> Due to exposure to particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide emitted from the Tata Steel site, Wijk aan Zee residents have a life expectancy that is 2.5 months lower on average
> approximately 4% of the future cases of lung cancer in Wijk aan Zee will be attributable to the current emissions of particulate matter
> around 3% of future [asthma] cases will be associated with the current emissions
And currently, also DuPunt/Chemours in Dordrecht [1]:
> Chemours, which spun off from its legal predecessor Dupont (DD.N), opens new tab in 2015 to regroup the latter's performance chemical business, complied with its permit before July 1984 but that after that it should have better informed the towns surrounding its chemical plant in the city of Dordrecht
And separately, there is an investigation against the local government because then-DuPont was tacitly allowed to exceed the amount of pollution granted by their permit.
[0] https://www.rivm.nl/publicaties/bijdrage-van-tata-steel-nede...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/dutch-court-rule...
(edit: found link in English)
Here's an example of a mine that has had toxic runoff likely for millenia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_(river) at least partly due to human mining activity. I would expect that people living downstream of the mine would have negative health outcomes, possibly without being aware.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordeaux_mixture
(This one was invented after the Industrial Revolution started but it was used far away from most factories.)
It amazes me you have this dense urban area with ultra strict vehicle emissions rules, where low income people struggle to get their cars to pass, and yet you have these refineries down the street flaring regularly and sending up massive plumes of black soot.
It's amazing how all you hear are crickets on the issue from Sacramento, while the state's own university researchers routinely publish on the issue to deaf ears. I guess it just goes to show where the money and true priorities lie among the legislature.
Story was buried for decades. Lots of folks in Simi Valley have died of cancer.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory
That's fascinating to read about. It sounds like all the drilling for that oil field happens from that one location now? They use angled bores to draw from different parts of the field.
Still I agree with you that there should be almost zero tolerance for any emissions and an "oopsie" every year should be met with a fine of a year's profits every year then.
In the case of Richmond, the poor black communities directly downstream of the plant are mostly descended from the workers brought in to build liberty ships during World War II. This was during a time when black people were legally restricted from getting decent jobs other than these temporary wartime exceptions, so moving to this place was their only opportunity to get a decent job. They lacked the legal freedom to make a choice about where to live in the sense you are implying, because of racist laws.
As a society, it is time to look at phasing these refineries out entirely, rather than relocating them. We already have the technology to do transportation in other ways, and it's already much cheaper when you count all of the health and environmental externalities. Already, 50% of diesel fuel in California is from renewable biomass, so you don't need an electric car for non-petroleum transportation. One of the north bay refineries was shut down a few years back, and converted to a renewable diesel plant.
I don't doubt his sincerity...but this illustrates how far people are willing to go to keep power. It is sad to think that a person would ignore evidence that their business kills people to protect profit. This is why we need strong regulatory bodies.
Solving this problem, along with nurturing a more empathetic culture in general, would really move our species forward IMO
Saudi Arabia has pledged to bring down their fossil fuel emissions, publicly launching the "Saudi Green Initiative" in 2022, signing the Paris Climate agreement, endorsing the UN's climate goals.
They've also seen that there's a "risk" of reduced oil demand around the world and quietly setup the "Oil-demand Sustainability Program" to "artificially stimulate demand in some key markets", (promote combustion engine cars and aircraft travel in Africa and South East Asia) and their energy minister wants them to be "the last man standing, and every molecule of hydrocarbon will come out".
They have a 46 point plan to promote oil, spanning 17 government entities, including things like investing in roads and airports, making sure ICE (gas/diesel) engines are low-cost and competitive potentially a JV with a car OEM to make a low-cost ICE car, supporting low-cost airlines, restarting development of supersonic aircraft because they use so much fuel, establishing local ICE car part manufacturing facilities which will have an oil uplift, accelerate deployment of last-mile delivery and ride-hailing apps in underserved markets and "ensure the deployment of an ICE-fleet", "support the deployment of bus transportation across developing countries to capture the increasing diesel demand", support research to make marine Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) scrubbers cheaper than switching to LNG or biofuels and promote regulations that allow continued use of HFO, etc. etc.
