Scientists: Human Activity Has Pushed Earth Beyond

You're not understanding what I'm saying.

The disposal of waste is an appropriate cost of doing buisness, when done correctly.

But industries don't always do it correctly, and also figure in the cost of environmental regulation infractions as part of the cost of doing business, rather than paying more still to ensure it's done correctly.

The penalties need to cost them more than the cost of enacting proper procedure. If they don't, then it's more to the benefit of their bottom line to do things in a slipshod fashion and just pay the fine.

You're not on the 50 yard line most of the time.

You're off watching Jai Alai while everyone else is at the football stadium.

Sometimes you need to direct people to the business policies of big pharma in order for them to comprehend the practices at play.

Tron > Football. Sometimes its better to be out of the game rather then freezing your *** off in the snow.

if you look at the posts I make they are pretty simple.

People suck most of the time.
When they don't its because they are after something.
Thats ok because self intrest is the only thing that approaches universal truth.

I take these points into account and try to argue from them. Sure I have bias, see above points, but that does not mean that I dont find one extreme or the other or both to be foolish.

However the extremes on here tend to wear down the middle ground posters.

yeah, I've been drinking a lot.

I just play FFXI until I get sick of SE enough to jump back into the fray Here.

Being narcissistic isn't a universal truth. Nor "as close as you can get", as you indicate.

The penalties cost A LOT more than proper disposal.

I'd like to know where your authority on the topic comes from.

Have you worked in an EHS department? Have you worked for a company that generated haz waste? Are you familiar with the Haz-waste disposal companies in your area?

The penalties in most cases are inconsequential to the cost of business, because the fines end up being less and/or easier to swallow than having to invest in re-training staff (because most companies already hate investing in employees) and updating equipment and procedures.

Every BP oil spill ever. Half of that ***gets cleaned up by the government/independent agencies, and the rest seems to be done by environmentalists and volunteers.

So far, all BP has had to do was pay fines instead of enacting proper procedures for containment, none of which has come close to covering the cost of the spills/dumping practices etc.

Pacific Gas and Electric leaving and covering toxic waste in their waiting pools, poisoning well water, destroying documents, poisoning the ground, etc. It was cheaper and easier to take them to court for many than it was to readily enact proper procedures in disposal of such by-products. The class action lawsuit was somewhere around 50 million dollars, versus the 250million or so it would have taken to do things correctly.

Look into the "penalties" for citations due to violations in fracking. They're a slap on the wrist compared to the money they pull in.

Edit: that is to say, in this regard, I am speaking primarily of fracking and similar extraction operations. You may be right when it comes to other types of hazardous waste.

I'd like to see documentation of your conclusions. BP, for the record, ALSO had to hire a company I used to work for to do clean up in addition to several other contractors, equipment providers, and man-power. Were you there? I was. Grab a cup of coffee and I'll tell you about it.

It wasn't cheap.

There's A LOT more going on than what you read and what conclusions you arrive at based on what you read.

Do you have a reading comprehension issue, or are you naturally that *** dense.

Who said it was "cheap"?

I said "the fines are easier to swallow than paying to invest in proper procedures/investing in and retraining employees" for those kinds of businesses.

I also did mention independent agencies. Like the one you supposedly worked for.

I'm also well aware of many other things going on than what is touted in the news/books, etc. because you know, research is a *** thing.

Based on some quick internet research -- so admittedly these numbers may be off -- it looks like the final estimate on what BP has/will be shelling out is around $42B (or, at least that's what they had set aside, so I'm assuming that's more than they think they'll reasonably need).

Which looks to be approximately ~1.5 years worth of profit, but at the same time these expendetures are figured into their calculations prior to profit, soooo...

While those are staggeringly large amounts of money to the average person, given that they still continue to do quite well and continue to grow and prosper, I'd say that while they may have suffered a public relations nightmare, financially it doesn't effect their long-term projections...at all. Especially considering they probably already had plans for this type of thing to some degree, because they're a major global corporation who has risk assessment employees that they pay quite well to evaluate these potential outcomes.

And until these potential catastrophes do effect those long-term projections, they'll continue to lowball as much as they can to pad that bottom line.

Putting aside your attitude, the class action suit is NOTHING.


Research harder.

