Hadn’t heard this tidbit about the crash before, what a truly insane coincidence. The airborne toxic event in the novel/movie causes deja vu, too.
Perhaps a small point, but the incident at Three Mile Island did not lead contaminate surroundings for years. Or at least, the extent is somewhat disputed.
From wiki:
According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was eight millirem (0.08 mSv), and no more than 100 millirem (1 mSv) to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."
Although some epidemiological studies cast some doubt on that:
A peer-reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers between 1979 and 1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI.[113] In 2009 Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates. A retrospective study of Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in some counties south of TMI (although, notably, not in Dauphin County itself) and in high-risk age groups but did not draw a causal link between these incidences and the accident.[13][14] The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding a few, small increased cancer risks within the TMI population.[15] A more recent study reached "findings consistent with observations from other radiation-exposed populations," raising "the possibility that radiation released from [Three Mile Island] may have altered the molecular profile of [thyroid cancer] in the population surrounding TMI", establishing a potential causal mechanism, although not definitively proving causation.[114]
The company or its shareholders is not bearing the cost of wrongdoing.
As such, the market is incentivized to do more of this garbage.
Environmental pollution is a classic example of a market failure. Market failures are the rule not some exception - they're a way to maximize profit. Efficient markets have zero profit.
At that point, all of the taxes one has paid to fund a government that is supposed to referee these matters... may result in some scant comfort.
"Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks."
Pride is a stronger motivator than greed.
https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-argued-benefits-gain-function-1...
Is it bad to run a biolab next to a naturally virus -heavy environment? Probably. Is it bad to trust the Chinese Communiat Party with a biolab,given their decades long record of oppression the Chinese epoeple and suppression of the press? Probably.
Vinyl Chloride gas clouds, by contrast, never appear naturally.
If I want to read a policy paper on rail safety regulation, I want it dry. Give me events, causes, remedies, suggestions, costs. I don't want to read a stump speech.
And in point of fact there aren't any remedies or reasoned argument here, it's all yelling and finger pointing. How might this have been prevented? Why did it happen in the first place (FWIW: we don't actually know yet, AFAIK). How else might we ship these compounds? Do we need to? What industries are they serving? That's the stuff I want to hear.
it lasts about a paragraph. there's more effort in this thread already
(I've done so suggesting the title alteration you've made here.)
