if _Dianetics_ is a work on metaphysics, sure.
| claytongulick wrote:
| You may not agree with Ayn Rand, and in many cases I
| certainly don't, however she was a well known philosopher
| responsible for Objectivism and heavily influenced the
| formation of the Libertarian party.
|
| There are many philosophers that I disagree with, but I
| wouldn't challenge whether they or their works are
| philosophical in nature.
|
| Atlas Shrugged used trains and science fiction as a
| literary device to illustrate her philosophy.
|
| I found it to be more engaging than her non-fiction
| works, which was the point, I suppose.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Also, you know, it's fucking fiction from an asshole who
| knew nothing about the world?
| claytongulick wrote:
| Do you believe that this comment adds to the
| conversation?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Looking around and it looks a little bit like she knew a
| fair bit about the world.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| The market tried to solve this problem with workers going
| on strike a few months ago. Government regulations are
| what stopped it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The market doesn't meaningfully have organized labor in
| the first place without government intervention.
|
| It also doesn't have corporations.
|
| (though I agree that smacking down these workers was some
| real bullshit)
| MockObject wrote:
| The craziness appears when you realize that US
| governments are no more accountable than US corporations.
| Nobody lost their job over 9/11, or the Afghanistan
| pullout, or any other debacle you can name from the past
| few decades. Charges were dropped against the low level
| jail guards who allowed Jeff Epstein to die; Acosta
| resigned as Labor Secretary only due to public outcry and
| 12 years later.
|
| Responsibility is a quaint tradition of a lost America.
| colpabar wrote:
| The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of the
| environmental impact, it's because the people who work on these
| trains have been warning things like this could happen for
| years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal
| government stepped in and crushed them into submission. There
| was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles
| before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for having a
| busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals should get
| stopped for being on fire.
|
| You've been frantically telling everyone to calm down in every
| thread about this story for some reason. People are upset
| because it's another case of the government completely failing
| to do their jobs of keeping regular people safe, and before you
| claim that people on reddit are saying crazy things again,
| _this isn 't reddit and no one is saying those things here_.
| xhrpost wrote:
| > There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least
| 20 miles before the derailment
|
| Do you have a link talking about this? Any timeline I read
| online just mentions the derailment around 9p, nothing about
| a car fire prior to derailment. Thanks.
| robotbikes wrote:
| This article has information and various photos from
| security cameras showing the sparks coming off of the car
| prior to the derailment -
| https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/like-the-doors-of-hell-
| were-o...
|
| Also DemocracyNow! has been covering the disaster the last
| two days featuring interviews with both local residents and
| railway workers.
| sithadmin wrote:
| >There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least
| 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for
| having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals
| should get stopped for being on fire.
|
| Unfortunately, a wheel/bearing running hot for ~20 miles
| could be well inside the usual spacing for defect detector
| stations[1] in the US. Can't speak for this specific rail
| line but they're often as far as 30 miles apart, and not
| every detector will have the sensor package to identify
| wheel/bearing issues (though most will).
|
| If you ever ride Amtrak, you'll occasionally hear trackside
| detector units radio in a diagnostic report over the
| conductors' radios. They have automated voice systems that
| announce their position, sensor reading states, etc.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defect_detector
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I'm not denying the accident was bad, I'm tempering an
| unwarranted level of hysteria for what is another small scale
| industrial accident.
|
| People are drumming up hysteria for political capital, but
| its not fair to people who live in Ohio or Pennsylvania and
| now think they can't use their water, they're doomed to
| cancer at 45, and their kids will be mutants.
|
| It's being blown _way_ of of proportion to the reality of it.
| It also why expert testimony is so thin. You 'd think by now
| all the experts would be pouring out to condemn the
| government. Meanwhile the best NPR could get was one sentence
| about potential indoor air quality issues going forward
| (which the EPA report addresses with "no concerning levels
| detected".
| colpabar wrote:
| > People are drumming up hysteria for political capital,
| but its not fair to people who live in Ohio or Pennsylvania
| and now think they can't use their water, they're doomed to
| cancer at 45, and their kids will be mutants.
|
| Can you show me a single comment on _this website and not
| on reddit_ that is saying those things? Also, did you know
| that the EPA also said that all the dust in the air on 9
| /11 was perfectly safe? I am not implying malice here, but
| sometimes the authorities are just wrong, so it seems naive
| to just believe them.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-
| wro...
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Can you show me a single comment on this website
|
| Ask and ye shall receive, from this very thread:
|
| > This is a total disaster that will impact the health of
| people in the area for generations.[1]
|
| [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34791609
| voxl wrote:
| This website is not the only place discussing this
| matter, and it is a strawman to continue requiring any
| evidence of public outcry be limited to specifically this
| website. Moreover, reddit is not the only _other_ place
| discussing this. There are hundreds of videos on TikTok
| from people in Ohio that are saying this is a horrible
| disaster on par with Chernobyl.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| How about this?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34773513#34774984
| chaps wrote:
| I'm not sure why you think this is blown out of proportion.
| The fact that they had fear of the train car explode and
| cause a much worse disaster (ie, not small scale) cannot
| and should not be written off.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| People all over social media are calling this
| "Chernobyl", which is absurd.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| A lot are also calling this "Bhopal"
| giantg2 wrote:
| Because people don't trust the government and the companies
| on stuff like this. "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!", isn't
| exactly what people want to hear years after many of these
| sorts of accidents. Which has happened in the past. I mean,
| it took 2 weeks just to disclose additional chemicals in
| this incident.
