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Comment by zubairlk | Hacker News Reader

I find it really hard to digest such stories coming from the the first world with so many regulations/laws/a functioning system/educated people etc.

Imagine the state of the 3rd world developing countries..

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It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so. There was a documentary covering the history of these sites. And the oral history part of it was just shocking. Like certain departments being known as the "blood pissers" because basically everyone working there for too long got bladder cancer. Or the fact that it was normal that people just vanished during their shift because they fell into melted iron and nobody realized until shift end.

But what even shocked me more than these stories was how people thought about them. Somewhere between pride and it-is-just-like-that. From all levels, workers, managers, chemists with PhDs, their families...

> It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so

Like you very well pointed out, most of that industry and the associated pollution has moved further East. As a citizen of such an Eastern European country I was unpleasantly surprised to feel the air suddenly tasting "chemical" as I was driving on a highway in Transylvania, near a town called Sebes.

Sure enough, I then soon found an article of the local residents complaining about a chemical company polluting the air they breath (in here [1], article in Romanian, unfortunately). The culprit is an Austrian (not German, but closed enough) company called Kronospan, and on its wiki page [2] one can see that its latest investment was made in Belarus, presumably only a dictatorship still allows this sort of thing to go unchecked. The same wiki page also details some pollution-related incidents for which the company was responsible in Wales in the early 2000s, that is in another relatively poor area like the Southern US states mentioned in the article.

[1] https://casajurnalistului.ro/kronospanik/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronospan

Industries moving as local populations wise up to the health problems they cause has been going on for a long time. The book Toms River[0] briefly covers the history of the synthetic dye industry from its inception in Germany, moving to Cincinnati, OH, and subsequently to Toms River, NJ (then a sleepy backwater location).

The book is highly worth a read, and I was thinking about some of the outcomes in the book when I read the article and comments on Scientists Rise Up Against Statistical Significance[1] here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445827

And these companies usually refuse any responsibility for the aftermath. Kind of worked back when they still produced basically at home, but even the they knew the risks. But after they moved because of all the dirty shit that's just cynicism. They literally look for poor regions and people to pollute. Which sucks...

>But what even shocked me more than these stories was how people thought about them. Somewhere between pride and it-is-just-like-that. From all levels, workers, managers, chemists with PhDs, their families...

Other cultures have different priorities. I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something I really don't like about how your comment just takes for granted that their prioritization is wrong. Of course Germany has changed since the 80s but your comment may as well apply to the Ukraine or India.

> your comment just takes for granted that their prioritization is wrong

Firstly i doubt it's a prioritisation choice of which they have agency over. I find it more likely that they were powerless to change it, but i have no evidence of that so i accept it could still be their choice.

Secondly, this prioritisation - whether by these people or whether, as i suspect, by others and forced upon those people - IS wrong Unless it is explicitly negotiated in the offer of employment. Which, we know it was not.

I.e. in the case of a public venture then you are joining a military function - i do not think civilian police should expect to give their life. In the case of employment with a private venture then there's a dedicated line item on the paycheck "danger money" and the worker is suitably educated of its meaning before they are allowed to accept the offer of employment.

This is not hard. Enterprise can be accomplished, profit can be made, and human capital can be fairly compensated. Greed does not need to prevail in all business decisions.

Well, basically trading in your health, knowingly, and risking death in exchange for a salary in private industry is kind of weird to say the least. And to be somehow proud to voluntarily become a corporate drone in the process even more so.

One interviewee even went so far to attack environmental activists because one of the more polluting production was shot down. Same guy didn't have any issue with letting his kids play in the polluted waste dust and sand. I assumed that in that case you would be grateful as the improvement directly impacted your own lively hood.

But I get how you can be sucked into that, kind of. Especially if you are otherwise poverty struck. From the management and the chemists I found that attitude very cynical.

Reminded of Burke in Aliens and the question which creature is worth, but at least the Xenomorphs did get themselves killed for a percentage.

>Well, basically trading in your health, knowingly, and risking death in exchange for a salary in private industry is kind of weird to say the least.

If you're a not in a wealthy nation that's not necessarily a bad deal.

