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China Chokes On Smog So Bad That Planes Can't Land (usatoday.com)
Major cities across northern China choked Monday under a blanket of smog so thick that industries were ordered shut down and air and ground traffic was disrupted. From a report: At least 23 cities issued red alerts for a swath of pollution that has hovered over much of the nation since Friday, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Alerts are expected to remain in effect through Wednesday. Hospitals set emergency procedures in motion to deal with an influx of breathing-related illnesses. Large hospitals in the port city of Tianjin, less than 100 miles southeast of Beijing, saw a surge in asthma and other respiratory issues, China's People's Daily reported. The pollution forced the city to close the highways and caused delays and cancellations for dozens of flights, Xinhua said.
This is what you get with low cost manufacturing!
Trump is right china is gaming the system.
Ahh, I love the smell of dereg in the mor....*cough* *cough* *cough*
Table-ized A.I.
I can't see any comments here.. smog?
Scott Pruitt seems to think that a lot of what led China to this problem is a good idea for the US. Being as they are opposed to expansion and modernization of the rail network, how will they get to their rallies if their planes can't take off?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If you want special effects with your news, just pop some bubblewrap and inhale deeply.
Trump is hobbling the EPA so badly that by the time he's done our smog will be so bad that we can't land airplanes either.
This is what you get with Trump / Putin's anti-environment policies.
Choke on it, fascists.
Trump is hobbling the EPA so badly that by the time he's done our smog will be so bad that we can't land airplanes either.
We'll have the best smog. The yugest smog. We're going to bring 1,000,000 smog manufacturing jobs back to this country.. Our smog will be so great that even the Chinese will be envious.
And not only that I'll build a wall to stop our smog going to Mexico! If Mexican's want our smog they'll have to pay for it!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You can actually see this on satellite pics. It's a brown haze
It's not just their manufacturing. Their transport contributes massively as well.
That said, have you been there?
A billion people are moving from essentially subsistence living to a modern urban lifestyle in the course of 30 years. To achieve this there is mass construction going on everywhere. Construction of everything from roads to power stations to factories. But you are talking a society where lots and lots and lots of people have basically no disposable income, which means the cheapest possible vehicles are the only option. When you go to the absolute bottom of the transport section your efficiency is poor and your pollution is high.
The west already went through this. However they went through this when their population was a fraction of todays levels. It meant that the gross amount of pollution emitted was lower but the per capita level was much higher.
China is trying to control their pollution output, and one of the good things is that technology exists today to reduce it. However we aren't going to see a drop soon unfortunately.
China has no pollution.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Funny thing is that what the USA will get with all the deregulation the trump administration will enforce. Expect in the near future to see this headline in reference to pollution inside 'murrica.
Slashdot can't go more than a few days without the usual article about how backwards the U.S. is and how far advanced China's "green" energy is.
Does this mean that green energy is the cause of all this air pollution?
The two main culprits are Coal burning and auto and truck exhaust.
But you knew that...
I get it though, you were trying to be "cute" with a ridiculous and inflammatory statement about "green" energy.
If Coal burning is "green", then it is the cause of all this air pollution.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
can't see any articles mentioning China' green energy at all. as they're every few days on the site perhaps you could provide a few examples
In California, they are practically outlawing cow farts.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Choke on it, fascists.
Don't worry, they will. But, then, so will everyone else.
Thanks to existing treaties, China has no economic need to roll out its green energy sector at the moment. When the effects of Climate Change get so obvious and scary that trading blocks like the EU ban imports from countries that are still pumping out massive quantities of greenhouse gases, they'll be ready to make a quick, easy transition to renewable-based generation. And they'll eat America's lunch.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Shouldn't the denser air increase the wing's lift? Or maybe it stops the engines?
Don't worry, folks. By the time Trump has finished dismantling the EPA, US cities will be as bad or worse.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Because the EPA is doing such a good job right now, just ask the citizens of Flint!
If they would get rid of their version of the EPA then thier air would be clean.
At least that is what the new Head of the EPA and the Conservatives say.
Are Air will be as clean as theirs in no time.
That will increase profits and make more jobs.
What amazes me is that things have gotten this bad and the people are still not demanding change. It's like nobody in China except for a few eccentrics even gives a damn about the pollution.
Flint proves the need for a strong, empowered EPA.
But of course when a republican governor instructs a republican he appointed to poison Flint's water supply he's going to blame the EPA..
The EPA is of course basically the only organization which can compel republicans to stop poisoning their citizens, so they are de-legitimized and have the hands tied at every step of the way.
As long as the people who care about clean water don't bother voting, republicans will continue to poison our water supply.
Hey, no problem. The air is clean here. We outsource our pollution to China and India.