| kortilla wrote:
| >If I can get pulled over for having a busted tail light, a
| train full of toxic chemicals should get stopped for being on
| fire.
|
| What makes you think this isn't what normally happens? Trains
| aren't just cruising around constantly on fire.
| chaps wrote:
| I think you deeply underestimate how many derailments
| happen each year in the US
|
| https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/how-often-do-trains-
| dera...
| causi wrote:
| _Trains aren't just cruising around constantly on fire._
|
| If they were, would you know? I wouldn't.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34784255
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least
| 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for
| having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals
| should get stopped for being on fire
|
| Ifwe did the same shit they get away with, we'd be in jail
| real fast
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| > The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of
| the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on
| these trains have been warning things like this could happen
| for years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal
| government stepped in and crushed them into submission.
|
| I've seen a few people say this. I'm sympathetic to the rail
| workers but, what's the evidence that this derailment had
| anything to do with the attempted rail workers strike? AFAIK,
| the primary issue there was sick leave--and, generally, a
| more humane work schedule. While I'm very much in favor of
| these things, I don't see what it has to do with this
| accident, other than that it presents a superficial
| opportunity to score some points.
|
| Perhaps some mistake was made that would have been more
| likely if the workers were better rested? But if that's the
| extent of the connection, without any evidence of a real
| causal relationship, the argument seems irresponsibly
| speculative.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| As I understand one of the things the rail companies want
| to do is have just one person running a train instead of
| the current two. In this case the single engineer likely
| would not have been able to decouple the other 10 hazardous
| containers and pull away. Also that this failure happened
| due to a seized axle or bearing is indicative of the
| refusal to invest in the rail equipment and safety systems.
| There are a number of different ways to detects failing
| bearings that have been at least deployed for decades. I
| thought I heard this might have been a broken rail but that
| seems to have just been a guess on the day of the accident.
|
| "The crew was able to uncouple the locomotives and move
| them to safety, preventing an even bigger tragedy. This
| would not have been possible under the various management
| schemes now being proposed to operate such trains with
| single person crews. Further, because Train 32N carried the
| standard crew of two or more workers, they were able to
| immediately take the necessary emergency measures to ensure
| a safe and effective response."
|
| From a RWU email:
| https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Press-Release--Fiery-
| Ohi...
| Bonooru wrote:
| If there is any chance that human error contributed to this
| disaster (either via the people there or maintenance
| deferred or done less than perfectly), then "a more humane
| work schedule" would have made that less likely due to
| everyone involved being well rested.
| colpabar wrote:
| It's funny yet sad at how differently HN reacts to a
| company making its employees go into the office than
| this. Maybe that's how we should frame it - "railroads
| force employees back into office, even when sick" might
| garner some more sympathy.
| slantedview wrote:
| > what's the evidence that this derailment had anything to
| do with the attempted rail workers strike? AFAIK, the
| primary issue there was sick leave--and, generally, a more
| humane work schedule.
|
| The workers had many other complaints, including companies
| forcing workers to drive dangerously long trains with a
| single person staffing it. That seems absolutely relevant
| when you have a train car burning and nobody notices.
| notch898a wrote:
| If you drive a vehicle knowing it is unsafe shouldn't you
| refuse? Any other vehicle and we would hold the worker
| accountable for not refusing such a negligent order.
|
| The news articles about the rail workers complaining it
| was unsafe seems to show they are complicit as they
| continued operating in unsafe conditions anyway.
| [deleted]
| c1ccccc1 wrote:
| > Any other vehicle and we would hold the worker
| accountable for not refusing such a negligent order.
|
| Say the worker refuses that order and their boss says
| "okay, you're fired". Would we also give that worker
| legal protection? Would we also hold accountable the
| higher ups who gave that order and set the policies for
| how trains are to be run? If not, then you now understand
| why the accident happened.
| notch898a wrote:
| >Would we also give that worker legal protection?
|
| Yes I believe that's exactly what is to happen. See this
| explicitly spelled out https://www.osha.gov/laws-
| regs/mou/2012-07-16 .
|
| I've worked in goods transport in interstate navigable
| waterways and we had the same thing, literally anyone can
| "stop work" for unaddressed imminent dangerous conditions
| and are protected against retaliation. Even if the
| protection fails it is better my own family starve to
| death than to poison an entire city; just following
| orders isn't an excuse (and in any case, such a company
| of such character company would fire you after the
| wreck).
|
| note: not legal advice
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wonder if anything disempowering happened in that
| industry recently that might have discouraged rail
| workers from speaking out
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is exactly what is happening. Any worker that
| continually bring up problems is removed one way or
| another and you effectively get the normalization of
| deviance via the dead sea effect. Things that should be
| called out are suddenly "That's what we always have to do
| because we don't have enough time", and 99.999% of the
| time it works out fine. Then the ten thousandth time you
| explode a gaping hole of poison in the earth.
| ruined wrote:
| the legislation last year forcing an end to the labor
| dispute meant that rail workers stopping work had no
| legal protection. the railway labor act makes it illegal
| to stop work before exhausting a lengthy dispute process
| aqme28 wrote:
| > If you drive a vehicle knowing it is unsafe shouldn't
| you refuse?
|
| So a strike then? You're literally describing what they
| tried to do.