Especially if the alternative is to starve to death.

True in these edge cases. Not sure how that applies to Germany in the 80s, so.

I find this comment to be highly cynical.

Not only you are proposing someone to trade off their health for some money but also you get to trade off your children's health.

Poverty sucks, but is it a really an ethical choice to give to anyone, it's almost a biblical choice you're giving in this case -- sacrifice your first born.

Is this what people in power, want to be? Give devil's bargain to anyone who has only bad option to save a few percent on environmental scrubbers; or continue a business that is at very core environmentally unsustainable.

Pretty much seems so, doesn't it?

Lousiana is particularly bad, but there is a huge stretch of I-10 in Texas from east Houston to the border leading into Lousiana that is lined with chemical plants that make things worse - I drove it about 30 years ago.

It took 10 weeks after a river turned completely black from dumping for officials in Texas to do anything. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/17/texas-attorney-gener...

Also in Texas - large companies have eminent domain rights on private property - this probably is going to lead to pipelines through the Hill Country (near Austin) in a few years in spite of most of the open space there being in individual owner's hands. https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeli...

I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries). As you said, there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it.

My theory is they probably work full-time, and do not have the time or monies to lobby at the state and local level.

Tells a lot about regulations and their enforcement in the US I think.

> ...there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it.

I beg to differ with this point. If you're an educated person not looking to work in a blue collar job your economic prospects in areas like this are limited. The technically inclined and the otherwise ambitious move away to seek better opportunities elsewhere. I lived in a small industrial city for a while many years ago and saw this phenomena for myself. Those who were able left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence. What was left in the wake of this phenomena was a creeping ghetto, an economic wasteland that only begat more poverty.

I think you're being a little too extreme. A lot of people leave for the money and would return if they could but they can't because there's no money.

Which... is pretty much what he’s saying? If all those who can command a higher wage leave (and don’t return), the local economy becomes hollow and a creeping ghetto sets in.

I read it as more of a "they actually like it better in the rich cities" which many people do not. Specifically the sentence "the people who could left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence." If a nuke were dropped on SF tomorrow there's a large number of people who would be like "welp, I'm out of a job but this is a perfect opportunity to move back to BFE". The same goes for every major city. There's a reason all (for smaller than average values of "all) the wall street types move either upstate or to Florida once they've become rich enough that they can either let their career coast or retire.

It’s worse than that... whole states are experiencing brain drain. As agriculture continues its consolidation, significant parts of the country are losing anyone who can leave.

> I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries).

From what I gathered this is rooted in the difference between the regulatory principles of the US and most other Western countries. In Europe you usually have to proof first that whatever you do will be reasonably safe, then you can do it. In the US you can do many things without someone checking first, but if it's later shown that you harmed someone you have to pay damages and/or people will be send to prison.

Not many countries are anywhere near as big as the US, and those that are mostly have similar issues.

I think a part of the problem is that, for someone in a little town like the one in the article, regulatory authorities and the federal legislature are peopled largely with individuals who reside a thousand miles away.

That just can't happen in basically any European country.

This seems like a bit of a cop-out. States and municipalities have regulatory power and are much closer to citizens. Many states are roughly the size of European countries.

Perhaps the state of LA has the power to stop this pollution, but the residents lobbying for help from regulators， as depicted in the article, seem to be focusing their attention on the federal EPA. Unless I accidentally skipped a paragraph that talked about lobbying at a regional level.

If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?

==If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?==

I'm not sure, Louisiana does have a Department of Environmental Quality [1]. In Illinois we had a similar issue play out this year. The Governor is the one who ended up banning the plant's use of ethylene oxide [2]. It looks an obscure state law allowed for that action:

"Invoking rarely used authority in state law, Illinois EPA Director John Kim prohibited Sterigenics from pumping ethylene oxide gas into massive chambers used to sterilize medical equipment, pharmaceutical drugs, spices and food."

[1] https://deq.louisiana.gov/

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-pr...

Oh, no, the regulatory authorities are there. They're just paid off by the entities they're supposed to be regulating or don't give a shit.

See: the entire state of West Virginia.

The US is big enough for the wealthier people to move away to nicer areas.

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