Many petroleum companies aren't going to last another 20 years in their current form simply based on lowered demand and alternative fuel sources. In the years following the spill BP barely missed a step fiscally, looking at the company overall.

That's not to say they didn't cut jobs/corners elsewhere to keep profits up.

But that's just another reason to dislike them. They messed up? Let's put the squeeze at those on the bottom of the chain that had nothing to do with our ***!

Hmm, perhaps I can resolve this conflict. There was a lot of discussion in earlier posts about "dumping toxic waste into the river" and, in an attempt to quell the rumor that it's commonplace to do so, I offered my perspective on the regulations that are in place.

If you want to believe that the law doesn't apply to big corporations: OK! You might be right.

But please don't leave this thread with the idea that:

1) businesses, small or large, are willfully disposing of dangerous hazardous waste non-compliantly at any rate larger than in the past.
2) The EPA isn't happy to issue fines and pursue civil and criminal prosecution of violators.

If you witness something, file a report with the EPA or to State authorities.

As to fracking, I'm no longer in the field so I'm out of touch with what's going on. However, RCRA is a dynamic piece of legislation and can be amended to enforce new regulations.

I don't think they willfully dispose of dangerous waste intentionally, but I do think they cut corners to save money and it burns them sometimes. The thing is, these companies aren't run by idiots. Vile, greedy people, sure. But not idiots. They've projected for the difference between using better methods and the costs involved, and the cost of potential accidents, and any associated PR blowback.

They don't want these accidents to happen and they certainly don't want anyone to die, but they also aren't going to spend a penny more than they have to in order to "keep within the rules". They'll keep things at bare minimum requirements and if accidents happen, then they'll pay out that money...and it will probably be less than the cost of having done it right the first time.

The class action lawsuit, if you learned to read anything a 1st grader could, was in correlation to Pacific Gas and Electric.

Obviously you skimmed over it, and instead took it as an affront to BP oil instead.

In regards to BP oil, $56 billion dollars in fines and clean-up costs, while a huge number to us, means diddly squat to an oil giant. Particularly with the revenue they receive every year. They are more worried about profits lost due to the amount of oil spilled, than the fines.

PG&E is another multi-billion dollar corporation (so now who's not doing their research hard enough?) The Lawsuit and fines that PG&E had to pay were ultimately inconsequential to the fines they paid in response to the clean-up, damage control, publicity, and so forth to their bottom line.

Which is, ya know, the whole point.

Only constant across all human culture/ history is self intrest. Name one other thing Not the result of self intrest.

Outside of spontaneously acting due to reflex nothing is counter to self intrest. Protecting YOUR children, going to war for YOUR country. I can go on.

Given some fall closer to narcissism but all human action predicated on any fore thought falls into self intrest.

My biggest (though that's not to say the others are small) concern with fracking is the capping of the wells. Each well needs to be capped in multiple steps, and those concrete/steel caps need to be replaced every 20 years in order to prevent serious contamination and other ecological problems.

I just don't trust these companies to do that. It's a very expensive process and I'm sure they'll find some way to pass it off onto someone else, or do it in a less-than-satisfactory fashion.

Just when you thought it was safe to not feel guilty about your existence, here come the wing bats to remind you that being a human is a cancer on some fictitious personification of a planet.

Talk about making the rules based on your feelz...

Just need the tech to move to a dif planet, then wtf cares what happens to this one.

Don't feel bad, viruses / cancer don't feel bad, and if that is what humans are then neither should we.

Well humans don't really have a symbiotic relationship with the planet, so the human and planet relationship could be considered parasitic in nature.

We consume and breed without any regard for the very long term consequences this creates.

Technology and global interdependence has pretty much removed the old reliable means of keeping the population size in check (war/famine/plague).

Who wants to be a part of liberalism if it comes without all that guilt?

You're right. We should be shitting the bed without thinking anything of it because libbyrulz.

Do you have any idea how arrogant one has to be to conclude any viewpoint that differs from their own must equate to "shitting the bed"?

Pleebo the intolerant strikes again.

:D

'Tis a metaphor for the human activities described in the article. I'll try to keep things more literal from now on, I guess.

Sorta like everyone going to the beach, getting in the ocean and pissing in it... 'But look at how big the ocean is! Its totally okay, the ocean is still blue!'