| notch898a wrote:
| In a way but legally they aren't identical. Conditions:
|
| - Where possible, you have asked the employer to
| eliminate the danger, and the employer failed to do so;
| and
|
| - You refused to work in "good faith." This means that
| you must genuinely believe that an imminent danger
| exists; and
|
| - A reasonable person would agree that there is a real
| danger of death or serious injury; and
|
| - There isn't enough time, due to the urgency of the
| hazard, to get it corrected through regular enforcement
| channels, such as requesting an OSHA inspection.
|
| Note the MOA I cited above shows the railroad enforcement
| has an interlocking agreement with OSHA to this effect
| that explains this. [0]
|
| You're also instructed to remain on the work site which
| is a key difference from a "strike." You may not be
| protected if you say ask for more pay or sick days, so if
| they weren't showing up to work or asked for that it
| would really muddy the waters. It's my understanding the
| "strike" was planned days in advance so it wasn't an
| immediate response to imminent danger (if it was, should
| have just been done immediately instead it looks
| premeditated) and the "strike" asked for stuff like
| better pay or days off which then made it non-protected.
|
| If you truly follow all of the bullets above then it's
| protected and the anti-strike order isn't really valid as
| it's considered protected stop-work activity rather than
| a strike.
|
| Note: not legal advice
|
| [0] https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/mou/2012-07-16
| colpabar wrote:
| Stealing someone else's comment -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34784255
|
| The sick day thing is the only thing that gets talked about
| so that people come to the same conclusion you have. That
| was a big part of what they wanted, sure, but they also had
| plenty of demands on better safety precautions.
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| >The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of
| the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on
| these trains have been warning things like this could happen
| for years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal
| government stepped in and crushed them into submission. There
| was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20
| miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for
| having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals
| should get stopped for being on fire.
|
| This feels like a motte and bailey. A quick skim of the
| comments in this thread that people are equally worried about
| the health impacts from the accident specifically, as about
| the general plight of railway workers and/or the state of
| safety on railways. The NPR article also largely talks about
| health impacts from the specific accident rather than
| systemic safety issues. I'm not saying that people _aren 't_
| outraged about the systemic safety issues on railways, but
| it's pretty clear that the main thing on people's mind is the
| immediate environmental impacts.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The problem is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
| cure. I have friends in this industry so I have more
| context than most.
|
| Railroads were a sleepy corner of the world for a long
| time, until business types realized that trucking had
| peaked out from a capacity perspective. These companies are
| all chasing higher return on assets at all costs.
|
| Motor carriers are much better regulated than rails because
| the railroads are all consolidated and they can hook
| themselves to politically powerful industries like coal and
| oil.
|
| As the parent stated, roads are regulated more effectively
| and strictly. If you are a CDL driver with a carrier with
| lots of violations, you can lose your license for a minor
| brake violation or even a torn seat. That creates a market
| dynamic where drivers refuse to drive for shitty carriers.
| [deleted]
| themitigating wrote:
| "People are upset because it's another case of the government
| completely failing to do their jobs of keeping regular people
| safe, "
|
| Even though this is a private company you only blamed the
| government?
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Part of the government's responsibility is to regulate
| themitigating wrote:
| Not according to republicans
| cshimmin wrote:
| I think this comment is referring to the govt blocking the
| rail workers from taking collective action against the
| private companies.
| themitigating wrote:
| and what does that have to do with the crash?
| delecti wrote:
| Part of the rail workers' demands included safety
| concerns.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| The demands of the union included a lot of increased
| safety precautions.
| yunwal wrote:
| Including the fact that trains are too long, which
| directly contributed to this incident.
|
| https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-
| union-sa...
| joseph_grobbles wrote:
| [dead]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The reason people are so upset is because they watched a
| smoke plume reach all the way to the cloud layer. That's it.
| That's the whole story.
|
| The average citizen's grasp of the medical risks of chemicals
| is basically negligible. But a smoke plume that reaches all
| the way to the cloud layer makes everyone ask questions about
| things they didn't care about 3 weeks ago.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| that and a bunch of people on twitter who like Bernie are
| still really mad that Buttigieg won the Iowa primary and is
| now transportation secretary and see this as an opportunity
| to blame him. Of course the vast majority of people find
| that an incredibly confusing and asinine line of thought to
| follow.
| weakfish wrote:
| Can you source this claim or is it just your projection
| of the situation? This doesn't read as empirical.
| yunwal wrote:
| Huh, because from my view, rail workers expressed concern
| over unsafe working conditions, complained about cost-
| cutting measures, negotiations were shut down without
| giving into demands by Biden and Buttegeig.
|
| Then, a safety issue _that was mentioned by union
| leaders_ [0] contributes to a train derailment days
| later. These seem very related to me, can you enlighten
| me as to why they're not?
|
| [0] -
| https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-
| union-sa...
| colpabar wrote:
| Can you please please please take a moment and really be
| honest with yourself and think about how you and the rest
| of the mainstream media would be responding to this if
| pete was a republican appointed by a republican president
| yunwal wrote:
| This has echos of the Flint water crisis all over it. The
| "trust authorities" crowd would have happily let Flint
| residents drink yellow water until lead poisoned an entire
| generation.
|
| Turns out, people are right to question things that don't
| pass their smell test. Sometimes, there's a reasonable
| explanation, other times there's not
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Question, yes, but then the question needs an answer.
| "Just asking questions" with no follow-up is just signal-
| jamming.
|
| Follow-up on the question in Flint found both elevated
| lead levels in kids and a mechanism by which the changed
| purification process released previously-fixated lead in
| pipes.