Corporate CEOs love that stuff. It's what they get measured by.
We save billions of dollars importing products produced for far less than we could and we breathe clean air and drink clean water. If this is losing then I'd hate to see what winning looks like.
To be fair, the best case (and somewhat oversimplified) scenario is that the Flint issue was caused by someone being cheap as opposed to greedy and/or corrupt. It just so happens that the overwhelming majority of cheap people are republican, but there are still some cheap democrats. Now if it was greed and/or corruption... both parties are equal opportunity.
OTOH, with Republicans controlling everything, what's to stop them from simply repealing the Clean Air Act and passing a replacement that prohibits (Federal Preemption, y'know) all state air quality regulation too? Ditto for water, hazmat, etc. The Constitution allows but doesn't require legislation to protect the public health and welfare.
It's not just their manufacturing. Their transport contributes massively as well.
While manufacturing and transport do contribute to air pollution in China, the biggest contributor by far is the use of coal for heating during winter. This is very obvious in northern China, where regulations specify the dates on which heating for buildings start and end. There'll be blue skies and clean air right up to the date when winter heating starts and then heavy smog and air pollution immediately after. This is also why the smog problem is a lot less severe in southern China, even though most of China's manufacturing and economic development over the past two decades were concentrated in the southern regions around Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Rather, ask Silverton, CO and the Navajo Nation.
Why not build the wall out of smog, w/ all its beautiful doors, and whatever, so that they can come in legally!!!
Environmentalists are never happy, next week the smog will be so dense that planes can land on it, and they will likely complain about that too. No pleasing them.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Good try Slick. He won't take office for another month. You want to try another one.
Most of their population is concentrated in the eastern half of their country. They need to spread out to the western parts, like Xinxiang, and resettle people there, then they'll be even
Private contractors made that error, you know, the ones that the EPA has to hire because they can't have their own teams.
The fact that Flint is seen as a major disaster, worthy of much outrage, as opposed to the norm, shows just how good a job the EPA is doing.
In the US we take it for granted that we can go anywhere in the country and the drinking water will be safe and clean. It may taste like ass at times, but we don't have to boil it or worry about getting some kind of stomach virus. We don't have to tell people, "Don't drink the water" like if you go to Mexico or Latin America. We don't have to worry about heavy metals or radioactive materials in our drinking water.
In the US we take it for granted that we can walk outside without the need for surgical face masks or even full on gas-masks because there's a choking cloud of smog in the air. Before Nixon created the EPA, we had cities that looked a lot like China.
In the US we take it for granted that the sky looks BLUE and not ORANGE because only the longer red wavelengths of light can cut through the smog. Read some of the stories about how before the Beijing Olympics, when the government seeded the clouds to temporarily flush all the smog, people would wander outside and marvel at the blue sky.
All of these things are because of the EPA, and they don't even scratch the surface of what that agency does. So, once again, because cases like Flint are so far outside of the norm that they shock and anger us, just goes to show how good a job the EPA is actually doing.
Maybe not at an airport, but it will land.
Trump hasn't hobbled the EPA. He's president elect, not president. Nothing he has said or done so far changes the law or the actions of the EPA.
All it does is keep us alive.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
The Republican governor appointed a Democrat 'emergency manager'. They knew Flint was basically unfixable and that they would shortly be putting the blame on the last person in charge, hence the booby prize was given to a D (but he was forced to live in a budget).
IIRC that last lead water pipe was put in the Flint ground in the 1930s. What year did they go bankrupt again? What party ran the city for the last 70+ years?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Just saying.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You are breathing the same air.
... while the fascists blame them for the smog.
The GOP and now Trump. That help you figure it out?
Yeah that heating thing is weird. I was there in easter and it was hot but all the hotels were being heated. It was down right unpleasant.
I think coal probably produces the most raw polution, but I would be surprised if it wasn't their cars that cause the most in-city smog. When you have that many cars and trucks moving slowly through your cities it would have to have an effect.
When I was there I had a day that was smog so bad your visibility was down to 200m and then the next day clear skies to the horizon then back again. So I think the smog has a lot to do with local weather / wind on any given day.
Make America Grey Again.
IIRC that last lead water pipe was put in the Flint ground in the 1930s. What year did they go bankrupt again? What party ran the city for the last 70+ years?
If you're thinking that political and economic decisions made in the 1960s and 1970s somehow managed to cause adverse chemical reactions in the water pipes, you're confused.
Bankruptcy wasn't the issue that caused the problem with the water mixing badly with the pipes, and the other pollution in Flint's water supply came from many private sources. It's a natural confluence of events, and the government there is the victim of it, the same as any declining industrial town in the Midwestern Rust Belt.
