Make a Power Move?

[NW-Bound]

It is indeed far better than in the old days, but I suspect there's still a lot of harmful and obnoxious gases still in that exhaust.

For example, car exhaust is usually invisible, but you do not want to breathe that.

Coal plants in the US are usually located far from city centers. In my RV trip, out in the remote countryside, I often ran across rail cars loaded full of coal heading off to who-knows-where. We simply do not see smokestacks anywhere close to towns anymore in the US. It is alarming to see them close to town in some countries.

 

[ERD50]

Dictating to developing countries they aren’t free to use resources as we did isn’t changing, it’s telling others to change while imposing limits on how they improve their standard of living, limits that we aren’t willing to accept for ourselves. That’s never going to work. ....

But that was my point. Sure we did emit pollutants, but now are doing better. (much better). But then you switch from past tense to present tense.

I'm saying that now that we recognize these things are bad, we should not accept them. You seem to be saying that since we were responsible for past problems, that it's OK for other countries to pollute, until they "catch up" with our past sins?

I'm saying if these pollutants are bad, they need to be reduced. Period. Air quality, or global warming, doesn't care about who did what, when. If there is a cause effect, then the cause must be reduced. Nature won't say "Oh, don't pay any attention to that CO2, that CO2 was produced by a country that didn't produce so much in the past". If CO2 contributes to global warming, it contributes to global warming regardless the source.

... Totally agree. It also makes no sense to stand in the way of a Brazilian farmer trying to improve his lot in life by clearing forests for agriculture. We need to look harder for a way to reconcile those differing objectives.

Or stand in the way of the Chinese trying to improve their lot in life by producing cheap goods, even if it isn't as environmentally sound as we would like.

The question is, what are those harder ways to reconcile the differing objectives?

-ERD50

 

[Music Lover]

It's really odd that so often photos of "terrible pollution" are just a picture of cooling towers with steam coming out the top. I see it all the time.

Is it odd or is it deliberately misleading?

 

[catii]

I'd vote for deliberate misleading. Squirrels & nuts out there!

 

[MichaelB]

Regardless of what the photos represent, the contamination is real.

 

[NW-Bound]

People in Beijing wear masks daily. Perhaps they make mountain out of mole hill? They fool themselves?

Also see: https://mashable.com/2015/08/15/masked-city-beijing-air-pollution/

 

[GravitySucks]

I probably should have had those masks visiting my grandparents house in upstate NY chemical factory town in the 60s

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes. And that's the problem.

The Chinese, and also other poorer countries, are saying "It's my turn to make the sacrifice in air and water quality, in order to catch up with you guys".

 

[HFWR]

Reminds me of a Gallagher “joke” that the Olympians training for the games in LA were “running through a forest fire, sucking on a muffler”...

 

[Peter]

Is it odd or is it deliberately misleading?

Or ignorance?

 

[NW-Bound]

Reminds me of a Gallagher “joke” that the Olympians training for the games in LA were “running through a forest fire, sucking on a muffler”...

Eh, the exhaust out of my cars is clear, except for early mornings where there might be some vapors. Otherwise, it's clear. You can't see nothin'. The cars have got catalytic converters and everything. Where's the harm?

 

[NW-Bound]

Reminded me of this real story.

My late father suffered from total kidney failure, and had to spend the last few years of his life getting dialysis twice a week. After each session, he was driven home by my mother, all tired and feeling very lousy. I knew, because I offered to alternate with my mother to take him home.

One time, in the process of hurrying up to get him out of the car and into bed to rest, my mother forgot to shut off the car engine. She however did hit the garage door opener switch.

And the car was idling all night long, in the enclosed garage. Even though the door from the garage into the house was closed, some exhaust still leaked in. In the morning, they woke up feeling sick, and she called 911. Firemen came and discovered the problem immediately. They could have been dead!

I immediately went get a CO detector and mounted it for them.

Just another story of how old people can lose their mind, and hurt themselves with foolish mistakes.

 

[HFWR]

Eh, the exhaust out of my cars is clear, except for early mornings where there might be some vapors. Otherwise, it's clear. You can't see nothin'. The cars have got catalytic converters and everything. Where's the harm?

Well, it was 1984...

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes, but is car exhaust safe to suck in now?

 

[Chuckanut]

Is it odd or is it deliberately misleading?

It's incompetence and ignorance. Most reporter's knowledge of science is is equal to their knowledge of religion and economics - that is they are ignorant, and living examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Thus we hear some rather amazing (in an idiotic sort of way) things coming out of their mouths.

I will stop here as I could fill a few pages with the goofy things I hear reporters say when talking about science, economics and religion.

From Wikipedia:

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

 

[aja8888]

Regardless of what the photos represent, the contamination is real.

Yeah, the real bad actors usually can't be seen with the naked eye. As an example, compounds like benzene, toluene, trichloroethane, other solvents and organics, etc., some of which are known carcinogens at certain concentrations.

 

[NW-Bound]

Plain old CO almost did my parents in.

Anyway, in modern life we have to make certain trade-offs in order to have AC, autos, electronics for entertainment, although who knows what kind of toxic materials are generated in the production of these toys.

One thing for sure is that if the trade-off means someone in China is paying with his health for the hidden cost of our toys, it is easier for us to make that trade-off. We don't even think about it. And the Chinese do not seem to mind it either!

 

[aja8888]

One thing for sure is that if the trade-off means someone in China is paying with his health for the hidden cost of our toys, it is easier for us to make that trade-off. We don't even think about it. And the Chinese do not seem to mind it either!