|
| In contrast, this is a big scary smoke cloud of a well-
| understood volatile compound that we've spilled into the
| ecosystem in the past and already tracked the effects of.
| We know what vinyl chloride, phosgene, and hydrochloric
| acid do.
| yunwal wrote:
| > In contrast, this is a big scary smoke cloud of a well-
| understood volatile compound that we've spilled into the
| ecosystem in the past
|
| In past events, vinyl chloride was not burned, and
| minimal amounts of it went unrecovered. We also know that
| hydrogen chloride is a byproduct of burning vinyl
| chloride, and when combined with water, makes
| hydrochloric acid, which is not good to come into contact
| with, and has killed many of the fish in East Palestine.
| We know vinyl chloride is a cancer-and-birth-defect-
| causing carcinogen. We also have seen some evidence that
| animals nearby are dropping dead and humans feeling sick.
|
| We also know that the rail company, purposefully or not,
| did not accurately tell officials which chemicals were
| released. We also know in the past that corporations
| responsible for ecological disasters have repeatedly
| downplayed the incidents. We also know that a reporter
| was wrongfully arrested for asking questions about the
| incident.
|
| We also know that rail union leaders were talking about
| the exact safety concerns that led to this derailment,
| and were told to suck it up by strikebreaking federal
| officials.
|
| The correct thing to do is not dismiss concerns, but to
| put in place measures to stop corner-cutting and provide
| guidance to residents of East Palestine that isn't just
| "don't worry about it". There are real concerns here and
| no one is providing real evidence that things are safe.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > We also have seen some evidence that animals nearby are
| dropping dead and humans feeling sick.
|
| This is precisely the kind of decontextualized data that
| leads to inaccurate conclusions. Without data on normal
| animal die-off rates, there's no reason to believe
| finding dead animals is unusual in this part of town.
|
| And of course people feel sick; they've been told they
| were exposed to a scary chemical. It's going to be very
| hard to separate psychosomatic effect from physiological
| effect.
|
| (The dead fish are probably directly causal. Swimming in
| hydrochloric acid will do that. But they can also
| directly sample the water to figure out if the HCL levels
| are dangerous for human consumption or contact, and I've
| seen no reporting to suggest that is the case; fish are
| way more sensitive to water quality than humans).
|
| > The correct thing to do is not dismiss concerns, but to
| put in place measures to stop corner-cutting
|
| No argument there. Independent of this specific accident,
| we know there's a pattern of accident rate increase that
| indicates a culture of lax safety standsrds (and I
| completely believe the rail workers who have told us they
| are heavily incentivized to cut those corners). That
| should stop.
|
| > and provide guidance to residents of East Palestine
| that isn't just "don't worry about it".
|
| Unfortunately, that _is_ the only guidance in the absence
| of other data. Otherwise, proving "everything is fine"
| is proving a negative. Is the question "is their risk
| higher than last month?" Yes. "How much higher?" Pretty
| much not very much if they didn't get sick by now. "What
| should we do?" They're doing it in the form of burning
| off the carcinogen and checking low-lying areas for any
| escaped volatiles.
|
| What else is there? For an average citizen, they may as
| well go pray to whatever god they believe in; it's as
| useful a preventative as anything else they could do.
| yunwal wrote:
| > But they can also directly sample the water to figure
| out if the HCL levels are dangerous for human consumption
| or contact, and I've seen no reporting to suggest that is
| the case
|
| But they have not yet done this, and tests are a week
| out. FEMA hasn't provided food or resources to residents
| of East Palestine. Churches in Youngstown are traveling
| en masse to provide any kind of support. There's videos
| of entire coops of chickens dying out. But oh, this is
| all just a misunderstanding? Sorry, but are you f***ing
| kidding me? When are you gonna start looking with your
| eyes rather than listening to what people with clear
| conflicts-of-interest are telling you? I bet you thought
| there was nothing to be done about Uvalde too, huh?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > There's videos of entire coops of chickens dying out
|
| There is currently a rampant bird flu ripping through the
| US shared between wildlife and farm chickens with a
| 90%-100% mortality over 48 hours. This is _exactly_ the
| kind of situation human threat-assessment is bad at.
|
| I know experts make mistakes, but replacing expert wisdom
| with "the guesses of the masses" is a bad idea in
| general. I don't trust Norfolk Southern, but I trust a
| mob a darn sight less.
| yunwal wrote:
| > I know experts make mistakes
|
| This is where you're wrong. Experts don't make mistakes
| in situations like this. They consistently [0] downplay
| [1] every [2] environmental [3] disaster [4] and withhold
| information from neutral parties until it loses the
| public's attention. When are we going to stop acting like
| this isn't standard operating procedure? When are we
| going to assume that this is default behavior of people
| responsible for disasters?
|
| [0] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-toxic-cover-up/
|
| [1] - https://www.history.com/news/chernobyl-disaster-
| coverup
|
| [2] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-rig-leak-
| idUSTRE6430A...
|
| [3] - https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/flint-water-
| crisis/six-mor...
|
| [4] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/california-finds-
| pge-equipme...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If you have specific evidence of what exposure to
| (burned, trace amounts of) vinyl chloride might do, feel
| free to share them. This isn't a mystery chemical; we've
| been working with the stuff since _1835_ , we've spilled
| it into the environment numerous times, and we are
| decently familiar with it enough that even given experts
| with vested interests will downplay the risks, I have no
| reason to believe panic is in order.
