Cancer alley

[Gob]

Quite chilling.

How do you calculate the price of a human life? What about 256,000 human lives?

Around a quarter of a million Americans are living in parts of the United States where rates of cancer caused by air pollution exceed the US government’s own limit of “acceptable risk.” Environmental experts have a chilling name for these sites:

Sacrifice zones.

Residents of these communities die of cancer and other illnesses more often, and earlier, than people sometimes just a couple miles away. Many of them may not know this. The Environmental Protection Agency does know – and allows it to happen. In other words, a government agency that is supposed to protect Americans has effectively condemned thousands of them to death.

We know about this moral scandal in part thanks to research and reporting by ProPublica. Last week, the investigative news outlet published a detailed map of US sacrifice zones. Many are in the Texas and Louisiana petrochemical corridor sometimes called Cancer Alley. But others are in communities as far-flung as Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Millions of Americans no doubt go about their daily lives under the belief that, if nothing else, their government should protect them – and is protecting them – from cancer-causing industrial pollutants. Unfortunately, they’re in for a disturbing wake-up call.

The publication identified around 1,000 hotspots, typically in communities near factories, refineries, or military facilities which release hazardous gases such as ethylene oxide, benzene, dioxin, and chloroprene. ProPublica’s research suggests that around 256,000 Americans live in areas where incidences of cancer caused by air pollution exceed 1 in 10,000, which is the EPA’s current upper limit of acceptable risk.

more..

[Scooter]

Of the 25 sites identified, only 4 are in the heavily industrialized North and Midwest. 19 are in the South (why am I not surprised).

And for those believe that systemic racism no longer exists, this

Polluting factories are disproportionately concentrated in poor or minority neighborhoods. ​​According to Steve Lerner’s 2019 book Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States, the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities.

says otherwise. Black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable.

[Gob]

Polluting factories are disproportionately concentrated in poor or minority neighborhoods.

Or are poor or minority neighborhoods disproportionately concentrated near polluting factories? Either way you cut it, it's up there with the "Pope attends mass," or "bear excrement found in forest", "no shit Sherlock" type headlines.

Black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable.

Are there no issues today that the divisive "them and us" lobby won't latch onto with their "I'm offended on behalf of the poor black people" to show how virtuous they are?

[ex-khobar Andy]

Of course there is an element of 'if you have the money, move somewhere nicer' to it all, but that was not Scooter's main point.

When a company is fined for creating pollution, the fine is 506% higher if the victims are White rather than minority.

To put this in context, you would be rightly outraged if you found that, for example, the race of the victim determined the sentence - if for example Black murderers of White victims were more likely to get the death penalty for their crime than vice versa. That seems contrary to all ideas of justice.

Well OK, that's a bad example.

[Big RR]

That's true Andy, but I would like to see the data and who is levying the fines. I wouldn't be surprised if the fines in some areas were generally lower than others (a $1000 fine is much more severe, e.g., in Arkansas than California), and that in those areas the polluting plants were clustered around minority areas (segregation still reigns in many states), while in other areas this is not the case. It is entirely possible that the data will bear out what Scooter's post states, but I would like to see them.

[Gob]

Of course there is an element of 'if you have the money, move somewhere nicer' to it all, but that was not Scooter's main point.

Not my main point either. My point was more along the lines of despite there being "polluting factories disproportionately concentrated in POOR OR minority neighborhoods" It would appear that only "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable". A classic bit of white-guilt virtue-signaling racism there.

[BoSoxGal]

Of course there is an element of 'if you have the money, move somewhere nicer' to it all, but that was not Scooter's main point.

Not my main point either. My point was more along the lines of despite there being "polluting factories disproportionately concentrated in POOR OR minority neighborhoods" It would appear that only "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable". A classic bit of white-guilt virtue-signaling racism there.

I agree with Gob’s point. One only needs to look to Appalachia to see that environmental injustice happens to poor white people just as it does to poor people of color. Appalachia is ~85% white and the environment there has been decimated by the coal industry over many generations with resultant health effects on the largely white poor population.

Poor people’s lives are clearly seen as expendable. Poor people of all skin tones.

[ex-khobar Andy]

BSG's point of course is absolutely correct: but I was quoting Scooter's post. Whether he edited the original or used their words I don't know but it (Scooter's post) clearly said that "the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities." I don't know if the research was on 'poor and minority' neighborhoods or just 'minority' - did they control for affluence as well as race or not? I assume that they did based on the wording but I have not read the original.

So the conclusion - "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable" - is based on Scooter's post, which I assume to be an accurate summary of the report's findings, and is not therefore "A classic bit of white-guilt virtue-signaling racism there."

What His Holiness does in the woods is neither here nor there.

[BoSoxGal]

I would definitely want to see the data teased out; there are certainly cases where polluters have been fined for polluting white neighborhoods which were also largely middle class, like the WR Grace case in Massachusetts.

[Scooter]

Not my main point either. My point was more along the lines of despite there being "polluting factories disproportionately concentrated in POOR OR minority neighborhoods" It would appear that only "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable". A classic bit of white-guilt virtue-signaling racism there.

Perhaps if you didn't intentionally cut off the part of that quote that inspired my comment, not just once, but twice, which was, once again:

the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities

No "poor and..." there. So cut the crap and respond to the WHOLE of what was posted, or not at all.

[Gob]

I responded to your obvious racism.

[Scooter]

You chose to post an article that identified a glaring racial disparity in how polluters are policed; are the rest of us supposed to ignore it just because you don't want to talk about it?

[Gob]

White people live and die in these areas too, but you chose to ignore them.

[Scooter]

the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities

Did those words appear in the article you posted? Then save your gaslighting for someone else.

[Gob]

"polluting factories disproportionately concentrated in POOR OR minority neighborhoods"

Did the words "poor neighborhoods" appear? You can save your virtue signaling for another day.

[Scooter]

Once again, intentionally ignoring the statement that gave rise to my comment, which once again was this:

the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities

reflects only on your dishonesty.

I can continue to play this game indefinitely.

[Jarlaxle]

Expecting scooter to NOT virtue-signal is like expecting a cat to not climb into a cardboard box.

[Scooter]

And right on cue, in comes the walking advertisement for euthanasia.

[Gob]

The fact that you chose only to highlight the effects on "black and minority" people, and to ignore that these pollutants also have deadly effect on white residents, just goes to show that you are a racist. I'll say it again; My point was that despite there being "polluting factories disproportionately concentrated in POOR OR minority neighborhoods" It would appear that only "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable".

If I had written "the life of white people who live in these areas are clearly seen as expendable", you would be the first to complain.

[Scooter]

Except that my statement that "black and brown lives are clearly seen as expendable" was not referring to the statement about where polluting factories are located, but rather to the government response to it, which is, once again:

the average fine imposed on polluters of white neighborhoods is 506% higher than the average fine imposed on polluters of minority communities

As I said, I can play this game indefinitely. So long as you continue to misrepresent me by intentionally ignoring the statement to which I was responding, I will happily continue to quote that same statement to provide the proper context for my response.