That said, if the people of Michigan cared, they could have done something. Most of them didn't, because they're white, and Flint is now majority black since all the whites moved out. Thus they care even less, and think that's what they deserve.
It's spitefulness writ large. Did you think it was just a problem in Alabama? Not really, and Birmingham also had its fun with bankruptcy, not that you heard about that one. Nobody seems to care about it.
If one considers the opportunity cost, spending on ineffective "green energy" very much is responsible (in part at least) for China's air pollution problems. That investment could have instead been spent on nuclear, which actually does replace fossil fuel generation. The fact is that unreliable and intermittent sources are not a substitute for reliable energy from conventional sources.
The leaders in "green energy" worldwide have little to show for it but higher bills; the carbon intensity numbers are damning. Actual emissions and energy generated tell a very different story than the misleading renewable capacity increase that advocates are eager to tout. The climate science is an entirely useless distraction if we are not honest about the results of our efforts.
This! A thousand times, this. I knew I should have saved that last mod point. :)
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
But unlike China, Americans wont be able to just take the train instead...
And not only that I'll build a wall to stop our smog going to Mexico!
That is the first reasonable way I've heard to get Mexico to pay for the wall. You, sir, have my respect.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
We save billions of dollars importing products produced for far less than we could
And lose trillions in actual wealth because these products are very poor quality. I inherited U.S. made tools that have outlasted several Chinese versions. And don't pretend that the Chinese versions are less expensive. The companies charge just as much and smile at their huge profit. All the while, antique furniture is a thing of the past as Ikea and Chinese Ikea knockoffs replace all our sturdy American furniture with junk. We've abandoned a gold brick for a wheelbarrow of pyrite.
On all the ads and autoplay video on the usa today website.
I knew I should have saved that last mod point. :)
Gotcha covered.
Flint issue was caused by someone being cheap as opposed to greedy and/or corrupt.
To be quite fair, that's a distinction without a damn bit of difference to the residents of Flint.
of cars. I'm here in Phoenix, Az with very little heavy industry and a fuckton of cars and there are days when the air is dangerous for children and old people.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It is losing a trade law by agreeing to free trade. If you have free trade you're effectively outsourcing your own regulations at the cost of jobs.
Winning would be re-imposing trade barriers, bringing jobs and manufacturing back home, and ... you're not going to like this ... paying american prices for american goods.
If most like falls on both sides. lead pipes that never been replaced. Jobs moved over seas so the ingress in unemployment. More local business closing. Collecting less taxes. The local government has less money to work with. So they start looking at ways to save.
But nope no wants to fix the issues just point fingers and blame others.
Come to DC. We tell people all the time don't drink the water. Water drink fountains are turned off and covered over. The water will make you sick.
You should see what NAFTA did to Juarez. Very much the same thing though not as large or dense. And pollution does not respect political boundaries the people of New Mexico and West Texas get to enjoy it too.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The funny thing is that the millenials all *want* the crappy Ikea furniture. If they have an older relative trying to hand the solid stuff down - no thanks, they don't want it.
I remember when they used to talk that way about the smog in New York City and LA, back in the 70's. Nixon had just created the EPA and they were just ramping up to deal with that sort of thing. By the mid '80's, people had largely forgotten about that sort of thing in much of the USA. If you want to see what the USA would (will) look like without an EPA, go visit China.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Flint (D) got its water from Detroit (D). They were building a pipeline to the lake. When the pipeline was 1 year from being complete Detroit (D) told them 'sign this 20 year contract for water or fuckoff, tomorrow.' They had little choice but get their water elsewhere. The city emergency manager (D, but appointed by R) got the water from a local river, intending to use it for a year. At the same time, a water company employee (D) took it on himself to stop using a chemical to seal lead pipes and prevent them from leaching.
Somehow this is someone else's fault. Cities run their own water companies, it was never Michigan's problem.
Birmingham is a shithole, so is Vacaville. All bankrupt due to their own incompetence.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
since when has thick Smog or Fog affected a planes ability to land at major airports? I know it affects takeoffs as my local airport is regularly affected but it has never affected landings. could someone enlighten me why landings are affected?
think of the children? Dirty air in the Middle Kingdom, dirty internet in South Carolina (Game cocks, anyone?), won't someone please think of the children!
The Republican governor appointed a Democrat 'emergency manager'. They knew Flint was basically unfixable and that they would shortly be putting the blame on the last person in charge, hence the booby prize was given to a D (but he was forced to live in a budget).
IIRC that last lead water pipe was put in the Flint ground in the 1930s. What year did they go bankrupt again? What party ran the city for the last 70+ years?