You should doubt it. This guy knows exactly what's going on but chooses to lie blatantly for profit. Same applies to oil execs, tobacco execs, fast food industry execs, US health insurance execs, chemical industry execs and many others. They know exactly that they are damaging the environment and/or killing millions of people but they prefer profit. And somehow we as a society let them get away with it.
There are probably several reasons that it has held on for so long here, but predominantly it's because of multiple waves of influx of French-speakers (from when Louisiana was owned by the French, then from people of the Acadia region of Canada who were forced out of their region and migrated here in the mid-18th century) combined with persistent poverty resulting in poor education and low travel into and out of Louisiana (so not a lot of mixing with the rest of the US).
But we have a lot of billionaires, and developers, with significant investment in local real estate.
I'm sure that has nothing to do with how quiet things are, about it.
New money is out East. Old money is nearer the city.
I was attending a gathering, about two years ago, that had a lot of folks (about 40), attending remotely. Mostly women; many immuno-compromised.
I remember looking at the remote attendees screen, and counting the women that were currently getting, or had just gotten over, cancer treatment.
I counted six. I also knew of a couple of men, sitting in the room with me, that had had treatment, over a year, previously.
I don't know what the average is supposed to be, but I think 6/60 (10%), is a wee bit high.
It surprises me how we are all sleep walking to extinction and "the masses" truly don't give a damn?
Some of these missions span multiple decades simply because of the nature of space travel.
A burning question in my mind: how does one get motivated to work on something that they'll probably not even live to see come to fruition/failure? Personally, I wouldn't be, unless if there was some pay involved.
Dealing with climate change is like this. Humans, I think are basically unable to align behind initiatives that do not affect us immediately.
I am a parent. I would like to set up my child for success. But being brutally honest, it's hard for me to even think of what going "above and beyond" means in this respect. I would do everything a normal good parent would do. But then what?
Nobody is paying people to use less plastic or stop polluting etc. So few are incentivized to do anything above and beyond the normal. Superficial things like not using plastic - sure no problem. Keeping a 5 year old phone or wearing worn out shoes - I'll have trouble with these.
"The wise man plants a tree whose shade only his grandchildren will enjoy."
Some humans are capable of great compassion for the people who will come after us. That is the impetus to create a better world for our children's children (even those of us who don't even have children).
Compassion. Concern for the well-being of the people who will inherit the world when we are gone. Empathy combined with a sense of duty. Some people have those qualities innately. Many people don't.
There are cultures where people will pick up litter and sweep the public streets, because they take care in having and keeping things nice.
There are cultures in which dumping your garbage on the street is normalized.
There are even times and places where people complete to die and sacrifice their lives for their their social group.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/3FleEbfQmPxX0b0pXp--7OF3...
https://gerryco23.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/true-detective...
Good book on the topic, specifically around why it continues.
Related: For those interested in point-and-click / text-based games, check out the game NORCO, which is about the city Norco (named for the refinery that graces its skyline), a suburb of New Orleans. It's actually an extremely accurate representation of the socioeconomics of the area (which is painful to admit), and has some truly gorgeous pixel art.
Why Louisiana Stays Poor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38
Definitely sounds very similar to CPG's "Rules for Ruler" video where he provides a description of rulers ruling in resource rich countries.
Cancer isn't evenly distributed across the countries (i.e. every city of 1M has 100 colon cancer cases), and clustering would be expected even from random distribution. Then layer on top things like genetic makeup of the population, smoking rates, diet, etc, etc, etc and you end up in a situation where confounding factors can make it really hard to tease out causes, especially if the effect is small in size.
I'm not saying there aren't higher rates of cancer in this area or that industrial pollution can't contribute to cancer rates, but this wikipedia article seems like nothing but a bunch of talk.
