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Cleaning up the Most Toxic Pollution in the World
Hugh Pickens writes "Blacksmith Institute has published their list of the most polluted sites in the world compiled by comparing the toxicity of the contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. For example, ninety-nine percent of the children living in and around the poly-metallic smelter at La Oroya in Peru, owned by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation, have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable limits. Scientific American says that despite the massive pollution, it would be relatively cheap and easy to clean up the most dangerous hazards. For $15,000, the radioactive contaminated soil from the Mayak plutonium facility on the shore of the Techa River in the Russian town of Muslyomova could be dug up, saving an estimated 350 lives. 'For about $200, the cost of a refrigerator, we are able to save someone's life,' says Richard Fuller, founder of Blacksmith."
Yep, because when Nike doesn't go in somewhere to charge $.50 an hour to make shoes, alternative jobs will magically spring up that pay the people $7.25. What's more likely is the competition from Nike would have driven up the cost above what they could get without Nike.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Not just toxic sites, but you must stay so the gov can study you!
From birth to death, generation after generation.
Small clip about the people around Mayak, a 1950's nuclear fuel reprocessing plant on the River Techa, Russia.
It "leaked". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR1wo5s3Ua4
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
LA pales in comparison to the Aral Sea. The omission of the most polluted area in the world makes me question the validity of the rest of this report.
There is no reason we should not set some minimal standards for wages, environment, worker protection, etc,, in our trade agreements.
How about less goods and services from China? I would bet that most Americans, when asked if they prefer higher prices at Walmart in exchange for better wages, worker protection, and environmental protections in China would probably tell you they want lower prices and more American jobs (workers in China be damned as far as they are concerned).
If China wants to sell to the USA then it has to offer something other than slave wages and a willingness to wreck the environment beyond what anyone in a democratic country would tolerate.
Says who? China is a sovereign country and they will run their afairs how they choose. You will never win with "forcing" China to comply. Did you know that companies that have tried to "enforce" standards end up with wiley Chinese factory managers keeping multiple sets of books (one "real" set and one "fake" set for the foreign inspectors), coach workers on how to respond to inspector questions, and generally do whatever it takes to get around such restrictions?
So now what? When one sovereign country tells another one to "shove it" (i.e. negotiations have failed or broken down) then there are really only two basic options: (1) Trade / economic sanctions (i.e. I am taking my ball and going home) OR (2) War (i.e. do what we want or we will kick your butt)
We don't have to eliminate all of China's competetive advantage, but let's set some standards below which no one is allowed to sink.
And what if the Chinese say, "No" to your standards?
For starters, how about some real regulation of industry so they don't ship toys with lead paint on them?
There is no need to "regulate" it per se so long imported products are inspected for safety and the information is passed on to consumers, the market will take care of the problem itself. Would you as a parent allow your child to touch any of those toys on the recal list with a ten foot pole? I think not and so those companies either clean up their act or go out of business. Companies pay attention when sales drop from millions of dollars to zero in the space of a day.
During the Cold War, many people bought into this propaganda that Capitalism == Goodness and Light and any interference with the market == Stalinism. But now we're seeing how that really isn't the case.
The reason people bought into this "propaganda" is because it is mostly correct (not the Stalinism part mind you) in that markets work and governments don't. The market and the government both have roles to play, but generally speaking interference in the marketplace is counterproductive although it is *sometimes* required to maintain competition (i.e. private players and rent seekers are always looking for ways to "corner" markets and sometimes the government has to nip cheating in the bud before the consequences damage the markets).
No. You are falling for anti-environmentalist FUD spread by chemical companies.
http://timlambert.org/2005/10/crime-of-the-century/
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/05/this_week_in_the_unending_war.php
And so on.
Really? I don't think the word "norm" means what they think it means...
I'm not trying to say the Chernobyl accident wasn't a very bad accident or that the area isn't heavily polluted. It just gets a bit tiresome to see the same mistakes over and over again. For a list which focuses on the polluted status of various regions you would have expected to see he studies that have been done on how birds have been hard hit by the contamination, instead you get pictures of mentally handicapped children being abandoned, which is of course more a consequence of the failure to provide care for them than it is a result of the accident.
There are problems in the Chernobyl area, but this article fails quite badly at describing them.
DDT is not banned in most of the developing world; it can be obtained, and rather cheaply. Nobody has cut off supplies. What has actually happened is that--- due to massive overuse for agricultural spraying--- many species of Malaria-carrying mosquito have developed immunity. Simultaneously, other more effective pesticides have dropped in price to the point where DDT is just one of many tools in the arsenal (and an ineffective one in most cases). To counter the notion that DDT has been banned everywhere, it's informative to note that a number of countries still use some quantity of DDT in their anti-malaria programs, but these efforts have only limited success and only in certain regions where DDT immunity has not been fully established.
The argument "for" DDT is mostly political, and carried along by people who aren't familiar with the facts. Some people are tempted by the notion that DDT is some kind of panacea for Malaria, but that evil environmentalist hippies are using their awesome power to prevent it. Of course, there's usually very little evidence supporting the latter notion, but it's tempting to believe because it sounds like a "free lunch" solution to a hard problem (one that happens to reinforce some folks' pre-conceived political notions). Unfortunately, the idea founders on, well, just about every basic fact of the story--- including the very important one that many of the nations that would ostensibly be "saved" by DDT use have chosen not to use it because it doesn't work anymore.
http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/05/who_put_out_the_contract_on_ra.php#more
People are still repeating this canard? The scam is that people are counting carbon dioxide as a pollutant even though it's far less harmful for the environment than the junk that these other countries dump into the environment. Once you ignore (or weigh carbon dioxide appropriately by the actual harm it causes, which incidentally has much the same effect as ignoring it), the US no longer comes up in the top five pollutors per capita. And I doubt that the US pollutes as much as China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, or Russia. So no top five place in overall pollution either.
As for the statement about the shortage of suitable canditates at the time, I know a few Indian engineers over 50 and I don't live in India. Anybody on this forum that studied engineering has probably had an Indian lecturer no matter where in the world they are - there are a lot of very skilled expats.