[jsonne]

I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag.

In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. I feel so helpless like I wish there was a way to prevent this or create enough real accountability that people actually work to minimize these sorts of things but it never seems to pan out that way. My hunch is that the behind the scenes culprit of "why" this happens is rather banal, insurance covers it so people don't have to change, and it seems like those policies create a ton of moral hazard but I don't know the alternatives. I have no answers here it just feels like yet another weight on the side of the scale that the average person has very little control over their lives even for simple things like not being hurt by toxic chemicals in soil / drinking water. Feels easy to lose even more faith in the institutions that are supposed to protect us all.

[kevin_nisbet]

> In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. This isn't really the same, but I've been thinking in similar areas a lot lately in the context of climate change, and the debate around climate change, although debating any topic doesn't change many minds.

If you bet on the scientific majority around climate change being wrong / non-existent / something we can't control, and end up being wrong, then the worst case scenario we make the planet uninhabitable (I'm going to the extreme here).

If you bet that climate change exists and is man-made and end up wrong, we've unnecessarily invested a huge amount of money into reducing pollution, more efficient buildings / manufacturing / transport, and reduce the dependence on a limited set of oil producers to be able to hold supply of oil over nations.

For something more immediate like health concerns with this derailment, is should the officials be more willing to be wrong? And message as such?

[danaris]

Unfortunately, the problem here is that for the individual politicians, if you bet that climate change exists, the worst case scenario is that the big money turns against you and you lose office.

If you bet that climate change doesn't exist or can't be fixed, so we might as well go on with the status quo, the worst case is that you get voted out by environmentally-conscious voters...after getting scads of campaign contributions from the big money, and with a good chance of getting a cushy lobbying post from them afterwards.

These are the incentives we need to change.

[corbulo]

>If you bet on the scientific majority around climate change being wrong / non-existent / something we can't control, and end up being wrong, then the worst case scenario we make the planet uninhabitable (I'm going to the extreme here).

Have you heard of Pascals wager? What do you think of it?

The problem with your 2nd part is it hasn't been actually shifting away from oil, just shifting where in the chain uses more of it. 'Green' infrastructure and products are still overwhelmingly powered by oil & coal and require such significant amounts of emissions to extract that it is self-defeating in the majority of cases. The strongest advocates of 'Green' energy have been frequently silent on Nuclear Energy, which is an obvious and much easier solution to their own alarmism than wind farms (have you seen local eco impacts and blade disposal?) solar (works only where it's sunny with limited options for power storage which is its own can of worms).

>For something more immediate like health concerns with this derailment, is should the officials be more willing to be wrong? And message as such?

I think transparency is what is being requested, not wrongness.

[peyton]

You’re betting other people’s money in the second case, and they have a say.

[m000]

A number of rescued foxes and other wild animals were also affected in the nearby area [1].

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/fox-dies-owners-arms-after-ohio-tra...

[panick21_]

> It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects

Yeah but most of the time the panic spread on social media actually does get it wrong.

I am familiar with nuclear matter and the amount of insane social media post about any little nuclear thing is pretty crazy and have no scientific bases.

[RajT88]

> It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted.

I recently learned that smaller versions of this even happen in the Lasalle/Peru area in Illinois with some regularity. It makes the local news, and maybe some Chicago news, but hardly a blip on national news.

And this is people telling me they live miles away from the incident, and are experiencing fuzzy orange snow. It's curious, because this is getting more press coverage, and at the same time the conspiracy wingnuts are claiming the press is covering it up.

[12345hn6789]

The cancer rates in that area are wack. I know a teacher at a local school and the amount of children who are lost to cancer is outrageous. Every year at least. The town is 10,000 people.

Also, something similar happened just recently. <fortunately> the carus chemical plant explosion is but a tiny blip compared to the Ohio disaster. https://abc7chicago.com/carus-chemical-explosion-potassium-p...

But it is terrible nonetheless.

[TurkishPoptart]

Better to be a labelled conspiracy wingnut, as someone who maintains justified suspicion of those who hold power in our society (media, corporate barons, politicians), than to be too trusting and assuming all is well.

[iso1631]

Imagine a world where journalists have enough time in the day to participate in a coverup

[ly3xqhl8g9]

A tad of Yes, Minister wisdom [1]:

  "The Four Stage Strategy:
  Stage 1. Nothing is going to happen.
  Stage 2. Something may happen, but we should do nothing about it.
  Stage 3. Maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
  Stage 4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now." 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

[r00fus]

Why does this sound really familiar? Because it's very close to the Narcissist's Prayer [1]

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer

[nabla9]

Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes.

The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.

[kritiko]

Moral Mazes has many good examples of how this happens.

Aaron Swartz quoted one excerpt about an industrial accident towards the bottom of this blog: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bizethics

Management deferred replacement of a $6M battery and the cost of its failure was 100-150M.

