Fouling our own nest

New York Times | 7-4-02 | Bob Herbert

[dalereed]

"Have any been proven safe?"

I'm living proof that asbestos is safe. 40 years ago for aprox. 10 years I consumed may pounds of dry asbestos fines every day, I have smoked for over 50 years and have very good lungs. I also have a file of over 2000 asbestos comp claims that were filed when the men applied for union retirement and were sent directly to the union lawyers to file their asbestos claims and to this day I don't know of one of them that had a valid claim.

As long as universities are allowed to do research we will live with crap science.

[Sir_Humphrey]

I'm living proof that asbestos is safe. 40 years ago for aprox. 10 years I consumed may pounds of dry asbestos fines every day, I have smoked for over 50 years and have very good lungs.

Anticidotal evidence at best. Science ( not left wing junk science but indisbutable academic resaerch) proves the exact opposite. The fact of the matter is it's not good to smoke or inhale asbestos; your abnormally stong lungs not withstanding. Would you recomend smoking and breathing asbestos to your kids or grand kids? ( I would hope not)

[dtel]

"There are some issues that can't be ignored."

Agreed. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff.
The scientific community has been highjacked by the left wingers, this cannot be disputed.
With their trash science how do we know what is dangerous and what is not?
Read the stories about the natural oil vents all along the CA and gulf coasts, these vents have been spewing millions of barrels of oil and gas into the ocean for eons, to what effect?
They have discovered animals that actually thrive in the vents.
My personal opinion is that nobody wants to die, so they devise methods in their minds to make it seem that they have done everything in their power to stay alive. They declare everything hazardous, devise some nefarious scheme to combat the problem and go to bed feeling they DONE GOOD.

[another cricket]

I guess that means we should just learn to live with the pollution, ignore the health riskd and not bother to clean it up?

Oh, the skies may once have been clear and the waters sparkling and clean. But you can't have that and progress, too. Can you?

The air and water are cleaner now then they ever have been. I do wish people would take time to study the facts before they open their cake holes.

a.cricket

[Semper911]

Gag Alert indeed.

From the title, I thought this was going to be a thread about our immigration policies (or lack thereof.)

[dalereed]

"Would you recomend smoking and breathing asbestos to your kids or grand kids?"

I don't or wouldn't recomend it to anyone but unless they were geneticly defective, asthma etc., I sure wouldn't discourage it especially if it saved time or was necessary to achieve an end goal in producing something (product, income, etc.).

To this day I won't consider wearing a mask or resperator except in the one instance of spraying Imeron which contains cyanide.

[Henrietta]

Anyone who wants to see a despoiled environment need only go to any third-world country. "We" here in the first world take care of our environment. "We" are not responsible for what irresponsible people do in their third-world sh*tholes. The third world IS the third world because of those governments' disrespect for property rights. And so they will remain sh*tholes until some leader comes in and reforms their legal systems.

Communism, socialism, and despotism are enemies of the environment, not capitalism.

[Richard Axtell]

Can there be anything more foul than the fraud and lies the extremist leftist environmentalists and their lap dogs in the press continue to heap upon an unwitting public? According to Jack Shafer of Slate, hardly a right wing e-rag, there are NO CUTS in the Superfund....repeat... NO CUTS!!!

"The "slashing" cuts of the Times headline, delineated in the seventh paragraph of the story, were merely the difference between what EPA regional offices had requested from the EPA's Washington headquarters ($450 million) and what headquarters had deigned to allocate ($228 million) to clean up 33 specific sites in FY 2002." Funding for the EPA Superfund has remained consistant, and is actually rising slightly... no cuts Mr. Herbert, sorry.

These lies by the extreme left and their mouthpieces are deliberate and clearly partisan; in no way are they simple, honest mistakes the idiots at the NYT are likely claim after they have been proven totally wrong once again.

[The Duke]

It seems to me that we "fouled our own next" back in '92
when we put the "Condom Kid" into office.

[Eagle Eye]

There are some issues that can't be ignored.

Such as?

[Sir_Humphrey]

The air and water are cleaner now then they ever have been. I do wish people would take time to study the facts before they open their cake holes.

Yeah you're right. So I guess that means we shouldn't clean up any remaining contaminated sites. Overall our air and water is cleaner so hard cheese to those who happen to live near those sights. You see Cricket I've studied the facts. However understanding the issue is more than repeating talkin points.I suggest applying logic to the facts to see the big picture. I probably destest the left as much (probably more) than you do but there are issues we conservatives need to face. Wanting to find a safe sensible way to clean the environment does not make one an eco-wacko.

[another cricket]

You say you "Want to find a safe sensible way to clean the environment." Clean it of what? Who decides what is a safe level of something? Dosage I might remind you is all. Having worked in environmental safety I have seen a great deal of over reaction and huge amounts of money wasted on cleanups where there was no clear and present danger. It might, maybe, possibly at some point could be a danger. So let's spend millions "cleaning" it up when in truth we might even be making things worse. For example the dodos that wanted to dredge the Hudson River to remove PCB's but are blithely unconcerned that dredging the river and stirring the mud will actually contaminate the water.

You are worried about the people who live near by. People are not chained to one area. If they are so worried and it is so unsafe they can move. Why don’t they? Maybe because there is not such a great danger? Are there people moving into the area? Why if it is so deadly?

BTW you did notice that this article is totally misleading didn’t you? They are cleaning them up. All the fuss is about a smaller raise in budget rather then a cut.

a.cricket