I'm not a resident of Flint, Michigan but if I were I can tell you right here and now I would not give a rodents posterior who ran the city for the last 70 years or who decided that lead water pipes were a good idea in the decades leading up to the 1930s. All I would care about is (a) getting no-toxic drinking water ASAP and (b) how to get rid of the son of a b*tch that is stopping that from happening. The last thing I'd care about is whether or not the a***ole is a Republican or a Democrat.
Winning and losing are two sides of the same coin under the current rules. There is no question that the US has benefited, but the cost is being borne by others, which is not right. Every country should own their own problems, and "trade" should not be an excuse to push them onto others. There are climate and energy solutions which would allow us all to win, but we must consider all options objectively and choose the most effective ones, rather than politically mandating options which are mediocre at best.
In the US we take it for granted that we can walk outside without the need for surgical face masks or even full on gas-masks because there's a choking cloud of smog in the air. Before Nixon created the EPA, we had cities that looked a lot like China.
Not in Salt Lake City, UT we don't. I was not impressed by those pictures of China, compared to 2-6 weeks every winter here.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/3587127-155/bagley-cartoon-making-bad-air-perfectly
Granted we do have the EPA (for now), which after years of telling UT to get its shit together, has finally upped the ante -- the local authorities have only 2 more years to come up with a plan to reduce air pollution.
I wonder if the EPA will still be around in 2 years. . .
If you want to see what the USA would (will) look like without an EPA, go visit China.
Now there are literally days when there's more pollution from China in Los Angeles than there is from Los Angeles.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Birmingham has never been in bankruptcy. The county it is in declared bankruptcy, but the city never has even been close to being bankrupt. I don't know where you got your news, but it's wrong.
Birmingham has never been bankrupt. Get your facts straight!
This is such a bigly idea, it's YUUUGE!!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
All of these things are because of the EPA, and they don't even scratch the surface of what that agency does.
To be fair, some of those things are because of the CARB, especially in California — the state which formerly had the worst smog problem; the state with the most vehicles, and the most vehicle-miles traveled; the state that gets the most pollution coming overseas from China.
People love to hate the CARB, and I have my own issues with them, but they really are instrumental in clean air in America — not just in California, but in other states which attempt to follow our example. Indeed, there are two emissions standards in America, but only two — there is the California standard, and there is the "almost everyone else" standard. A few states copy California on emissions regulations, not least because they are allowed to. The EPA claims authority over air quality standards in America, and actually won't permit states to create more stringent standards. California had air quality standards before the EPA, and won the right in court to continue to have standards which are superior to the federal standards. Other states then got the right to use our standards.
Don't be too in awe of the EPA. California is still making the rest of the country look like it loves to wipe its ass with... itself.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You wont get a "your right" response because that's not binary enough.
I swear its the same idiots that do the same finger pointing on both sides of the isle every time when issues like this happen. Rather than fix the problem people just want to cover their ass and play the blame game.
Right now the narrative is 'evil republicans' while the problem is 100% democrat made. Somebody obviously cares.
Fixing Flint's water system is Flint's problem. Perhaps they should raise taxes because nobody else is going to pay for it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There are 4 errors in your post. Please go to school and learn English before you post again.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Will be from to much water or not enough of it. Climate terror.
Get up!
The fact that Flint is seen as a major disaster, worthy of much outrage, as opposed to the norm, shows just how good a job the EPA is doing.
In the US we take it for granted that we can go anywhere in the country and the drinking water will be safe and clean. It may taste like ass at times, but we don't have to boil it or worry about getting some kind of stomach virus. We don't have to tell people, "Don't drink the water" like if you go to Mexico or Latin America. We don't have to worry about heavy metals or radioactive materials in our drinking water.
In the US we take it for granted that we can walk outside without the need for surgical face masks or even full on gas-masks because there's a choking cloud of smog in the air. Before Nixon created the EPA, we had cities that looked a lot like China.
In the US we take it for granted that the sky looks BLUE and not ORANGE because only the longer red wavelengths of light can cut through the smog. Read some of the stories about how before the Beijing Olympics, when the government seeded the clouds to temporarily flush all the smog, people would wander outside and marvel at the blue sky.
All of these things are because of the EPA, and they don't even scratch the surface of what that agency does. So, once again, because cases like Flint are so far outside of the norm that they shock and anger us, just goes to show how good a job the EPA is actually doing.
The point is that the EPA is under threat of having it's powers weakened. It's disingenuous to compare our environment with the lowest common denominator. The point of having our own country is to have our own standard of living. For me, this does not include where any politician can think he can get away with intentionally risking giving lead poisoning to thousands of children, causing permanent neurological damage, because he didn't want to take the political blowback of having to spent money to update the aging water system of a poorer community. Sure, the EPA does a good job, but if a situation like Flint can be allowed to happen, then it's not good enough. Why should we except anything less? We pay enough taxes.