|
| What is your goal in this exchange?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| So how do you explain the dead fish, chickens, and people with
| rashes etc.?
| legitster wrote:
| I mean, dead fishes and chickens and rashes occur at natural
| rates in any population regardless of the presence of
| chemicals.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Because the accident released a ton of nasty chemicals in one
| spot. However they are pretty volatile and naturally
| dissipate. If you see recent pictures from the crash site,
| nobody is wearing PPE and the EPA has deemed the area as safe
| to be in.
| slenk wrote:
| EPA also said the dust from the towers collapsing on 9/11
| was safe.
| legitster wrote:
| The actual EPA pronouncement was that the air and water
| in NY city were safe (not to warrant an evacuation). They
| still recommended that first responders and people in the
| vicinity wear respirators.
| slenk wrote:
| Didn't realize that distinction - thank you.
|
| Do you know if they recommended it right away or after a
| few days?
| legitster wrote:
| Well, I don't think the EPA was in a position to make any
| statements right away - they weren't going to stop people
| from running in and trying to save lives so they could
| take air samples back to a lab.
|
| The amount of blame that got pinned on them after the
| fact was probably pretty unfair.
| [deleted]
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Are you going to list every call the EPA made and whether
| it was right or wrong? Or just cherry pick?
| slenk wrote:
| I just think it would be wise to not blindly trust any
| agency right now. I would like to see some independently
| verified levels at the crash site and at the locations
| where people are reporting issues.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| Agreed on not losing your mind, that's never good to do, but
| downplaying it is too far on the other scale.
|
| Seems too early to tell doesn't it? I don't think you can
| safely say "it would hardly register" without knowing the
| results from the contaminated regions...
|
| --
|
| Water Runoff
|
| Responding crews discovered contaminated runoff on two surface
| water streams: Sulphur Run and Leslie Run. Under Ohio EPA
| oversight, Norfolk Southern emergency response contractors
| installed booms and underflow dams to restrict the flow of
| contaminated water as well as contain and collect floating
| product.
|
| U.S. EPA took water samples at the streams and has sent them to
| a laboratory for analysis. Emergency response staff noticed
| impacted aquatic life and notified the Ohio Department of
| Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Interior. Ohio DNR
| is on site and is assessing the situation and the impacts to
| aquatic life. Downstream water utilities were also notified.
| legitster wrote:
| I think this is more evidence of the effectiveness of our
| safeguards and procedures than anything else.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's seems most likely the run off is from the ruptured
| tanks, petroleum lube oil, diethylene glycol, polypropyl
| glycol, and butyl acrylates. And likely primarily the non
| flammable ones, the oil and the glycols.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| Interesting, do you have details on that, or is that a
| guess?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Generally flammable things burn in a fire.
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| So a guess then, that's disappointing. Generally things
| don't burn 100% perfectly.
|
| Unless you were onsite testing what was in the runoff and
| have the results, you're speculating.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| There is certainly runoff, the question is there enough
| to perpetually poison hundreds of billions of gallons of
| water and make it through water treatment.
|
| Clearing the first hurdle is hard, clearing the second is
| even harder.
| badrequest wrote:
| You should at the very least be willing to put that much Hcl in
| your own water table/air supply before suggesting everybody
| else be comfortable with it.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| There probably already is
|
| 250,000 gallons (if it was 10 cars and all 10 converted
| perfectly to HCl, and all of it went into the water supply)
| into a water table of, lets be conservative with 10 billion
| gallons, is 0.00002% concentration or .02ppm
|
| Compare this to your stomach, which has an hydrochloric acid
| concentration of 5000ppm.
|
| So yes, I would have no issue with it. All the water you
| drink mixes with a much higher concentration of HCl every
| time you drink it.
|
| Like I said, their is a hysteria building around this and a
| total lack of nuance and understanding.
| pixl97 wrote:
| HCl itself isn't going to be a direct issue in the water
| supply. HCl interaction with all those other things in the
| environment that were otherwise inert is the big problem
| here. If you dump your HCl in a limestone environment,
| we'll you'll dissolve a bunch of rocks. It gets more
| problematic when there heavy metal compounds get dissolved
| into solution and suddenly people can't use their wells or
| municipal water has to shut down or work extra hard at
| filtration.
|
| Problem is the only way you know if this is occurring is
| constant sampling and testing over the affected region by a
| competent and trustworthy set of testing groups.
| throwaheyy wrote:
| That amount of hydrochloric acid doesn't just magically
| dilute evenly into the water table in one instant.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's actually more mixed than you would think since it
| forms HCl in the atmosphere and falls down with rain.
|
| For reference 1 inch of rain over 1 sq. mile is
| approximately 18 million gallons.
|
| So even if we concentrated the full 250k gallons
| (remember that HCl is just one byproduct too, so we are
| being very generous with 250k gallons, most of the
| byproducts are carbon monoxide/dioxide), but 250k gallons
| into 1 sq mile of rain fall....138ppm
|
| In reality this will fall over thousands of square miles
| too.
| alldayeveryday wrote:
| The EPA famously declared the air safe following 9/11. Their
| credibility is, at least for me personally, negligible. The
| flint water crisis and the Gold King Mine are other examples.
|
| People are rightfully worried and angered. Your dismissal of
| them as "losing their mind" or "hysterical" is at best tone
| deaf, and at worst an intentional tactic to downplay the event.
| Appeals to governmental authority falls flat when the trust of
| the people no longer exists for their governmental
| institutions.
