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Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

> what was particularly striking was... the highest polluting facilities were also more likely to be located in proximity to poor and minority neighborhoods.

This is what's "particularly striking"? There's only one substantial class of people who would knowingly live near extreme pollution: people who can't afford to move away. The most trivial of logic dictates that if anyone is living near extreme pollution, there's a substantial probability they're poor.

Now, that said, news about this new study saying that the problem is bad that quantifies the problem, tells us why it's worse than these EJ scholars suspected, or even just a reminder that this is bad and these peoples' lives should be improved, sure, go ahead... but the above statement of shock detracts from that, I should think.

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There's only one substantial class of people who would knowingly live near extreme pollution: people who can't afford to move away

Conversely, people who can afford to will use every resource at their disposal to prevent polluters from coming into their communities. NIMBYists get a lot of hate, but can you really blame them?

You can when they block the construction of low-pollution utilities in their neighborhood at the expense of high-pollution utilities in poor communities.

You can understand why they do it, but you can also (and should also) still blame them for being short-sighted and selfish.

Beijing came to mind as a counter example, but I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from it.

It's not really a counter-example. There are regions of China with much worse pollution from heavy industry, like smelters.

I stand corrected! I forgot that it's all relative, but within reasonable geographic limits.

It's a complex issue. There are no "exurbs" in China. There is no concept of clean countryside living except maybe coastal cities like Quingdao that are pleasant if not in the center of commerce.

People want to live in the first tier cities. The growth of these cities was, until recently, powered by fast construction of new coal fueled power plants. The pay is higher, the public amenities are better, and, relatively, the pollution isn't as bad as living next to paper mills and aluminum smelters.

Beijing's smog is just the tip of the iceberg. China has the same problem:

https://www.vice.com/read/photographs-of-chinas-cancer-villa...

"These are entire villages where every other house contains someone dying of cancer or some sort of respiratory problem."

Free trade sure is great.

Like it or not, people prefer wealth with a risk of cancer to rural poverty. If they didn't, they would remain in their remote rural villages instead of flocking into the highly polluted factory areas.

Delhi is another example of this (it's 3x worse than Beijing right now). I hate the place; this month it was so polluted that I couldn't see across my office complex. But if you use violence to force the Biharis to stay home (i.e., give up free trade) you'll have a riot on your hands.

Yeah, free trade is in fact better than dire poverty, which is the alternative.

>Like it or not, people prefer wealth with a risk of cancer to rural poverty

"Since Guan-yin's husband died of stomach cancer two years earlier, she's been pushing for change. She says she's been harassed by authorities constantly"

How does it feel being an apologist for some of the worst forms of state oppression?

You're assuming people have perfect foresight into their risks moving to such an area - they don't. Your also ignoring that sometimes the pollution moves to where people already live. The reasonable choice is to work towards advancing standards for everyone worldwide. Sometimes the advances will come organically delivered by free markets, and sometimes they'll have to be regulatory (closing down externalities ignored/un-priced by markets). The choice certainly isn't free trade or dire poverty in the long run.

Anyone with eyes has a pretty good idea that they are walking into a toxic soup. I left Delhi on the 22nd - this picture is pretty accurate:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2343988/images/o-DELHI-AIR-POLLUTI...

Or, back in July (before things got bad) I could do maybe 10 suicide sprints in NY. Then I flew into Delhi and was down to 4 - breathing was just that hard.

I know there are lots of jokes about Biharis, but they aren't as stupid as you are making them out to be. They move to Delhi with good but imperfect information about both the pollution and the economic opportunity.

I'm all in favor of pollution taxes and internalizing externalities. I'm just saying that even in spite of that, the economic gains seem to drastically outweigh the health penalties as evidenced by millions of people moving towards the pollution.

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