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Nothing was done after Katrina either. This is a doomer/accelerationist mix obviously it is pretty much inevitable that the US will balkanize after a series of natural disasters where the government fails to handle it properly either due to fascism or incompetence there is no difference.
This is a warning to take climate change and balkanization very seriously if you can take steps to change your life in the medium/long term future you definitely should.
I have a turkish coworker whose family is from the areas affected by the earthquakes, and she has postulated that Turkey might soon be a candidate for balkanisation, since the affected part of Turkey is heavily kurdish and used to be in favour of Erdogan, but now a lot of the villages are seething with rage at the Ankara government and their botched aid attempts. Obviously everyone has their blind spots, but your comment reminded me of that discussion we had a few days ago.
Isn't US citizens perfectly well aware that their government doesn't care about them? Government neglect is not enough for balkanization, you need some political force pushing for a breakup if it is to happen and I can't see what or who that should be in the current situation.
Nothing was done after Katrina either.
Idk about that. I recall large blocks of affordable housing getting demolished, major cities taken over by the state, and the education system totally privatized in the aftermath.
Seeing people post from Palestine has been nightmarish. If you don't think the US government would run a coverup in your own backyard, think again.
Their fault, if you want the US population to care about a place, don't name it Palestine!
The crazy thing is that the evacuation zone was very small and everyone was told that they can return like a day later. Insane.
Seeing people post from Palestine has been nightmarish.
Good thing so much of it has been censored.
How much of it is just apathy/willingful ignorance? We’ve seen so many record breaking forest fires and Texans die from freezing for the past few years, and Americans would rather scold other citizens of the world for not overthrowing their government when they experiencing problems.
How much of it is just apathy/willingful ignorance?
I think the "They're just using the balloon to cover up the train fire" line is overblown, simply because I don't believe we'd have seen any less fixation on China Balloon in the absence of a train fire. That said, a lot of this really does just boil down to what's in everyone's field of view.
I was picking through a copy of the NYT the other day and there were no less than six different articles talking about the balloon. Nothing about Ohio, the train fire, or the resultant pet/wild life die-off. CNN was on in the background and they just toggled between Balloon stories and the Syria/Turkey earthquake. Virtually nothing about Ohio.
I don't know if I'd have even heard about the train story if not for this site pointing me to relevant Twitter feeds. And despite all the traffic those feeds are creating, I still don't see them trending on Twitter. So where are people supposed to be getting clued in on these stories? Idk. Not everyone is going to be in niche leftist internet forums.
Americans would rather scold other citizens of the world for not overthrowing their government when they experiencing problems.
Even the scolding is hollow and meaningless. Like, I was at my friends' house the other day. And their kid mentions, somewhat off-handedly, "I hope Ukraine wins the war with Russia". Wasn't really in a position to probe the sentiment, but... I feel like this is a common attitude in the US. See a conflict, pick a side, root for it. Maybe buy some of your team's merch. Maybe vote, if you think it'll be good for your team... uh... somehow.
But there's nothing else you can really do. Not for problems at home or abroad.
Like, its not as if folks in Texas want to experience a power failure. But shy of dropping several grand on an at-home generator or moving to a rental unit with a backup power source, what is anyone supposed to do? Who even knows how the grid works, much less what we'd need to do to fix these kinds of problems?
The neoliberal US government has no ability to do something like that. Not excusing it, neoliberalism hollowing out the government is by design. But the reality is if Bernardo Sandersista was president he wouldn't be able to either.
Relocate them where? Provide them basic necessities how? The government doesn't feed or house people in this country, it doesn't have the infrastructure to even try. And the fact is that private property rights are so enshrined that state and local governments would fight this sort of relocation.
You're right they should do something, even with the limited tools of the current government. But it is ideologically opposed to doing things directly.
- Pay for evacues’ hotel stays
- Rapidly build temp housing like china did with hospitals
- Start demanding leftover groceries at stores be delivered to them
- Realize you’re dreaming because the chemical fumes made you pass out while being stuck in car traffic
We don't even have the cheese reserves like we did under Reagan. All the government can do is buy bullets and body bags.
I think he could easily do it for a relatively small town like that. But couldn't do it on a broader scale. And even after one or two smaller evacuations the Congress would start to riot even tho the cost of evacuation would be like 0.01% of the US military budget.
Reminder that the world's largest industrial accident is the Bhopal Union carbide disaster in 1984. It was an American company. Immediate death toll was 2,259 with an additional 500k sustaining injuries. The disaster continues to cause vieth defects to this day. The company settled with the Indian government for a paltry $17 million and used the US Supreme court to reject any further aid.
