The worst part of this disaster in particular is the entirely local effects including cancer, pain, suffering, and death caused by the release of these chemicals. But yes, the worst part of this pattern of behavior from the US leadership is that catastrophes like this will continue to happen all over.
It is kind of interesting that the media seems to be softballing this. Usually their MO for this kind of disaster is hype, hype, hype, and sensationalism. Under most models of how the media works, this ought to be front page day & night, and if anything should be getting overestimated rather than under. Any internal mental model of how the media works that fails to integrate this should be getting challenged, and I'm still not sure how to do it myself. I can just see there's definitely a strong data point here.
Have you factored in corporatism? Most large news media organizations
in the US are owned by, or carry water for large corporations, and will never bring adequate coverage to stories that show labor in a favorable light, or show the malfeasance of corporations - unless it's corporation vs corporation.
Hard news needs to be treated as a public service, as in a government agency with the same rights and abilities as federal agents. Hard news needs to have review authority above that of the local state government.
The natural state of human affairs is crony corruption, plain and simple; currently we allow multiple corrupt states (local, county, state, each corporation's internal affairs, etc...). We should just admit our natural corruption and observe that only one can be king, and that king already exists: our federal government. The Federal government ought to make it their primary mission, as the ruling top dog in our corrupt society, do destroy all other corrupt operations stealing from them.
We are an immature, petty civilization. Let's admit our immaturity, and perhaps mature a bit as a result.
Kicker: there is no "liberal" or "conservative" media - there is only billionaire owned media dispensing what they deem the public's mind should be filled.
> Our media barely report, and then under report the seriousness
The national media isn't very good at representing issues outside of major cities. Events like this are largely unimportant to people living in the places they sell their stories to. In a way, you're not asking the media to change, you're asking Americans to care about those areas at all.
The Chinese balloons weren’t in a large metropolitan area. more likely explanation is that this story has a pro-labor narrative, and that’s not what media companies are paid to push.
News reading Americans rather read about “Is it China or aliens?”, the war in Ukraine, earthquake in Middle East and the Super Bowl than small-town Ohio.
In what way is a fiery train derailment and cows dropping dead all over the region not a good story for clicks and attention? I guess the balloon feels a bit more whimsical but it feels like the more boring story.
In this instance, the simplest explanation really does seem to be financial conflict of interest.
”China conducts surveillance on US” is still not particularly exciting or novel news either way. Train derailment poisons an entire town is definitely the more eye-catching headline.
>”China conducts surveillance on US” is still not particularly exciting or novel news either way
1. ”China conducts surveillance on US” gets plenty of clicks/attention. Just look at tiktok, and before that huawei/ZTE.
2. In this case specifically it's not just "China conducts surveillance on US", it's also arguably violating the territorial integrity of the US. For americans that's strikes much closer to home than shadowy hackers hacking from china.
> ”China conducts surveillance on US” gets plenty of clicks/attention.
Does it? As far as I can tell, the “TikTok spies on people” stories have all been met with “yeah, so does Facebook”. This is across pretty much the entire political spectrum. It seems to me that only the political/media class actually find it significant.
While it’s obviously too early to have non-anecdotal data on this, my instincts tell me very few people actually care or find it surprising that China “violated the territorial integrity of the U.S.” as if we’re not constantly flying drones over other world powers. It’s just standard operating procedure at this point.
The balloon story is being propped up by UFO conspiracy theorists and let's not pretend it's anything but that. They are absolutely going nuts over every "unknown object" being shot down. Every single mention on it here on HN is filled with people talking about it.
They gonna care when the crops and livestock we depend on from that area quit producing. And prices go up even more.
This was insanely horrid the toll it is going to take on that region and the Country.
I mean, no we are not aware of a connection to any metropolitan area. Which is the point. If the lack of derailment coverage was just pro-metropolitan bias you wouldn’t expect Billings, MT to be receiving the entire attention of the media right now.
I’m not sure this is relevant to the original discussion. Pro-metropolitan bias doesn’t explain the difference between how the 2 stories are being treated. Media’s class-alignment with railroad execs and politicians responsible for the disaster is a more reasonable explanation.
I would say they're equally plausible. It's kind of gross that folks are so ready to deny that there's an over focus on metropolitan issues (I say that as someone that lives in a metro and has lived in a pretty rural area before). The immediate dismissal from folks does lend more credence to the idea that it's a societal bias.
I mean, I'm not denying that there's a metropolitan bias in the media, just that it doesn't explain why 2 stories that both happened in relatively rural locations got reported on differently.
These sorts of accidents do not happen that often relative to the quantity of freight that moves. Put any economic system underneath the rail (or trucks) you want, accidents will still happen, as the demand for dangerous goods doesn't just evaporate.
It requires attention to detail combined with political will to improve safety.
