China's Cancer Villages

[Schadenfroh]

Pictures

Article

Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in southern Guangdong province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices.

It definitely shows the danger of environmental laws that are too lax. It is difficult to walk the line between being business friendly and keeping stuff like this from occurring. Not sure how "clean" manufacturing of products such as those mentioned can be, but surely something like this can be avoided. I can see why companies want to move manufacturing of items that produce these kind of pollutants overseas, I doubt many in The West would allow this in their backyards:shocked:

 

[Jaskalas]

It truly is sickening. Let us pray we never fall so far.

This surely constitutes one of the duties of government, to protect us. The Chinese of course have little to no human rights and their government brings this cancer upon its people. Hey, it?s good population control.

They do not need to maintain the one child rule because the undesirables will simply eat filth and live very short lives. It is a crime against humanity, but one I fear we will all come to know personally as overpopulation sets in on our land.

If you thought pollution was bad decades past with 200 million, wait til 400 million.

 

[BoomerD]

Hey, China has billions of people. This is no big deal, right? :roll:

Let's keep sending American jobs over there. The people earn pennies per hour for the jobs Americans actually think are worth many dollars per hour; China has virtually no safety laws, whereas in America, the employees expect safe working conditions; China looks the otherway at polluting industries as long as someone's paying a bit of bribe money, but in America, the evil gubmint demands clean, environmentally safe manufacturing, and as we've all heard here time and again, ANYTHING that takes away from a corporation's profits is an evil thing. :roll:

 

[Jiggz]

Shopped at Walmart lately?

 

[bctbct]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
Shopped at Walmart lately?

nope

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Hey, China has billions of people. This is no big deal, right? :roll:

Let's keep sending American jobs over there. The people earn pennies per hour for the jobs Americans actually think are worth many dollars per hour; China has virtually no safety laws, whereas in America, the employees expect safe working conditions; China looks the otherway at polluting industries as long as someone's paying a bit of bribe money, but in America, the evil gubmint demands clean, environmentally safe manufacturing, and as we've all heard here time and again, ANYTHING that takes away from a corporation's profits is an evil thing. :roll:

And we continue to regulate more and more and that just pushes more jobs and more pollution to china. Surely we can strike some reasonable compromise between what we have now and what china has become.

 

[Oceandevi]

I blame industrial farming for all of this. Farmers created overpopulation!!!

 

[Wheezer]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
Shopped at Walmart lately?

yeah, because you know Walmart it the ONLY place to get Chinese made products. :roll:

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Hey, China has billions of people. This is no big deal, right? :roll:

Let's keep sending American jobs over there. The people earn pennies per hour for the jobs Americans actually think are worth many dollars per hour; China has virtually no safety laws, whereas in America, the employees expect safe working conditions; China looks the otherway at polluting industries as long as someone's paying a bit of bribe money, but in America, the evil gubmint demands clean, environmentally safe manufacturing, and as we've all heard here time and again, ANYTHING that takes away from a corporation's profits is an evil thing. :roll:

And we continue to regulate more and more and that just pushes more jobs and more pollution to china. Surely we can strike some reasonable compromise between what we have now and what china has become.

What compromise can you strike with a population that wants a safe workplace, environmentally sound manufacturing processes, good pay and benefits (medical, pension, etc.) but refuse to pay for that because they have been brainwashed that cheaper is better and will quickly go to a competitor that makes the same product overseas for less.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Hey, China has billions of people. This is no big deal, right? :roll:

Let's keep sending American jobs over there. The people earn pennies per hour for the jobs Americans actually think are worth many dollars per hour; China has virtually no safety laws, whereas in America, the employees expect safe working conditions; China looks the otherway at polluting industries as long as someone's paying a bit of bribe money, but in America, the evil gubmint demands clean, environmentally safe manufacturing, and as we've all heard here time and again, ANYTHING that takes away from a corporation's profits is an evil thing. :roll:

And we continue to regulate more and more and that just pushes more jobs and more pollution to china. Surely we can strike some reasonable compromise between what we have now and what china has become.

What compromise can you strike with a population that wants a safe workplace, environmentally sound manufacturing processes, good pay and benefits (medical, pension, etc.) but refuse to pay for that because they have been brainwashed that cheaper is better and will quickly go to a competitor that makes the same product overseas for less.

Just realize the more we regulare, the easier it becomes to move the dirty work overseas I have little doubt cap and trade will move even more industry over seas. This is the reason why kyoto was failed protocol, it was leaving the largest polluter out of the deal.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
Shopped at Walmart lately?

I did and I was shocked. I think I bought one of the few things out today that has "Made in the USA" stamped on it. It was some Rubbermaid containers.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
This surely constitutes one of the duties of government, to protect us.

Uhhh, to protect property rights.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Topic Title: The price of industrial growth
Topic Summary: China's Cancer Villages

Population control

Mother nature will always win

 

[GoPackGo]

All we need to do is require our imports are made under the same regulations that they need to be manufactured with here.

