Maybe they should dump this stuff right outside their mansions and expensive New York Suites, instead of further destroying the health of poorer people of Detroit. This stuff is not supposed to be exposed to air and the water table around populated areas, yet they just started dumping it without even obtaining the proper permits. I can’t imagine what a cesspool much of this country would be if the Koch Brothers got all the deregulation they wanted. Must be nice to not have to live with the environmental waste they produce while shortening the lives of those around them.
Also, Petroleum Coke burning is the #1 cause of cancer (outside of cigarette smoking) & pollution in China and the same is happening in India and Mexico. I’m sure the Koch Brothers don’t care though, tooling around in their air-conditioned limos and jets with access to the best medicine money can buy. Why is making billions of dollars a year in personal net profit not enough already? Do they really need to poison and kill people/planet faster too? This just makes me so sad.
Why is an opinion ‘silly rhetoric’? It’s almost silly rhetoric to call it such no? If you disagree with the premiss that the Koch Brothers and their business operations are bad, then fair enough, but just blowing down an opening statement because of that is poor form. Knowing jpinard and the kind of posts he normally does, i read the opening post as just someones honest opinion on a company they know well that are known to do bad for profit margins, and this is just another to add to a long list, which is frustrating. I think maybe that frustration is what flavours the post, and it is entirely understandable.
It would seem that petcoke is not classed as a carcinogen by usa health bodies, you can find a whole bunch of PDF documents all talking about (seemingly) the same study on rats and cancer rates in them etc. And also i found these links in relation to that health issue:
So i’m not sure. It might be due to the ‘Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons’?
Opinions aren’t silly rhetoric. Opinions and facts get lost in silly, emotional rhetoric.
If you see a well presented argument in that post, you’re certainly a better man than I am.
It would seem that petcoke is not classed as a carcinogen by usa health bodies, you can find a whole bunch of PDF documents all talking about (seemingly) the same study on rats and cancer rates in them etc.
Yeah. I believe that study was funded by the industry, so you can take it with a grain of salt. But there seems to be quite a disconnect between EPA publishing that, and petcoke burning being the “#1 cause of cancer”.
Pet-Coke Burning, is the #1 cause of cancer in China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and many central and south american countries. The burning of petcoke is the dirtiest of the unclean. It’s the byproduct of what’s left over and it’s killing millions of people worldwide who are suffering agonizing deaths. It’s not unlike, "Oh we have thousands of tons of a fantastic item that will cause cancer and astham, giving millions a slow death. But we can’t sell it in the US so wait? HEY! We can sell it to Dictator’s who don’t care about the welfare of their people…so burn it in their country since we can’t do it in America! Who gives a flying f8ck about those poor UNREPRESENTED people.
China is entering into a an epidemic of unreal proportions. So many young, middle aged, and adult cancers have erupted they have no hope for treating them all when it comes down in the next 10 years. And in return all that petcoke, plus an added dose of Arsenic, and Lead are all returned into the food we eat. Think you’re not eating foo imported from China? Haha, think again… check ingredients.
jpinard has had a tough time recently (so go easy on him), so i’ll jump in with this:
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), also known as poly-aromatic hydrocarbons or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, are potent atmospheric pollutants that consist of fused aromatic rings and do not contain heteroatoms or carry substituents.[2] Naphthalene is the simplest example of a PAH. PAHs occur in oil, coal, and tar deposits, and are produced as byproducts of fuel burning (whether fossil fuel or biomass). As a pollutant, they are of concern because some compounds have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.
So yeah outside of the paid for by the industry stuff that you can easily find on the net, it seems we have the truth if we dig a bit.
Any fan of barbeque, cigars or sauna - and I love all three! - is familiar with PAHs. The question is whether the levels in petcoke are significant enough. I have no problem believing burning the stuff causes cancer, but I’d just expect it to be easy to confirm if it truly is so fucking horrible.
But maybe the point was that it’s a dick move to store the stuff the way Koch Industries does. That’s a sentiment I can easily agree with, even if the Koch brothers aren’t jet-setting, micromanaging, evil masterminds.
I’m a little confused, here. I mean, I HATE the Koch brothers with a passion, but this one just doesn’t raise my hackles any more than it being an eyesore and any concerns about the environment (which, as noted above, seem under-documented at best):
They operate a facility that produces coke, they sell it and ship it out overseas, and both the facility and the storage location are right by the docks. It’s not like they’re actually “dumping” the stuff and that eventually the city will be buried by it - it’s being stored there until it’s sold and shipped out, isn’t it?
They didn’t get a permit, they just started piling it up. That is supposed to be a major no-no, but our Governor is a buddy of the Koch Brothers and he and his staff are running Detroit, Detroit no longer gets to speak for itself. Furthermore, as the EPA has listed, it’s supposed to be contained. Once again, the Koch Brothers don’t care and just dumped it on open ground which will no doubt end up polluting the lakes and water table.
The permit they’re going to get? The Koch Brothers have their own crony writing it up for them. Gov. Snyder. That is why this is so frustrating.
I’m really familiar with the old-boys network we have here in the uk, our current government is a growing example of that kind of thing (David Cameron has been getting old school buddies of his into his government), but i’m always completely blown away with the scale of this kind of thing in the usa, and this is very much an example of it. In the uk it is often based around some old-fashioned notion of friendship (and yes there is a mix of other things, but on a lesser scale), while in the usa it simply comes down to how much money you have, and you simply buy you way through problems. The biggest problem with this is it is completely a-moral. From that a-morality pretty much all the current worlds worst problems are flowing.
Uhhh what? Please correct all my incorrect statements in post #14. I know Manuel “Matty” Moroun owns the property that is accepting (and being paid) to be dumped on, but if Snyder’s staff didn’t make exemptions for the Koch Brothers there’s a good chance the permits would not be allowed. The permits are being done by the State.
Once again, please correct all my “disregarded facts” in post #14.
[ul]
[li]petcoke is destroying the health of poorer people of Detroit[/li][li]petcoke is not supposed to be exposed to air and the water table around populated areas[/li][li]petcoke burning is the #1 cause of cancer (outside of cigarette smoking) & pollution in China and the same is happening in India and Mexico[/li][li]petcoke burning is killing millions of people worldwide who are suffering agonizing deaths[/li][li]petcoke can’t be sold in the US[/li][li]so petcoke is sold to dicators and countries with unrepresented people[/li][li]the emergency manager is in the governor’s pocket[/li][li]according to EPA, petcoke shouldn’t be stored in the open[/li][li]petcoke in Detroit will end up polluting the lakes and water table[/li][li]the permit for open storage is issued by the state[/li][/ul]
These are some of the things you present as facts without bothering to provide anything to back up your rather wild and/or asinine claims.
But hey, I’m new here. Maybe this simply is the way you like to engage in debate. If that’s the case, let me know, and I’ll come up with a post that ties this all together with Obamacare, JFK and chemtrails.
Otherwise, you might be interested in reading this.
