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Air quality is merely one measure of how this stuff hurts a population. There is massive poverty in the USA. And these huge oil companies who start fracking? Th

Air quality is merely one measure of how this stuff hurts a population. There is massive poverty in the USA. And these huge oil companies who start fracking? They literally destroy people's homes and don't care. http://insideenergy.org/2016/03/30/oklahoma-earthquakes-who-pays/ http://insideenergy.org/2016/03/30/oklahoma-earthquakes-who-... > but this doesn’t have much to do with the USA unless you The parent comment was all about the USA. I am responding to a comment directly about the USA and its ability/desire to implement renewable energy. > You are comparing third world pro or s to first world ones I am not. Much of the US is living in third world conditions [1], despite the definition meaning originally ~"not the US or Russia", an enormous amount of people in the US live in poverty, and a lot of them next to huge corporate pollution nightmares. West Oakland is a good example. These people have lifelong respiratory problems and few people care - certainly not the city nor the company who gave those people long term health problems. That pollution mostly comes from the Port - but my point still stands. If you think the US is "mostly solved" when it comes to pollution you are dearly wrong. > A unless you want to talk about carbon instead. That's pretty much all I was talking about in the first place. Edit: [1] I'm being told off for this comment, like it isn't true or something? But a commenter below told me that something like 40M people in the USA live in poverty. That's a big number, and certainly is "much of the US". I'm not wrong about a very, very large number of people in the US living in poverty.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
PM 2.5 is an immediate non-abstract threat that really sucks if you have to live it. If you think the respiratory problems are bad in Oakland, that is nothing compared to what is happening in much of eastern China. Again, the scales are completely different and incomparable. If you want to start talking about carbon, I don’t think a higher or lower carbon footprint would have forced me to leave Beijing for the states. Ya, it eventually kills the planet, but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  I am aware the problems in China are large, and different. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. The USA also has an immediate existential crisis right now when it comes to pollution. To deny that is exactly how we got into such a disaster in the first place. > Ya, it eventually kills the planet, but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life. I disagree with everything I am. It does immediately affect quality of life. For one, changing climate in the Bay Area and in Colorado locally is a result of changing global climates. These affect people, crops, plants, animals, everything, immediately. Personally, my quality of life has been dramatically reduced for 30 years due to global warming and climate change from local carbon outputs. To suggest otherwise is extremely close minded and offensive. Growing up in world and being told it is totally wrecked for generations, told that the greed of our parents' generation and before that has ravaged the Earth so completely that problems are spiralling out of control and life will be increasingly hard and complicated for people all over the world for a long time. Being told that hundreds of millions of people will be low on food due to changing climate patterns, that this is already happening, that there are droughts and wars fought over this already. > but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life. Yes it does. People have died. Please be more considerate and understanding of the immense damage caused by greed and greenhouse gas pollution that is presently happening.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Let’s put it this way: I don’t think you have ever experienced an 800 PM2.5 day before. You would move if you did, I assume you are still living in the Bay Area, however bad you think the pollution is there, it didn’t cause you to pick up your life and start over again. In that case, your values aren’t incredibly different from mine. Let me know if any of my assumptions are incorrect.
    - cryptoz 9y ago
      No, I have not experienced a day like that. I'm sure I would move, too. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. Downplaying the USA's problems with pollution and dangerous materials has been a major problem for hundreds of years. The attitude that "it's worse elsewhere, America has it solved" is so incredibly dangerous. It's just not true. America does not have any of this solved. America is trying its best right now to increase the pollution in cities and decrease the air quality. Maybe the air quality isn't that bad right now, according to you or elsewhere. That doesn't mean it is okay to make it worse. That doesn't mean that we have solved it. Left alone to the current path of things, I think the USA certainly would bypass China in terms of bad air quality. The major leadership definitely wants that future it seems - that is the only end result of the current US policy.
icelancer 9y ago
>> There is massive poverty in the USA This is simply false for any reasonable definition of "massive," especially anything relative.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  No, it is not false. You may not be aware of it, but massive poverty in the US is certainly there. Massive? Yes of course there is. There are so many people in the US living at or near the legal definition of the poverty line - it's clearly a major problem. A massive problem for sure. The number of homeless people in California alone is an international tragedy. The USA absolutely does have a massive poverty problem, and to deny this is to deny the reality and the humanity of your fellow citizens. Edit: I think it would be reasonable to suggest that if there were more than a million people living in the USA in poverty, that we could all agree that it would fall under a reasonable definition of "massive poverty", relative or otherwise. And I don't know the numbers, but I guarantee that there are well over a million people living in poverty in the USA. -------- Edit: I am banned from responding to comments on HN (too many downvotes? I'm not sure why. I've tried to be very polite here). Here is my reply to the comment below. > So you keep using hyperbolic statements - massive, massive, massive, massive - I am not the one who brought 'massive' to this conversation. I am using that word to respond as directly and clearly as possible to the commenters above. > and then you admit you have no idea what you're talking about, because you don't actually know any numbers involved. I did no such thing. I even took an educated guess at the numbers, which turned out to be conservative based on the numbers you supplied, and the number of poor people in the USA is 10x higher than I has estimated. Wow. > That's pretty ridiculous to put it mildly. I don't understand this at all. I'm not being ridiculous. That is rude. What do you mean by this? > The US poverty rate in 2016 was 12.7%. I would say that is very clearly massive poverty. It is completely unacceptable that a country as advanced and capable as the USA still has so much poverty. That's 40M people in poverty in the USA. Wow - that is a lot. Please be kinder, both to me and to them. Edit again: > The term "massive" is a strictly relative concept. No, it is not. I googled 'define:massive' just to check and was met with a set of reasonable definitions, all of which show that you are wrong. All of them. I like definition 2. "exceptionally large." 40M people, living in the USA in poverty, is exceptionally large. That is not up for debate. That number is huge. It is exceptional and it is large - an exception to what the USA is capable of doing, an exception to what people expect when they pay so much tax, an exception to what the media, government, and our society expect. Denying or diminishing the scope of the problems of poverty in the USA is harmful and insulting.
djrogers 9y ago
> Much of the US is living in third world conditions, I'm guessing you've never been to Haiti, Kenya, Rwanda, or any actual third world nation, have you? > an enormous amount of people in the US live in poverty The poverty rate in the US is similar to that in France, the UK, and Canada - about 1/3-1/5th that of actual third world nations.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