>People are always calculating how others will see the decisions they make. … They know that they have to gauge not just the external … market consequences of a decision, but the internal political consequences. And sometimes you can make the right market decision, but it can be the wrong political decision.

[swordsmith]

> I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag.

It's interesting that you mention that you saw this on TikTok. In the last two days, the Ohio train derailment has become one of the hottest topics in ALL of Chinese social media (Weibo, tiktok, Little red book, etc), 10 days after its happening.

I was confused when my Chinese friends started asking me about this event, which I saw on the news the day it happened.

Why the huge lag? Oh yeah, because of the Chinese "balloons" -- nationalist citizens are mad that CCP has taken a "soft" stance in the face of US shooting down Chinese balloons. Chinese official statements are along the lines of "how dare you shoot down my balloons, they are just passing through on accident", then stating that American balloons have entered Chinese airspace previously and that's unacceptable.

This entire thing is a mess, so here comes the typical media manipulation to focus both Chinese and non-Chinese negative attention on America, even though American media has been giving this event no less attention than something like this usually receives.

[laurentbh]

yeah, it's not that bad when you are in DC or on Wall Street

[EGreg]

Many peopl say that capitalism should be laidsez-faire and government should leave us alone. But actually, government is on the SIDE of capital and corporations, and they constantly work together to keep the public distracted and divided enough to actually force these corporations to change:

https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362

[mbostleman]

I'm finding it extremely hard to separate signal from noise in the social and legacy media spheres right now. I'm waiting for things to settle.

[seafoam]

Yeah, I used to do that.

Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until it is too late.

If you are potentially impacted, you have to do your own homework, and learn from your mistakes.

[Accujack]

That's because someone is pushing very hard for the after effects of the derailing to be believed catastrophic.

There's zero critical thinking being applied because they (whomever they are) have been building up belief leveraging mistrust of the government, mistrust of corporations, mistrust of science (related to the actual chemicals involved) and false information about the facts of the derailing.

It's very similar to the way that Trump and company brainwashed their followers into almost overthrowing the US government. I won't be surprised to find out it's being done by the same people as before.

[smcl]

Are you:

- weary of these getting downplayed (pron. wee-ree = you are tired of it)

- wary of these getting downplayed (pron. way-ray = you are suspicious of it)

[missedthecue]

I think people combine leery and wary in their mind and end up with weary, which they don't intend. I see it a lot.

In the case of the parent comment however, weary does work.

[BalinKing]

Isn’t “grow weary” a common phrase, though?

[OJFord]

Those pronunciation guides confused me a lot before I scanned back, and read the words themselves (trying to ignore the pronunciations I'd already seen!) - so let me proffer:

- weary 'weir[in a river]-(r)ee'

- wary 'wear[clothes]-(r)ee'

Which just goes to demonstrate how weird and multi-sourced English is, doesn't it. And also maybe we just pronounce these very differently (I'm British) - 'way-ray' is way off to me.

I add the '(r)' because being British (and I believe some of the US) an 'r' following a vowel is under-pronounced (in the opinion of some other accent holders), as in 'wear', but not when followed by another (pseudo)vowel, in 'weary' - but that may not be the case for you.

[madaxe_again]

Where do they pronounce wary way-ray? I’ve always said it “where-y”.

[stronglikedan]

Both are valid phrases, and both can be true, even at the same time.

[anotherman554]

"I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag."

I wouldn't bother watching a Tiktok video unless the video maker is an environmental professional. Otherwise this is just the blind leading the blind.

Here's a legal definition of environmental professional used by developers when they do a environmental assessment, from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_I_environmental_site_ass...:

Someone with:

a current Professional Engineer's or Professional Geologist's license or registration from a state or U.S. territory with 3 years equivalent full-time experience;

or

a Baccalaureate or higher degree from an accredited institution of higher education in a discipline of engineering or science and 5 years equivalent full-time experience;

or

have the equivalent of 10 years full-time experience.

[dendrite9]

There are plenty of other people who you might expect to give a reasonable update on how nature (in general) is dealing with something like a chemical spill. Gardeners, birders, fishers, even some walkers or runners are outside regularly and tend to have a feel for what is going on in the environment around them. There are people I trust when they say the fish are hiding in the afternoon because the river is too hot and they stop fishing to avoid causing too much stress. If one of them told me they were seeing dead fish more often after an event I would file that away as a mostly trustworthy source of information.

[WheatMillington]

"hey look, here's a bunch of dead fish that weren't here yesterday"

"show me your degree"

[vkou]

You are correct about that, but it's also worth noting that there's also no point listening to a corporate press release that's telling you everything is fine, either, because we don't put press officers in prison for lying.

[scarecrowbob]

What are your qualifications for making that statement?