This is a bad title. Like other noted, planes can land without visibility, and TFA does not tell about landing problem.
What TFA says is that planes are grounded in an attempt to curb pollution.
Unfiltered smoke from low quality coal is very foul, and produces lots of pollution per unit energy. That rotten egg smell is poisonous hydrogen sulphide, and there's soot and ash also.
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For a god laugh, and to see how bad LA used to be, take a look at this episode of Battlestar Galactica (1980 remake). Specifically, the 7:50 mark when these lines are spoken:
What's that odd-looking brown haze hanging over the city?
Must be some sort of defense shield.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You're joking, right? Because if it were quick and easy, they and everyone else would already have done it.
The "existing treaties" you speak of are an example of (from the US standpoint) the "bad deals" that Trump has complained of. Those treaties were only signed by China because China was exempted from any burden; other nations signed the treaties because they made their politicians look good to their shallow-minded voters.
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The gov keeps making claims that they are burning less and less coal, yet, things continue to get WORSE, not better.
WHy is that? Because they are burning MORE coal, as shown by OCO-2 data.
Sadly, the far left esp in the west, just allows the chinese gov to lie about it and does not care about the fact that CO2 emissions is much higher, but so are the many other emissions from coal. IOW, the far left just ignores what is going on and listens and trust the chinese gov to tell the truth, while ignoring satellite data.
You think she would see fit to regulate the biggest polluters, i.e. her best friends? Maybe she'd tell them to "cut it out" like she did with wall st. before the 2008 collapse.
I actually no longer care what happens to China. They certainly don't care what happens to the rest of us. They're the most selfish and greedy country on the planet - even worse than the US. If they all died tomorrow I'd celebrate.
nah, he's fine. you - please stop posting here. you seem to think this is an academic journal, some sort of publication, or a professional email. those are rules you made up for yourself that you want others to follow. Please start your own site and do whatever you want there. This site is a place where we're not idiots, so we don't care about a way something is written as long as we understand it. you are spamming this site with unwanted comments. go away - no one wants to read your offtopic unfunny unoriginal comments.
You assume the EPA would do a better job? Because government agencies have such stellar track records?
You forgot to mention that China has a lower per capita carbon footprint than the USA.
There are 4 errors in your post. Please go to school and learn English before you post again.
You're an embarrassment, even by slashdot standards. Christ, this place is worse than Birmingham.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
You are correct on many points but I think you missed another very important point. China is doing now what Europe and America did in the late 1700s and early 1800s. They are going through an industrial revolution. When this happened in the UK they had air quality issues too, possibly much worse than this even.
This is a classic example of those not learning from history are doomed to repeat it. China is a society built by the vision of a small group of people which has been imposed on the rest of the population by force and fear. It's also quite possible these elite few do know their history, know that their policy puts the public under such misery and threatens their health but they don't care. They would much rather take a path that creates greater wealth and power for themselves even if that means the rest suffer.
China though could be a lesson for the rest of the world. I keep hearing on how we need more government to control global warming and pollution. Well, China has a society that has a near total control of every aspect of the lives of the people in their nation and they have the worst air quality in the world. A question I have for these big government types, once the government has the ability to tell the people what kind of toilets they can buy, the kind of light bulbs, cars, soft drinks, clothing, the size of their house, the number of children, and on and on then what motivation would they have to care if the people don't like the air quality that their policies produced? If it takes smart people in government to tell us what to do to make our lives better then what is there to make sure that it is smart people that remain in government? Free elections perhaps? Freedom to speak?
The people in China are constantly lied to by the government, no doubt "for their own good" in the eyes of the government. The Chinese government claims this smog is the result of a natural event. They also know better because they have shutdown factories in response.
China is a polluted hell hole because they are going through an industrial revolution. It will remain a polluted hell hole until the people are free to choose who is in government and are free to speak out against their government. We've seen this before. History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So at least one person living in denial had mod points to throw away.
This is what you get with low cost manufacturing!
Trump is right china is gaming the system.
Don't forget the thousands of coal mine deaths to fuel the factories that produce the inexpensive shit that the oligarchs want made there in order to sell cheaply in America.
And don't forget the Chinese multi-millionaires coming to the USA in throngs to invest their dirty profits buying up real-estate, which should be illegal.
If you think China is anything close to fair or treats people fair, watch this.
Well, in their defense, the old solid stuff is very heavy and they don't want to move it from apartment to apartment as they constantly move.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Birmingham has never been in bankruptcy. The county it is in declared bankruptcy, but the city never has even been close to being bankrupt. I don't know where you got your news, but it's wrong.
Heh, why do you think I put it that way? I chose to make a test of it. Glad somebody caught it. Though I will say Birmingham is more identifiable than the county it's in, same as Detroit and New York City. Los Angeles is either luckier or worse off, depending. Not that it's especially meaningful, the bankruptcy remains what it was, regardless of which artificial government entity was involved.