|
| From the article: U.S. EPA continues to assist Norfolk Southern
| and Columbiana Emergency Management Agency with voluntary
| residential air screening. ... To increase the rate of
| screening, Norfolk Southern--with U.S. EPA assistance--is
| bringing more teams and equipment to East Palestine.
|
| You expect Norfolk Southern to perform honest screening which
| would result in millions upon millions in damages to be paid
| out? Why isnt the EPA in charge of this rather than following
| the lead of Norfolk?
| xxpor wrote:
| The EPA has absolutely nothing to do with Flint.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I just watched the HBO Chernobyl miniseries (excellent, btw) and
| the parallels to the initial lack of action to a huge public
| health threat is chilling. If there is a carcinogen in the air,
| get people out of there!
| xadhominemx wrote:
| There is not a carcinogen in the air. They evacuated the town
| while they performed the controlled burn, but now the
| combustion products (not really carcinogens) have dispersed and
| it's safe to return.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Just like 911's ground zero was safe ;) nothing to see, move
| along, uh what cancers are you talking about ?? you must be
| imagining it
| sschueller wrote:
| There was an asbestos ad [1] featuring the twin towers. How
| can one expect the air to be safe after we know what
| asbestos does to you.
|
| [1] https://preview.redd.it/8cf7ufrnxlw31.jpg?auto=webp&v=e
| nable...
| lm28469 wrote:
| Yet: "Former EPA head admits she was wrong to tell New
| Yorkers post-9/11 air was safe"
|
| It's the real world and in the real world you have dozens
| of entities competing against each-other to get their
| version to be believed. Same shit with Hussein's weapons
| of mass destruction. The truth doesn't really matter
| until decades later.
|
| You'll have overly cautious people, overly pessimistic
| people, overly optimistic people, straight up lying to
| cover their asses people, &c.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-
| wro...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Excellent example to make my point. First responders stood
| directly on the smoldering pile of thousands of chemical
| compounds for months with no PPE. You see how that is very
| different from the EP situation, no?
| realce wrote:
| So you would feel fine having your kids live their day-to-day
| in this area? Would you buy a house 1 mile away from the
| epicenter?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Ya. It's easy to measure the contamination and the spilled
| products have very short half lives in the air/soil. I
| would probably want to monitor my well water for a little
| while if I were in the immediate vicinity.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > It's easy to measure the contamination
|
| Can you elaborate on how you'd do that ? Don't tell me
| you'd trust the official line, given the track record
| it's not a viable option
|
| Same for well water ? Can you get a same day reading on
| it ? What would you do in the meantime ? Wouldn't it be
| too late by the time you get the air results ?
| Julesman wrote:
| I see a lot of these responses starting with "The reason." I
| don't see many people talking about institutional bias. I don't
| see a lot of people talking about this disaster getting no
| coverage while the media is stuck on shooting down balloons. I
| don't see many people talking about the fact that if this was
| anywhere close to wealthy people that it would have been headline
| news. I don't see many talking about the absolutely soulless
| response of everyone responsible. I don't see many talking about
| historical precedents that paint a clear picture of what is
| likely happening. I don't see many talking about how the best
| coverage of the event has been on Tiktok and that people on the
| ground might have something valuable to report.
|
| This is NOT s trivial thing in any way. This is not a wait and
| see thing. This is a total disaster that will impact the health
| of people in the area for generations. And without any pushback
| the terrible people responsible well likely just get away with
| it.
| nyjah wrote:
| _I don 't see many people talking about the fact that if this
| was anywhere close to wealthy people_
|
| They don't put wealthy neighborhoods near railroads carrying
| toxic chemicals. Or rarely do they. Meanwhile, lower end
| neighborhoods will have the train tracks and some even a
| garbage dump within view.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't see a lot of people talking about this disaster
| getting no coverage_
|
| Oh my god this is the only thing people are talking about.
| Please don't do this. Let's talk about the actual disaster
| instead of spinning up another useless whirlpool of meta-
| debate.
| kolanos wrote:
| > Oh my god this is the only thing people are talking about.
| Please don't do this. Let's talk about the actual disaster
| instead of spinning up another useless whirlpool of meta-
| debate.
|
| This may be true in your circles. But almost no one in mine
| even know this happened. It has not been a top headline in
| any of the mainstream news sites, I only learned about it by
| visiting alternative news. It's pretty disturbing how hard
| the news is trying to bury this story.
| Julesman wrote:
| I know it could seem this way. And now that's true. But when
| it first happened big media largely ignored it or parroted
| available talking points without any real attempt to do
| meaningful reporting. But I agree that the impact on people
| is more important than the media critique.
| gowings97 wrote:
| Correct - there has been a total lack of coverage after the
| first day or two; it's completely dropped off most front
| pages, barely getting a blurb at this point. Far away from
| the header news sections/now relegated to back pages. The
| EPA should be providing daily updates, and the major news
| outlets should be syndicating these daily updates.
|
| This is the largest land-based environmental disaster since
| Three Mile Island.
|
| I just checked US News & World Report and CNN front pages -
| not even listed.