"Norfolk Southern, the railway company responsible for an apocalyptic plume of gas rose over East Palestine, Ohio, has offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s nearly 5,000 residents who were ordered to evacuate their homes, or face death"
Personally, I think $25,000 per person displaced would be a good start to making restitution. Anyone forced to move should receive at least triple the market rate price of their home/farm/etc. before the accident.
Serious financial implications are the only thing that will cause behavior shift in large organizations.
> Norfolk Southern, the railway company responsible for an apocalyptic plume of gas rose over East Palestine, Ohio, has offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s nearly 5,000 residents
I think OP's point is that since no heads will roll for this, despite it being known that this would happen sooner or later, it will keep happening in other local areas.
If Northern Southern were to feel this incident in their pocket book, they might stop lobbying to gut safety regulations... However, it's very clear that neither legislative, judicial, executive or media positions give a flying fuck to stop this; in fact, they'll go to extreme lengths such as breaking strikes and media coordination to keep the status quo.
So it will happen again, and again, until one day it actually does fuck up a major city - and even then, the people responsible will probably be insulated from consequences.
There were no hospitalizations reported and the chemicals released are not really carcinogens. The risk from this particular chemical spill was acute injury, but fortunately that was avoided.
Vinyl chloride breaks down quickly into hydrochloric acid in the atmosphere. Including when it is burned (and the low amount phosphene given off when burning).
So immediately following the crash the area was dangerous, but it is already mostly safe again by now.
To be clear, the timescale on which it breaks down is several days. So you're probably right that there's very little vinyl chloride still around in the environment.
That amount of vinyl chloride can cause a lot of problems to the surrounding populace in several days.
Also, it doesn't break down just into HCl. It also breaks down into formaldehyde. Which is both acutely toxic and also a carcinogen, and is quite a bit more stable in the environment.
Ten train cars worth of formaldehyde averaged over the entire atmosphere would be nothing to worry about, I agree.
Let's say that two train cars worth sank into the ground before breaking down. Now there's two train cars worth of formaldehyde in the groundwater in a localized area.
It's not obvious to me that this is a safe situation. There are plenty of plausible scenarios that could be reality, that would be a very unsafe situation for local residents.
Thus is should be treated as though it is that worst-case bad scenario unless shown otherwise, rather than wand-waving "oh it's probably fine". These are people's lives that are at stake.
> The amount that came from ten cars, spread into the atmosphere, is virtually nothing.
Erm, on what basis do you make that claim?
Ten train cars of dioxin spread over a square mile is a lot. Spread over 100 square miles? Probably still a lot, like the place in missouri that dumped it on all their roads to keep the dust down. That's probably that same order of "10 cars over 10x10 square miles", of a sufficiently nasty thing.
10 cars = safe is a number that needs context and validation and it will depend on the particular chemical.
Dioxin is an example of why saying "10 train cars is fine" is an oversimplification, 10 train cars of dioxin is a problem even if it's spread out over a couple square miles.
Maybe 10 train cars of formaldehyde is fine, maybe not, but, this is something that should be assessed and not dismissed out of hand, even during discourse. Random internet commentators probably don't really know if it's fine. And despite the people on-site saying measurements are fine... animals are getting sick, which is the classic warning sign with chemical spills that things are not fine.
Although there is indeed dioxin formed during the combustion apparently. Bear in mind too that this isn't a controlled incinerator, there could be various things produced at different temps etc.
Vinyl chloride will form some dioxin upon combustion.
When left to break down in the environment, after several days vinyl chloride will break down into a combination of formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid. The latter of which won't be harmful, but the former will be.
Yes please read the links you just posted. Exposure to high concentrations for a long time (eg, if you spent a career in a vinyl chloride production facility pre-OSHA) is associated with a measurable increase in cancer rate. It’s not going to be a reasonable concern in this instance.
In this instance, the risks to be worried about is far more than just cancer. And it isn't exactly comparable to a career in a vinyl chloride factory because factories don't typically have these production chemicals ablaze and mixed with whatever else was in the train wreckage, seeping into the surrounding earth, water and air. Before even speculating on the undetermined adverse health effects of this event in the long term, the immediate impact of this environmental disaster should warrant a mandatory evacuation and corporate accountability.
You can get dioxins when burning vinyl chloride polymers (“poly vinyl chloride”), but not the vinyl chloride monomer, if my chemistry degree serves me correctly.
Yes, I disagree with the professor. I think you will get very little dioxin contamination from burning vinyl chloride monomer in atmospheric conditions.
For starters, you could acknowledge that a train explosion is already well outside normal lab conditions for vinyl chloride. Don't pretend you know what compounds were formed in this accident. Modeling this incident as a low exposure (see: your dismissal of the carcinogenic nature of vinyl chloride) to the pure substance is absurd.
Put your life where your mouth is and go live there.
Would you please stop posting flamebait/unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and if you keep doing it then we're going to have to ban you again.