Or do you have more to offer on why that county was in Bankruptcy? Do you have any meaningful facts to add? Or is your concern on the level of spelling?
But, but "China took the leadership on climate change many years ago" !
And I think its precisely because of twits like the woman from the UN in the video why Trump is saying fuck the Paris agreement because fuck all these twits.
... and blocking all the Chinese who are rich off the dirty slave-labor money from buying our real estate - and arresting the corrupt local governments that are facilitating their taking over our land.
A few months after Flint switched the water supply, the brass from General Motors went to the Governor (R) and complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode when being washed on the assembly line. The Governor was appalled to hear that GM property was being damaged, so he jumped through a number of hoops and quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Which means that thatnks to the Governer while the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, GM was washing its cars with clean water
"Nixon created the EPA"
Ironic, isn't it?
In todays GOP he be a RINO with ethical standards too high to ever amount to anything.
...global warming is a Chinese invention.
The exported pollution is like opium to China. They can't resist it despite the societal cost. If we Europeans (and the US) would be as batshit crazy motherfuckers like we were at the time of the Opium War, maybe we could soon enjoy the perils and tribulations of the Pollution War. Now, all we have to do is combine all those little private security companies, let them run our national armies offshore, add legal, administrative, logistic and all the other necessities for running multiple countries under the same corporate umbrella. With great order and justice, the return on investment is yuge!
More like 1950ies.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Trump is hobbling the EPA so badly that by the time he's done our smog will be so bad that we can't land airplanes either.
Not true - the smog will be so dense, you can land on top of it.
No, he's right. Unless your lips move when you read, encountering a homonymous mistake is jarring, as fluent reading is word or even phrase recognition, not letter recognition. If you don't care about what you're writing, why should anyone else?
> The two main culprits are Coal burning and auto and truck exhaust.
More likely the number of two-stroke engines that power everything from three wheeled "cars" to "bikes." China has a lot of these. A LOT.
The average lawn mower with a two-stroke engine that you put gas in will do more polluting in your weekend mowing than driving your new SUV all week.
Lead pipes are safe if the water is hard and alkaline; they effectively become stone pipes held in place by a lead sheath.
Then some silly sod who doesn't know they're there puts soft acidic water in them...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I find your segue into the anti-government rant a bit weirdly placed. Air quality is a textbook example of a "problem of the commons" situation - probably the biggest of them all because the atmosphere is literally one giant planet-spanning commons that everyone draws from.
And personally I cannot see a solution to the problem of the commons other than through goverment. Because even if people do realise they are also hurting themselves by polluting, it doesn't change the fact that a benefit from polluting less will be shared by everybody, while the costs of doing so are only applied to them. A rational actor will therefore always make the problem worse. Nobody wants to be the only guy on the block that spends double the money for oil heating, while still taking in 99% of pollution because everybody else is still on coal.
In a government, people can agree on reasonable restrictions that everybody needs to abide by to make the situation better. If you can outright make coal heating illegal, then people can expect 50% of pollution for double the money, and might even enjoy that change.
Now I do agree that there's a big caveat here and a possibility that such regulation would be overbearing, but I find it kind of silly to believe that we could have successfully made all the environmental progress of the past few decades in the west without the hammer of big government behind it.
China has learned from history. It saw how the west sacrificed millions of people's health for industrial progress, and decided that it was worth them doing the same thing. In fact a lot of people in the west make exactly the same argument - that it was worth polluting the world and burning all that fossil fuel to get the benefits we saw.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This. Republicans hate government because they know a government that does what citizens want is the only thing that can control their greedy corporate sponsors.
Trump really isn't an idealogue, but his appointments? Why would anybody hire anyone who has as their first statement that they hate the mission of the organization they're interviewing for? Yet many of these people had been elected to other things in their own right.
You put someone in charge of things who you KNOW is going to screw things up, because they told you they would, and then you say that the organization can never work because it's fundamentally flawed. Oh, and if by some miracle you get someone who's good at making an agency effective (cough, Elizabeth Warren, cough) you do everything you can to get rid of that person. That's the essence of Republican beliefs on government.
ching chong chinaman
China though could be a lesson for the rest of the world. I keep hearing on how we need more government to control global warming and pollution. Well, China has a society that has a near total control of every aspect of the lives of the people in their nation and they have the worst air quality in the world.
This is what dictatorship gets you. Dictators / one-party systems don't care. If they have clean air, it is because they failed to get enough industry going to cause much pollution. If they manage to have heavy industry, they pollute mercilessly. It is necessary to build the armies only an industrialized country is capable of having. China is currently muscling up, wanting to take control over the south china sea & dominate their region. They are a bit late to that game, so clean air can wait!