| distrill wrote:
| i feel similarly to you but i'm finding that people who are
| less online than i am have no idea that anything even
| happened in ohio. my media is full of coverage and lots of
| people pulling their hair out about the lack of coverage,
| which seems totally inaccurate. but my family who watch tv
| news and spend no time on reddit or hn or tiktok basically
| still haven't heard about this yet.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I generally agree with you, and I also agree about the
| uselessness of meta-commentary. But this story has been
| ranking quite low on news sites, eg on the default) Google
| News it's not on the homepage at all and is 7th in the US
| news section which usually displays 3 stories per 'page'
| requiring scrolling. PBS Newshour, which normally covers
| environmental stories in detail - especially the kind
| involving long term problems like cancer cluster - only
| addressed it yesterday and then very briefly.
|
| We need a better way to quantify media coverage to assess
| whether stories are under- or over-reported relative to
| others of the same type, but absent that people-talking-
| about-it is what we've got. I sometimes think HN could use
| meta-headings to cluster exceedingly obvious topic
| subthreads, because the top-to-bottom linear format is not
| ideal for multi-lateral discourse.
| johndevor wrote:
| The NYT does not have this barely at all. There should be a
| giant picture of the mushroom cloud on their front page to
| reflect the severity (potential or real) of the situation.
| It's shameful.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _should be a giant picture of the mushroom cloud on their
| front page to reflect the severity (potential or real) of
| the situation_
|
| It was front page on Bloomberg. I admit I didn't click on
| it. To the degree this is of urgent national concern, it's
| in a rail safety bill we have months to debate.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Not sure when you checked, but right now it's literally
| nowhere to be found on Bloomberg. I count three stories
| on shooting down UFOs, though, and one on comedians
| finding side hustles as babysitters.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when you checked, but right now it 's literally
| nowhere to be found_
|
| When this happened. Nobody clicked on it so it fell off.
| (I'm still failing to see why this is a national tragedy
| requiring minute to minute updates.)
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I'm not sure how to reconcile "this is the only thing
| people are talking about" with "these stories have fallen
| off all the top news sites because nobody is clicking on
| them".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| This story _should_ get more traction. It isn't because
| it isn't of general interest. Not because of a
| conspiracy.
| t-writescode wrote:
| This is not reflective of modern news practices. There
| isn't interest because that interest hasn't been spun up.
| When all attention has been pulled to manufactured
| stories, it's reporters' jobs to pull and manufacture
| interest into things that matter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that interest hasn't been spun up_
|
| This usually happens outside the news room, investigative
| journalism being the exception. The lack of environmental
| NGOs raising a fuss may be part of the problem, if you
| think spin is the issue. (I do not. I think most
| Americans simply aren't concerned with this, and those
| who are, and have influence, are mostly looking at
| rulemaking and liability ramifications.)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| This is going to give a whole lot of Americans cancer.
| I've heard this described, by an extremely level headed
| commentator I trust, as "we just nuked an American town".
| This story is way bigger than some balloon.
| ng12 wrote:
| I cancelled my NYT sub over the pandemic. I felt dirty
| supporting them even for just the word games.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| I think that it is the NYT's policy to not put giant
| pictures of _potential_ disasters on their front page to
| avoid being sensationalist.
|
| I would not fault you for disagreeing with that style. Most
| importantly I think that it risks missing important events:
| at first they are either not verified (or not verified to
| be important, like here) and a few days later they are no
| longer newsworthy. But at least it seems that there is some
| logic to it.
| pphysch wrote:
| _avoid_ being sensationalist?
|
| The Chinese spy-on-the-weather balloon debacle is the
| textbook definition of sensational yellow journalism. NYT
| has had constant front-page coverage of it.
| legitster wrote:
| Because this is a regional story being amplified by Chinese
| state media. The NYT not running shock headlines based on
| trendy internet topics probably has more to do with their
| editorial scrutiny.
| xhrpost wrote:
| Wow you're right, only mention is way at the bottom of the
| main page, just a title "A Train Carrying Toxic Chemicals
| Derailed in Ohio. Here's What to Know." No picture, not
| even a mini-summary like some of the other links.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| No it's not? There's one measly story way down past the fold
| on the NYT homepage.
|
| It's nowhere on the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or
| USA Today homepages (I cmd+F'd).
|
| There's a tiny clip on the left of the Fox News homepage
| that's tangentially about it but really about Tomi Lahren
| bashing Pete Buttigieg.
|
| The most prominent is the New York Post, which has a headline
| about it being "worse than feared" after a bunch of scrolling
| past stories about Kathy Hochul banning gas stoves and Emily
| Ratajkowski hanging out with Eric Andre.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's since moved further down. Mike Pompeo is angry about
| balloons, which is clearly more important.
|
| There's probably some political issue around the incident.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| > I don't see a lot of people talking about this disaster
| getting no coverage while the media is stuck on shooting down
| balloons.
|
| I've seen hundreds of comments and posts with this sentiment on
| Reddit, including some that made it to the top of r/all.
|
| Usually they say something like "why aren't major media outlets
| covering this?" while linking to CNN or CBS or some other major
| media outlet that is in fact covering the event.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| It was the better part of a week before it got any coverage
| beyond local news. That's what people are pissed off about.
|
| It probably wouldn't have gotten the coverage it did as quick
| as it did if some uppity cop didn't rough up some uppity
| reporter giving the media an axe to grind.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It had articles on Reuters[1] and CNN[2] within a day.
|
| [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/train-derailment-
| causes-mas...
|
| [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-
| train-...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > This is a total disaster that will impact the health of
| people in the area for generations.
|
| [citation needed]. Vinyl chloride breaks down quickly
| (especially when it's all set on fire) and doesn't bio-
| accumulate. That's why the OSHA standards for it are for
| career-long exposure. Its byproducts are also pretty volatile
| and should burn through biology and dilute quickly.
|
| There's no 4-alarms here because it's not a 4-alarm situation.
| It's a disaster, but one of the more well-understood and
| easier-to-contain ones.
| xxpor wrote:
| Right. It's essentially impossible to be both highly reactive
| and build up persistently in the environment. It'd just
| react!