PM 2.5 is an immediate non-abstract threat that really sucks if you have to live it. If you think the respiratory problems are bad in Oakland, that is nothing compared to what is happening in much of eastern China. Again, the scales are completely different and incomparable. If you want to start talking about carbon, I don’t think a higher or lower carbon footprint would have forced me to leave Beijing for the states. Ya, it eventually kills the planet, but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life.

cryptoz 9y ago
I am aware the problems in China are large, and different. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. The USA also has an immediate existential crisis right now when it comes to pollution. To deny that is exactly how we got into such a disaster in the first place. > Ya, it eventually kills the planet, but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life. I disagree with everything I am. It does immediately affect quality of life. For one, changing climate in the Bay Area and in Colorado locally is a result of changing global climates. These affect people, crops, plants, animals, everything, immediately. Personally, my quality of life has been dramatically reduced for 30 years due to global warming and climate change from local carbon outputs. To suggest otherwise is extremely close minded and offensive. Growing up in world and being told it is totally wrecked for generations, told that the greed of our parents' generation and before that has ravaged the Earth so completely that problems are spiralling out of control and life will be increasingly hard and complicated for people all over the world for a long time. Being told that hundreds of millions of people will be low on food due to changing climate patterns, that this is already happening, that there are droughts and wars fought over this already. > but it doesn’t effect immediate quality of life. Yes it does. People have died. Please be more considerate and understanding of the immense damage caused by greed and greenhouse gas pollution that is presently happening.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Let’s put it this way: I don’t think you have ever experienced an 800 PM2.5 day before. You would move if you did, I assume you are still living in the Bay Area, however bad you think the pollution is there, it didn’t cause you to pick up your life and start over again. In that case, your values aren’t incredibly different from mine. Let me know if any of my assumptions are incorrect.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    No, I have not experienced a day like that. I'm sure I would move, too. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. Downplaying the USA's problems with pollution and dangerous materials has been a major problem for hundreds of years. The attitude that "it's worse elsewhere, America has it solved" is so incredibly dangerous. It's just not true. America does not have any of this solved. America is trying its best right now to increase the pollution in cities and decrease the air quality. Maybe the air quality isn't that bad right now, according to you or elsewhere. That doesn't mean it is okay to make it worse. That doesn't mean that we have solved it. Left alone to the current path of things, I think the USA certainly would bypass China in terms of bad air quality. The major leadership definitely wants that future it seems - that is the only end result of the current US policy.

icelancer 9y ago

>> There is massive poverty in the USA This is simply false for any reasonable definition of "massive," especially anything relative.

cryptoz 9y ago
No, it is not false. You may not be aware of it, but massive poverty in the US is certainly there. Massive? Yes of course there is. There are so many people in the US living at or near the legal definition of the poverty line - it's clearly a major problem. A massive problem for sure. The number of homeless people in California alone is an international tragedy. The USA absolutely does have a massive poverty problem, and to deny this is to deny the reality and the humanity of your fellow citizens. Edit: I think it would be reasonable to suggest that if there were more than a million people living in the USA in poverty, that we could all agree that it would fall under a reasonable definition of "massive poverty", relative or otherwise. And I don't know the numbers, but I guarantee that there are well over a million people living in poverty in the USA. -------- Edit: I am banned from responding to comments on HN (too many downvotes? I'm not sure why. I've tried to be very polite here). Here is my reply to the comment below. > So you keep using hyperbolic statements - massive, massive, massive, massive - I am not the one who brought 'massive' to this conversation. I am using that word to respond as directly and clearly as possible to the commenters above. > and then you admit you have no idea what you're talking about, because you don't actually know any numbers involved. I did no such thing. I even took an educated guess at the numbers, which turned out to be conservative based on the numbers you supplied, and the number of poor people in the USA is 10x higher than I has estimated. Wow. > That's pretty ridiculous to put it mildly. I don't understand this at all. I'm not being ridiculous. That is rude. What do you mean by this? > The US poverty rate in 2016 was 12.7%. I would say that is very clearly massive poverty. It is completely unacceptable that a country as advanced and capable as the USA still has so much poverty. That's 40M people in poverty in the USA. Wow - that is a lot. Please be kinder, both to me and to them. Edit again: > The term "massive" is a strictly relative concept. No, it is not. I googled 'define:massive' just to check and was met with a set of reasonable definitions, all of which show that you are wrong. All of them. I like definition 2. "exceptionally large." 40M people, living in the USA in poverty, is exceptionally large. That is not up for debate. That number is huge. It is exceptional and it is large - an exception to what the USA is capable of doing, an exception to what people expect when they pay so much tax, an exception to what the media, government, and our society expect. Denying or diminishing the scope of the problems of poverty in the USA is harmful and insulting.

djrogers 9y ago

> Much of the US is living in third world conditions, I'm guessing you've never been to Haiti, Kenya, Rwanda, or any actual third world nation, have you? > an enormous amount of people in the US live in poverty The poverty rate in the US is similar to that in France, the UK, and Canada - about 1/3-1/5th that of actual third world nations.