And personally I cannot see a solution to the problem of the commons other than through goverment. Because even if people do realise they are also hurting themselves by polluting, it doesn't change the fact that a benefit from polluting less will be shared by everybody, while the costs of doing so are only applied to them.
Someone that wants clean water to drink won't be shitting in the community well, right? It's not too hard to imagine people wanting to minimize pollution if you realize that these people that are doing the polluting are living in the same world as the rest of us.
It also doesn't take the "big hammer of government" to enforce policies against pollution. For example, think of a person that knows that lead in gasoline has the potential to do permanent damage to the brain development of their children. Is this person going to fill the minivan with leaded gas and take the family on a cross country road trip? I doubt it. This parent, if he/she cares about children at all will choose unleaded fuel or not going on the trip.
A less theoretical example, electric cars. Electric cars have all kinds of limitations compared to gas and diesel and yet they sell well. Why is that? They aren't mandated. Sure, they get some government support but no government agency is putting Tesla under the gun to make cars. They saw a market and sought to fill it. People see the benefit from electric cars, such as leaving a cleaner planet for their children.
What people seem to lose in the "tragedy of the commons" is that government is precisely not the solution. The solution is to privatize it. The tragedy of the shared pasture goes away if it is divided into parcels for the individual ranchers to graze. This way they see a direct loss to over grazing. If the pasture is put under control of an uninterested government then corruption and neglect set in. The government sees no direct loss on over grazing of the pasture, just as it sees no direct gain. A public official that is in office for only two years is going to be tempted to allow over grazing to keep everyone happy and leave the mess for the next official.
In cases where a common resource is more fleeting, like air compared to pasture land, the need for a government that must answer to the people is the second best choice to privatizing. The people that cannot merely shame the guy shitting in the well into not doing it any more can use the power of government to make it stop. If the government is a bunch of people that don't have to drink from the same well then don't expect a quick response, assuming you get a response at all. This is doubly so if the people in government weren't elected but selected by other people that are far from the problem.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
People aren't going to shit into the town well, but even there I am willing to question how far that is because they are aware of the consequences of their action, and not simply because they knew they'd get a beating from all the other townspeople. There'd certainly be people that would readily do so as long as there was another well somewhere else that they could drink out of.
But even that common sense you describe seems to go away really quickly as soon as the damage isn't completely obvious. In many places it's absolutely nothing unusual if you throw your trash into the same ocean the fish you're eating for dinner comes out of. Abstract that even further to ppms of invisible gases in a million cubic kilometers of air and even some people with doctorates seem to have trouble understanding the consequences.
Clearly, a dictatorship cannot handle this issue as well as a democracy can. The people in power are way too close to those few who benefit from lax environmental standards way more than they'd benefit from better environmental conditions. But as you noted, privatization is not an option for fleeting resources like water or air.
You're an asshole, but you knew that.
And exactly what has Trump done to hobble the EPA considering he is not even the President yet? Are you basing your accusation on things he has said during the campaign? You are aware the President cannot rule by fiat? Politicians are notorious for saying anything they can that helps them get elected. Once elected all those campaign promises tend to disappear. Obama promised to close Gitmo which should have been a gimme but after 8 years Gitmo is still there. It's fine for people to vent their hatred on Trump or any other politician because they all deserve it but why don't you wait until Trump actually does something before accusing him of this or that. Also understand that their are a lot of very rich and influential people use to pulling strings in the background and they just threw away millions of dollars on the wrong candidate and will not be getting quite the return on their investment they were hoping for. Understand that the big media corporations, who did everything in their power to make sure Trump lost the election now have to deal with a hostile President who doesn't look like he is going to give the press access to his administration that they are used to. They will be lucky if Trump even allows the press to bum free flights on Air Force 1 when he travels. During the campaign the big media folks came out of the closet and abandoned any objectivity or neutrality in their attempts to keep Trump from winning the election.
The people throwing hysterics over the soon to be President seem totally ignorant of the checks and balances built into the system. And these same people are the ones who are playing a dangerous game. From trying to influence the electoral college through protests and calls to change the constitution to get rid of the electoral college. Would these same people do the same thing if their candidate had won? They are trying to delegitimize the election after the fact and that will damage the country far more than Trump or any President could ever do.