In some societies, the common worker is expendable and easily replaced, especially when the leaders give lip service to employee health and safety issues and the available workforce numbers in the 100's of millions.

 

[NW-Bound]

... compounds like benzene, toluene, trichloroethane...

I recalled working with TCE, which is trichloroethylene, in a factory in a part-time job when I was in college. One of my jobs was to dunk temperature-compensated Zener diodes into tanks of TCE at different temperatures, from way below freezing to way above boiling, while measuring their voltage.

These expensive diodes were individually tested, not sample-tested, and individually serialized! I saw the purchasing companies on the orders; these diodes were destined to go into space, hence their meticulous testing. Wow!

Anyway, I did not know about the danger of TCE then. A few years later, read about a Motorola semiconductor plant in town getting into trouble for having leaked TCE into the ground water. And I was breathing that TCE fume, and getting it onto my fingers despite wearing gloves. Yikes. And they paid me peanuts.

Some poor Chinese or Indians are still doing similar kinds of work with chemicals, I am sure.


PS. Come to think more about this, perhaps I was assigned to do this dirty work with hand-testing parts with TCE because full-time employees shunned this work. I was a hungry student on a part-time job, and I did not know better.

 

[NW-Bound]

I just remember some more.

A correction: Not all the tanks were filled with TCE, only the low temperature tanks. The hot tanks were filled with some kind of oil.

I recall now that the procedure was to dunk-test the devices from very hot to progressively colder. TCE has a low boiling temperature, so you do not want it drip into the hot tank where it would vaporize. However, at the end of the cycle for each device, the test paddle is moved back from the coldest tank (TCE) to the hottest tank (oil). I would tap the paddle to shake off as much TCE as possible, but some TCE on the paddle inevitably got carried to the hot tank and boiled off. There were ventilation suction hoods and all that, but some TCE vapor escaped, and some liquid TCE would get spilled too.

 

[MichaelB]

One thing for sure is that if the trade-off means someone in China is paying with his health for the hidden cost of our toys, it is easier for us to make that trade-off. We don't even think about it. And the Chinese do not seem to mind it either!

The choice between unhealthy employment and no employment is a Hobson’s choice. Also, how much of the pollution provided in developing countries, such as Brazil and China, is for export production vs domestic development and standard of living increase?

It seems to me a significant part of the overall increase in pollution generated in China, for example, is the result of infrastructure and urbanization. Emissions, power generation, electronics for domestic consumption, transportation, and a general increase in per capita material consumption. Per capita income in China is still low, and as it increases we can only expect to see even more pollution generated.

 

[NW-Bound]

About 20% of Chinese GDP is for export. It used to be as high as 35%.

Pollution cannot be measured with the value of the production however. It's the cheap stuff that pollutes the most in the making.

High-valued IPs are clean to create, and the Chinese are making progress there. They will outsource the dirty works to poorer countries. Some poor guys in the world will always have to make your Hobson's choice.

 

[NW-Bound]

Here's an example. Ship breaking, the job of tearing down old ships to recycle the steel is now done in India and Bangladesh.

Getting old sucks, but everyone gets old eventually. Being poor sucks much more, because you will get to be both old and poor.



PS. Recently, I thought about the first cruise I took, on the Royal Caribbean ship Viking Serenade. I wondered what happened to this ship. Turned out it was being scrapped in Alang, India.

So that's what happened. Rich people get to go on cruise ships, and it's the poor people's job to tear it down.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, back on the OP's threat to leave CA because of the power outage (post #1), and his calming down and decision to stay for now (post #191)...

There's a lot on the Web about people leaving California, and that has been going on for a while, not just now. The main reason has been the cost of housing.

For many years, more people have been leaving California for other states than have been moving here. According to data from the American Community Survey, from 2007 to 2016, about 5 million people moved to California from other states, while about 6 million left California. On net, the state lost 1 million residents to domestic migration—about 2.5 percent of its total population...

Will the power outage and the wild fire accelerate this trend? We will have to see.

But, but, but here's something that's interesting. That is, from 2007 to 2016, the period reported above, California's population increases from 36.19 million to 39.21 million according to the US Census Bureau. That's a net increase of 3.02 million.

Where did that increase come from? Birth rate? It's then a birth rate of 4.02 million out of 36.19 million in 9 years. That's 1.2%/year.

Birth rate in the US is about 1.2 per 100 per year, and that shows California birth rate is just average.

The numbers mean California is still getting more crowded, even with the out migration.

 

[homestead]

I recalled working with TCE, which is trichloroethylene, in a factory in a part-time job when I was in college. One of my jobs was to dunk temperature-compensated Zener diodes into tanks of TCE at different temperatures, from way below freezing to way above boiling, while measuring their voltage.

These expensive diodes were individually tested, not sample-tested, and individually serialized! I saw the purchasing companies on the orders; these diodes were destined to go into space, hence their meticulous testing. Wow!

Anyway, I did not know about the danger of TCE then. A few years later, read about a Motorola semiconductor plant in town getting into trouble for having leaked TCE into the ground water. And I was breathing that TCE fume, and getting it onto my fingers despite wearing gloves. Yikes. And they paid me peanuts.

Some poor Chinese or Indians are still doing similar kinds of work with chemicals, I am sure.


PS. Come to think more about this, perhaps I was assigned to do this dirty work with hand-testing parts with TCE because full-time employees shunned this work. I was a hungry student on a part-time job, and I did not know better.

Was that in Phoenix?