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> Lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals do not have a political leaning. They dont selectively impact the democratic left more so than the right.
by ocschwar 8y ago
> Lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals do not have a political leaning. They dont selectively impact the democratic left more so than the right.
Yes they do, unfortunately.
If you look at state-level regulation of industrial activities in the South, you'll notice that the cavalier attitude towards pollution only applies when it's the poor and the dark skinned who live downwind or downstream.
- philipkglass 8y agoI'm not sure that is true. When I read Arlie Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land it focused on a largely white community in Louisiana, where practically everyone had first-hand experience of harms to people and the environment from local chemical industry pollution. The town and its leaders were nonetheless very supportive of the old polluting businesses and their new expansion plans. The residents also opposed federal regulations that would limit industrial pollution more than Louisiana's extremely lax state laws. In Washington state, the Hanford facility that made plutonium for weapons was also largely staffed by prosperous white workers. Before the end of the Cold War, that community of workers knew better than anyone the risks that they and sometimes neighboring communities were exposed to by time pressures and lack of oversight. That same community was also fiercely protective of their employers and resisted health/environmental oversight by "outsiders." (See Kate Brown's Plutopia for a fascinating history.)