The West Virginia chemical spill is just one example of a much bigger problem

They only provide LD50s for humans if estimates are available from accidental exposure. Everything else gets model organisms (either with a view to being vaguely accurate representations of humans, or to modelling likely ecological issues caused by release, hence the enthusiasm for calculating LD50s for assorted fish and the like).

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That sounds an awful lot like admitting some sort of culpability, and (perhaps worse) endorsing the notion that culpability brings with it responsibility to make things rightā€¦ It wasnā€™t bleeding-heart hippie bullshit like that that made Freedom Industries what they are today!

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take note that plants/fungi and other animals naturally produce their own antibiotics, herbicides and other weird chemicals. maybe we should test them too before digging into that salad

An eddible fungi will tingle your senses in a variety of ways. An ineddible fungi will send you to meet your maker or if you are lucky an army of doctors.
Luckily for all of us, lots of human trial and error has been put in identifying those eddible fungi before end up in the salad or otherwise.

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well actually in that case - using trial and error without modern scientific techniques - fungi that cause diseases that kill you only after decades of eating wont be detected. specially if like in olden times a LOT of people died young from stuff like infectious diseases

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I kind of like that thereā€™s a chemical spill in West Virginia. It shows (or could show) Republicanism or Tea Party ethics in action.

A. Whatā€™s the problem? This is just the result of business (which we like) and corporations (who are people). To have prevented this, weā€™d have to have had Big Government and/or the EPA involved. Citizens who are unhappy with Freedom Industries behavior are free to boycott Freedom Industriesā€™ frothy products. (By the way, as has been noted, what true American could be unhappy with a company called Freedom Industries?)

B. Why the drastic Big Government solution (Big Government controlling the people by disbursing water)? And by FEMA of all Big Government institutions. No. The people should be allowed to get their own water, their own way.

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That picture. The flow of water from that huge tank seems maddeningly slowā€¦ srsly open that valve a little more.

Thereā€™s an EASY libertarian solution for pollution. Require any industry emitting pollutants to place their intakes just downstream/downwind/etc of their outputs. That includes ventilation for employee spaces. . . .

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Any animal born with enough of a biological similarity to us REALLY got the shit end of the stick. Pigs, mice, rabbitsā€“oh you poor bastards.

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Unlikely to help, given the history ofā€¦ deep concernā€¦ for employee health and well being in industry. Now, if stockholders had to consume a portion of the emissions equal to their portion of total shares heldā€¦

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Residual poisons are (comparatively) rare in biological systems (synthesizing poisons isnā€™t cheap, metabolically, and whereā€™s the reward in killing a guy after heā€™s had a decade to eat you, your entire family, and every conspecific he can get his hands on?) However, given the long and glorious history of poisoning and attempts to not get caught at it, Iā€™d suspect that humans would actually put effort into hunting slow-acting and residual poisons, outside of relatively recent advances in toxicology and epidemiology.

Knowledge of a compound that kills well after administration, and in a fairly generic way, has long been worth as much as your parentsā€™ heritable assets and the tragic accidental deaths of your enemies!

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You forget. . . West Virginia is ALSO a Union stronghold. To the point that crossing a strike line is likely to get you shot.

Trust me, at least in WV, you do NOT screw with the Unions. ā€¦

A libertarian response would be to sue them and hold them criminally liable for killing people.

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So the easy libertarian solution would be to have government pass a requirement for where companies can place things, and rely on unions to protect their workers, but then credit any success as showing libertarian principles at work?

Thatā€¦well, maybe that isnā€™t so far off the mark, actually. :trollface:

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Well, what IS a union, but an organized group of workers ?

Besides, the idea of Intake downstream of output means things like if the Input REQUIRES clean water, then it makes sense for what flows out of a given facility to be as clean as you need as an input, and probably cleaner. Unlike the EPA method, which specifies not just the what, but exactly how youā€™re supposed to do it, this just requires you to meet the standard. Business efficiencies will leverage you towards the most cost-effective solution.

Example: You are required to have no more than 1 part per billion of Chemical X in your outflow. (After all, we canā€™t have PowerPuff Girls springing up EVERYWHERE. . ā€¦). EPA might mandate a multi-stage flocculation and chemical separation, but Factory Owner B realizes he can get the desired results from two stages of vacuum distillation. Why not let him use the cheaper way, as long as there is no release ???

And yā€™know why that is? Because West Virginia has a long history of showing workers just how much the company cares about themā€¦ Unionization (even in absence of the typical legal and/or unofficial discouragement and harassment) isnā€™t something you do for the fun of it, itā€™s something you do because the alternative is worse. In West Virginia, itā€™s a lot worse. (Conveniently, of course, ā€˜mountaintop removalā€™ mining can be conducted with substantially fewer pesky unionized peons, if you donā€™t mind moonscaping the place, and oh boy they certainly donā€™tā€¦)

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No, thatā€™s a simple solution. When money and politics are involved, simple is never easy.

Yeah, you can sue in one of the privately-owned courts of Libertoonia.

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Which courts would those be, in Libertopia, and under what laws?

Besides, what good does it due to sue a company if youā€™re dead?

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"Residual poisons are (comparatively) rare in biological systems (synthesizing poisons isnā€™t cheap, metabolically, and whereā€™s the reward in killing a guy after heā€™s had a decade to eat you, your entire family, and every conspecific he can get his hands on?) "

true but that statement only applies to intentional toxins. Naturally occuring compounds that happen to be long acting toxins but evolved for some other purpose do exist like say Aflatoxins which cause liver cancer