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| [dead]
| BLO716 wrote:
| I'm still trying to find a reliable boots-on-ground in people's
| face news journalism. Anyone have boots on group stuff?
| fragmede wrote:
| This guy has been giving daily updates
| https://www.tiktok.com/@nickdrom
| kolanos wrote:
| Still don't see this story anywhere in my Google News feed.
| fifteenforty wrote:
| Weird comment about masks not working for vinyl chloride. Whilst
| it's true that a particulate filtering mask (N95) isn't enough,
| you can definitely get some protection from an organic vapour
| cartridge fitted to a reusable respirator. See
| https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/19...
| smm11 wrote:
| [flagged]
| gaoshan wrote:
| The train that was carrying all of this passed through Cleveland,
| Ohio, just prior to this accident. Imagine the fallout if this
| had happened around a population of hundreds of thousands of
| people?
| fredgrott wrote:
| What is being underplayed:
|
| -Same chemical by products as the chemicals stored at the Bhopal
| disaster -Railroad unions have been warning of this outcome for
| more than 10 years
|
| They will end up suing NS as the town will have to be evacuated
| again and demolished as they will find that the water-table has
| been polluted beyond repair.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Bhopal was methyl isocyanate.
| downvotetruth wrote:
| The most concerning chemical when Bhopal occurred was methyl
| isocyanate. _But_ , although it was the most concerning, many
| other chemicals are at Bhopal that would be a significant
| problem in themselves, which are not possibilities for the
| current topic.
| [deleted]
| yabones wrote:
| ...Not to mention the dispersion along the entire Ohio River
| watershed, which supplies drinking water for about 5M people.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Not sure why this is being downvoted.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Because it's extremely misleading. They're invoking the name
| of the Bhopal disaster even though they seem to know that the
| actual toxin released in that disaster (methyl isocyanate) is
| not one of the chemicals on the NS train (or one of their
| products, as far as I know). Instead, they're talking about
| the chemicals "stored at" the Bhopal disaster, which may make
| the comment technically true (I don't know) but very very
| misleading since those chemicals had nothing to do with the
| mass death for which the incident is infamous.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| > _Please don 't comment about the voting on comments. It
| never does any good, and it makes boring reading._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Because it's entirely wrong.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Gotta keep the profit train going at all costs
| korroziya wrote:
| Train derailments are the latest conspiracy theory for tinfoil
| hats right now. I guess food processing plant fires fell out of
| vogue.
|
| "nO oNe iS rEpOrTiNg aBoUt tHiS" cries the conspiracy theorist
| reporting about the incident using screencaps from news reports.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's not completely unreported but compare it to the few
| balloons you guys popped in the last week that made
| international news it's weird. Especially since these balloons
| are 99.9% mass hysteria
| mrguyorama wrote:
| One is about global geopolitical games and a possible
| upcoming war in the next few decades.
|
| The other is a local environmental disaster. There's a
| national angle in pointing out this is exactly what the rail
| unions told us would happen but is even Fox News reporting on
| that?
| alexandre_m wrote:
| > is even Fox News reporting on that?
|
| There was a segment by Hannity and Tucker Carlson about
| this yesterday which I found on Youtube.
| coolbreezetft22 wrote:
| The balloons seemed to get the most coverage and hype on
| social media / twitter. And now the same social media /
| twitter is complaining about how the news spent too much time
| talk about the balloons.
|
| Reading the economist on a weekly basis, the balloon story
| didn't get the same kind of hysterical coverage that I was
| lead to believe by twitter. I wish people would actually
| spending time reading instead of just scanning headlines and
| twitter and drawing strong conclusions and getting angry
| about it
| cycomanic wrote:
| I can tell you the balloon made front-page news for at
| least the BBC, the guardian, der Spiegel (Germany) and the
| NZ herald (New Zealand). And I'm not even talking about US
| news. It definitely was blown way out of proportion in
| regular media and not only on social media (there is
| probably an interesting discussion about cause and effect
| to be had here).
| ifaxmycodetok8s wrote:
| I grew up ~12 miles from the incident. My family still lives
| there. To add insult to injury, the local Shell plant is also
| doing a safety burn right now.
|
| https://twitter.com/BreatheProject/status/162525554863023311...
| steeleyespan wrote:
| Another 4Chan conspiracy proven to be false! Toxic fumes are
| proven by science to be safe and effective. The dose never leaves
| the muscle tissue.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > The dose never leaves the muscle tissue.
|
| Yes it does, quite rapidly in fact.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly
| unfolding_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783940 - Feb
| 2023 (300 comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Any HNers have air quality sensors near-ish 'East
| Palistine, Ohio'?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783664 - Feb 2023 (11
| comments)
|
| _Ohio vinyl chloride accident summary_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34781184 - Feb 2023 (7
| comments)
|
| _Ohio catastrophe is 'wake-up call' to dangers of deadly train
| derailments_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34773513 -
| Feb 2023 (230 comments)
|
| _Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34772687 - Feb 2023 (212
| comments)
|
| _Health concerns mounting as animals become sick after train
| derailment_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34758525 - Feb
| 2023 (128 comments)
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