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> California is a major producer of food crops, and there are significant concerns about the racial and social disparities in exposure to pesticides. Ok, as a

> California is a major producer of food crops, and there are significant concerns about the racial and social disparities in exposure to pesticides. Ok, as a foreigner, I don't even know how to parse this. How is racial disparity even relevant when it comes to exposure to harmful substances? If it's harmful, it's harmful. Such a weird comment.

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asacrowflies 2y ago
Because poor (read non white) populations will be zoned with their neighbourhoods in the direct path of the mentioned harmful pollution while the rich (white) neighborhoods will either be located better from the beginning or have the power to stop whatever actor is making pollution reach their home... This is really basic stuff on the topic...
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foxyv 2y ago
Because poor people have very little recourse against bad actors. If you accidentally dusted Glendale with possibly harmful pesticides you would have hundreds of lawsuits against you. You do the same to some poor bedroom community with a bunch of people living on disability and it won't be nearly as big a problem for you.
mindslight 2y ago
Essentially, the regulatory bandwidth in the US is way too low. Rather than straightforward regulation and strict enforcement to limit the amount of pesticide in the air that most everybody would generally agree on (because no humans generally want to breathe pesticides), businesses are allowed to collude and set up industry groups that bribe political parties to adopt outlandish positions like "pesticides help humans grow, too". This sets one side of the Overton window very far out, ends up convincing many people that it isn't a problem worth worrying about, and generally makes a politically intractable mess of the whole subject. So lacking the political will to directly tackle the problem, the concern falls back on existing regulatory frameworks (/causes of action) that are repurposed to address the topic, to fit in both existing legal and emotional (memetic) precedents. Due to a storied history and what was/is required to rectify past wrongs, our governments and much of society have been highly primed to focus on racial disparity above all else. It's also essentially a retreat in the strength of the argument from individualism to collectivism, which allows it to continue existing in a weaker form rather than smashing head first into the efficient market fallacy we've all been primed with.

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asacrowflies 2y ago

Because poor (read non white) populations will be zoned with their neighbourhoods in the direct path of the mentioned harmful pollution while the rich (white) neighborhoods will either be located better from the beginning or have the power to stop whatever actor is making pollution reach their home... This is really basic stuff on the topic...

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foxyv 2y ago

Because poor people have very little recourse against bad actors. If you accidentally dusted Glendale with possibly harmful pesticides you would have hundreds of lawsuits against you. You do the same to some poor bedroom community with a bunch of people living on disability and it won't be nearly as big a problem for you.

mindslight 2y ago

Essentially, the regulatory bandwidth in the US is way too low. Rather than straightforward regulation and strict enforcement to limit the amount of pesticide in the air that most everybody would generally agree on (because no humans generally want to breathe pesticides), businesses are allowed to collude and set up industry groups that bribe political parties to adopt outlandish positions like "pesticides help humans grow, too". This sets one side of the Overton window very far out, ends up convincing many people that it isn't a problem worth worrying about, and generally makes a politically intractable mess of the whole subject. So lacking the political will to directly tackle the problem, the concern falls back on existing regulatory frameworks (/causes of action) that are repurposed to address the topic, to fit in both existing legal and emotional (memetic) precedents. Due to a storied history and what was/is required to rectify past wrongs, our governments and much of society have been highly primed to focus on racial disparity above all else. It's also essentially a retreat in the strength of the argument from individualism to collectivism, which allows it to continue existing in a weaker form rather than smashing head first into the efficient market fallacy we've all been primed with.