And I am not a Trump supporter. I think there is hardly any difference between Trump and any other politician. I think those who are crying over Trumps victory should re-direct their anger towards those who can and do cause the biggest problems in the country and that is Congress. They are the road block to creating any change in the country. They can stop any President from really following through with any campaign promises. They are the ones who shut down the government when budget time comes around and then extort whatever they want in order to let the government continue to operate. They are the ones who have oversight on the US intelligence agencies and then play the outraged citizen when one of the intelligence agencies step out of bounds. It is Congress who enacts thing like the Patriot Act and expansion of the intelligence agencies powers. The President cannot enact these types of actions by himself. At most he can executive orders which can be nullified by Congress. The President can veto Congressional actions but Congress can also over rule that veto. The President can send the military off to war but has to have Congressional approval for the deployments within 90 days or the military needs to come home. And most importantly Congress controls the government check book. They can shut down the President initiatives by refusing to approve the budget.
We don't need changes in how we elect a President we need massive changes on how Congressman get elected. We need Congressional term limits and we need limits on campaign contributions. If you feel the urge to stand in the street protesting you should probably make sure you are protesting the right injustice.
which is why I commented on idiots. idiots like you. people who can't understand that "what you're writing" and "grammar" are completely different things. and if improper grammar is "jarring" for you, you are an idiot with no social skills. I guess foreigners are "jarring" to you, you've never taken a flight outside of your little suburb, and are extremely closed-minded - an idiot.
us non-idiots aren't "jarred" by improper grammar. I personally have traveled the world and speak 5 languages. I'll tell you this - anyone who isn't able to get past the fact that my korean or french has grammar errors and talk about the content does not belong in a conversation in any language.
idiots with no social skills are people who have trouble carrying out a conversation because of grammar errors are simply too dumb to understand content with errors. whether you define it as "jarring" or I define it as "you're too stupid" - the result is the same. put a couple of grammer erors in a sentance and your brain can't handle it. I'm guessing you had a problem reading text messages back in the flippfone days. Oh who am I kidding. who'd send u a text message.
Except that you are full of crap.
That said, it’s not yet clear how far Trump (or Pruitt) can actually go here. Overhauling the EPA is a surprisingly difficult task that involves navigating a complex bureaucracy bound by powerful laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both came into office hoping to take apart key EPA environmental rules, yet were often stymied by the courts, by green groups skilled at litigation, by career officials, and by sheer inertia.
The fact that Flint is seen as a major disaster, worthy of much outrage, as opposed to the norm, shows just how good a job the EPA is doing.
False. That is nowhere near enough information to base a conclusion on. This is a start toward more information, and the news is bad:
A Reuters examination of lead testing results across the country found almost 3,000 areas with poisoning rates far higher than in the tainted Michigan city. Yet many of these lead hotspots are receiving little attention or funding.
Flint (D) got its water from Detroit (D). They were building a pipeline to the lake. When the pipeline was 1 year from being complete Detroit (D) told them 'sign this 20 year contract for water or fuckoff, tomorrow.' They had little choice but get their water elsewhere. The city emergency manager (D, but appointed by R) got the water from a local river, intending to use it for a year. At the same time, a water company employee (D) took it on himself to stop using a chemical to seal lead pipes and prevent them from leaching.
Nope. You are leaving out how the original 30 year contract with Detroit expired in 1994. In theory, they were working through a multi-city/county agency to develop another water source. But twenty years later? Nope. Still not done. Detroit would have kept selling water. But somebody wanted to be seen to be doing something. So they switched.
No single employee made any such decision to not treat the water, 4 just got indicted for their failures, and the big story is how little their investigation went for the real meat. Lots of red flags and warnings to go around. All too many ignored.
Somehow this is someone else's fault. Cities run their own water companies, it was never Michigan's problem.
Somebody forgets that Michigan is the sovereign entity there, and the one party to the Great Lakes Water Compact, which was required to get water from Lake Huron and pipe it across the counties that border the lake to inland Genossee county.
Birmingham is a shithole, so is Vacaville. All bankrupt due to their own incompetence.
Yes, yes, that is the way you think. Blame someone for being in dire straits. That way you can feel only spite.
of the US becoming !
Not the same party as the Republican who gutted water sourcing to protect tax gifts to industry, that's for sure.
All Pollution Should be so Inconvenient, obvious, and visible. Then maybe we'd have less of it.
I'm going to start a business making Smog Bricks I call Smicks. All the raw material is around you and it's free! I even might get money from the Chinese government to help make my Smicks!
No, I'm a dick. You are a pussy, but if you continue to be so full of shit, you will turn into an asshole.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Increasing CO2 is green, because plants are green and plants love CO2. What?
*dr evil smile*
Chemical (primarily manufacturing)
https://earth.nullschool.net/#...
Particulate (coal)
https://earth.nullschool.net/#...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Meh @ your blue skies...
As an Australian living in the USA I'm shocked every time I go home and see how much bluer the skies are in Aus. And don't even get me started on the beaches...
Jesus Christ trump is an idiot but Putin not Russia has anything to do with his win