It's one of the worst things to ever happen and none of the Union Carbide executives went to jail
Do you think any :fedposting: are thinking there could have been foul play? Even if not, I wonder if it’s not just too convenient… brakes? Regulation? Oversight? How about some more cops to protect us from RUSSIA?!
Well the Chernobyl aftermath was a massive success story at damage mitigation. Once you got beyond the local level the state was excellent at handling the response
~500,000 people live in a 20 mile radius from East Palestine. not a dense area but this will also affect places downstream on the Ohio River (Cincinnati and Louisville) and places downwind (from upstate New York and Pennsylvania all the way to the middle Atlantic and New England coast). its impossible to accurately predict the outcomes of an event like this, but its likely millions will be affected
Millions will be affected by which chemicals? Because a lot of them - if not all - have become diluted enough in the atmosphere to be a non-issue in Pittsburgh so I can't see New England being affected. For instance, there is some worry about phosgene - exposure limits are just 0.1 ppm! But EPA air analysis of Pittsburgh air showed only 3 parts per billion, so nearly 1/100th the exposure limit.
phosgene is just one chemical present here. its formed from combustion of vinyl chloride, but in relatively small amounts. this article (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0002889718506429) has a pretty good breakdown of vinyl chloride combustion composition. the HCl is the most dangerous because it evaporates to form atmospheric hydrochloric acid leading to acid rain. the carbon monoxide from combustion is also a big health risk. also the vinyl chloride itself is toxic and carcinogenic and a ton of it boiled off into the atmosphere before they started the controlled burns.
good points. norfolk southern released the contents of each car here: https://response.epa.gov/sites/15933/files/TRAIN%2032N%20-%20EAST%20PALESTINE%20-%20derail%20list%20Norfolk%20Southern%20document.pdf . looks like the benzene cars were empty, so there is a bright side, but benzene is nothing compared to vinyl chloride. some simple hydrocarbons as well as some ethers and esters, so those are some additional toxic and flammable contaminants. also a bunch of tankers were filled with glycols which arent haz class but they are still toxic (actually some of the glycols are nontoxic, but diethylene glycol, of which there were 3 cars, is pretty toxic)
i would have thought that you need something with a phenyl group to form dioxins and those benzene tankers being empty was really lucky, but chemistry at really high heat is truly an enigma so ig dioxins will form :(
"The Solution to Pollution is Dilution", I explain, as I fling another car battery into the ocean.
Ugh really? The solution to pollution is to prevent it in the first place. If it does happen, then cleanup and then dilution.
I know it was sarcasm. I'm exasperated because it seems you're suggesting that's what I said. It also seems like you could be denying the effectiveness of dilution. If you cook with a gas stove and get a headache but then open the window, you're effectively diluting away the pollution. Obviously there are limits to this. As shown by air quality reports in Pittsburgh, that limit is not close to being reached for that one chemical at least.
I’m exasperated because it seems you’re suggesting that’s what I said.
That's what I've been seeing crop up on Reddit and other public forums. "Hey, the toxic release of chemicals isn't a problem because we... uh... opened a window." The dogged insistence that there won't be long-term repercussions and that no industrial scale remediation of the damage caused is necessary seems to be the prevailing view. No need for emergency soil or water treatments. No need for a Superfund site to manage the mess. No need for anyone in Palestine, Ohio to permanently relocate. Saul Goodman.
If you cook with a gas stove and get a headache but then open the window, you’re effectively diluting away the pollution.
What if my gas stove explodes and leaves toxic residue smeared across the interior of my kitchen and living room, though?
As shown by air quality reports in Pittsburgh
I think there's a real trust-gap brewing, particularly wrt how independent journalists and amateur inspectors are being treated by corporate consultants and local/state police. Tapping a piece of paper submitted by the state air quality board and saying "Seems like everything is in order" does not seem to be instilling a great deal of confidence when people are posting pictures and videos of dead animals and giant plums of black smoke
Well I'm definitely not siding with the people saying locals are 100% fine. I'm just speaking on regional and more distant areas. Yes the trust issue is immense and reminds me of COVID response. The government-corporate-media trifecta has completely ruined that. I'll see if the EPA's report has been corroborated by any independent orgs I guess. :shrug-outta-hecks:
Don’t forget the Cubans who treated the refugees for nothing in return. The US would never allow Americans to travel there for healthcare without a mile of red tape. They rather you die a martyr for capitalism