 

[werepossum]

Uhhh, to protect property rights.

I'd say to protect property rights AND to protect the things most of us agree should be protected, like the environment. I'm a huge fan of the free market, but left strictly to its own, companies conscientious of things like pollution and worker safety will tend to be out-competed by companies that do not place such constraints on themselves. Allowing free trade while handicapping ourselves with environmental and safety regulations merely guarantees that on average, we will be out-competed. Allowing free trade without handicapping ourselves with environmental and safety regulations merely guarantees that on average, we will wish we had been out-competed.

 

[Doppel]

Necro thread, but the people in china are treated as laborers/dogs by their government. Companies over here skirt labor laws by simply hiring foreign workers to f**k their own environment up.

 

[senseamp]

Obviously we need to defund the EPA to compete.

 

[Phokus]

Well i made that thread that was a repost to this one, but from an international trade angle:


A lot has been made about the low wages, currency manipulation, subsidies, state owned enterprises, even sometimes giving free land to businesses that move there, but there is another reason that doesn't get discussed much, the level of environmental degradation they allow:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...rial-pollution

"Cancer Villages"

When libertarians and conservatives say dumb shit like, 'oh well, there are just too many regulations that's why those jobs move out', do you really think we could compete in a more free market society? Even if we got rid of the EPA and all regulations, China is still externalizing their costs (pollution) onto their citizens. Under an IDEAL libertarian scenario, it's still far more expensive to do dirty manufacturing because you have to either compensate the citizens for destroying their private property/health or you have to upgrade your manufacturing so it's cleaner, which is still more expensive than what China is doing. China's lack of care about pollution is basically just another subsidy that makes them that much more competitive and i highly doubt even the most ardent libertarian would want to get to equilibrium with China in order to compete in a similar way.

 

[Chunkee]

this is only a symptom of the greedy capitalist ideals. enjoy your 4 dollar cup of coffee, while playing with your shiney new gadget that has its batteries made in one of these villages. calling our materialist ventures and modes of consumerism a cancer would be more accurate. God help us all. sigh.

 

[iGas]

Toxic waste is an epidemic and we the consumers are the one to blame. It wouldn't be as bad if we consumes less.

Grasberg_mine is own by an American company, Freeport-McMoRan.

That is currently dumping toxic waste into the environment, among other human rights violations.

Timika -- Wikimapia.org

Shown a 30 x 1.5-2 miles area that is contaminated by mining tailing.

 

[DesiPower]

Reuters is gonna get into trouble on of these days...

The "developing nations" and "fastest growing economy" sacrifice a lot to keep up pace of their "progress" and compete with US and Europe... In India too to keep up with the food demand farmers are forced to use harmful chemical fertilizers and insecticides that if directly exposed to humans WILL cause cancer. Here in US its quantity is regulated and proper procedures are followed to protect the sprayers but not in India and people in millions get cancer from them every year.... Here's an related article

 

[her209]

This what economists call an externality.

 

[ericlp]

It truly is sickening. Let us pray we never fall so far.

This surely constitutes one of the duties of government, to protect us. The Chinese of course have little to no human rights and their government brings this cancer upon its people. Hey, it?s good population control.

They do not need to maintain the one child rule because the undesirables will simply eat filth and live very short lives. It is a crime against humanity, but one I fear we will all come to know personally as overpopulation sets in on our land.

If you thought pollution was bad decades past with 200 million, wait til 400 million.

Pray? What good is that gonna do? Absofuckinglutly NOTHING.

Fall so far????? WTF??? are you talking about? If it wasn't for American companies going over there for cheap labor or lax laws so that fat americans can buy them.... Then this would not be happening.

If anything China should place a tax on all the electronic items it sells for future clean up. It's not just china but Korea and others make mother boards, video cards, etc...etc... and are in the same boat.

Maybe you can pray for them too?

 

[BoomerD]

Pray? What good is that gonna do? Absofuckinglutly NOTHING.

Fall so far????? WTF??? are you talking about? If it wasn't for American companies going over there for cheap labor or lax laws so that fat americans can buy them.... Then this would not be happening.

If anything China should place a tax on all the electronic items it sells for future clean up. It's not just china but Korea and others make mother boards, video cards, etc...etc... and are in the same boat.

Maybe you can pray for them too?

Yeah...they should put that tax on electronics...and watch the electronics manufacturers leave en masse.

I actually wouldn't mind that...I'm pretty "Anti-China," but I know, the manufacturers would only find another country that will let them do as they please.

 

[Siddhartha]

One of the most important concepts I have ever learned, was taught in one of the economics courses I took in college, is short term cost versus long term costs.

Universal education funding
Environmental regulations
Food safety regulations
Water safety regulations
Universal health care funding

Are examples of this concept. In short term the country saves money by not doing these sort of programs but in the long term it costs the country a lot more if it does not.