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posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-would-say-that-wouldn't-he? dept.

In a followup to a story previously on Soylent News: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/17/022243

It seems that at least part of an unexpected increase in CFC-11 (an ozone depleting chemical) is due to small factories in China manufacturing the chemical for use in making Styrofoam insulation for refrigerators. The normal alternative, HCFC-141b is expensive and in short supply. The illegal factories are set up, run for a time until discovered and then move to a new location. In addition to being cheaper, CFC-11 gives a better foaming action than the ozone safe alternative.

"You had a choice: Choose the cheaper foam agent that's not so good for the environment, or the expensive one that's better for the environment," said Zhang Wenbo, owner of a refrigerator factory here in Xingfu, in Shandong Province, where he and many other small-scale manufacturers said that until recently, they had used CFC-11 widely to make foam insulation.

"Of course, we chose the cheaper foam agent," Mr. Zhang said during an interview in his office. "That's how we survived."

As it happens, a crackdown was underway in the town and moments later, four officials entered Mr. Zhang's factory, handed him a leaflet warning against a range of environmental violations, including using CFC-11, and ordered his factory closed.

"They never told us until last year that it was damaging the atmosphere," Mr. Zhang said. "Nobody came to check what we were using, so we thought it was O.K."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/asia/china-ozone-cfc.html


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:56PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:56PM (#699372)

    That's the thing with democracy when you're stuck with only 2 major parties.

    You're only stuck with what the majority chooses. It's still the voters' fault for what we have today. If they want change, they have to take the initiative, not wait for mass media to spoon feed them.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:52PM (2 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:52PM (#699521)

    It's a combination of factors.

    1) Winner-take-all in the electoral college means a third party needs a REALLY strong surge of support in a state to actually win it. Third parties have a very hard time winning any states unless one of the two main parties is on the ropes. As bad as it's gotten by now, the Republicans still have like 45% of the popular vote.
    2) Because of that, people get the impression that voting third party is throwing away their votes, which is somewhat accurate.
    3) Any issue that resonates with a lot of the population--enough to surmount the above problem and actually win a state for a third party--is going to be co-opted by at least one of the two main parties. Cf. Hillary "oh yeah I'm totally for most of these issues too, love me Bernie Bros!"
    4) Let's say the unthinkable happens and a third party actually wins the presidency/a chunk of Congress. Power corrupts, so they start sliding into the flaws of the same system. And they probably end up replacing one of the two main parties, in which case we end up back in another two-party system anyway.
    5) What we really need is to slay the two-party system entirely and get something more like a parliamentary system going, where there's more than two real choices. But obviously that's not in the interest of those already in power in our government, so it's never gonna happen without blood and riots.

    So sure, mister "you're all sheeple", explain what the "obvious" solution is here that it's *our* fault we haven't done yet.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:03AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:03AM (#699611)

      What we really need is to slay the two-party system entirely and get something more like a parliamentary system going, where there's more than two real choices.

      Maybe you should move to the UK, or Italy, or Germany, or a boatload of various Asian and African countries, or anything south of the Rio Grande for a while. There's a few parliaments full of winners!

      The voters have a choice to play follow the leader, or to ignore the propaganda and take their own initiative. They have chosen the former. All their suffering is self inflicted. I wouldn't care if those people who play along were the only ones to suffer for their bad choices, but the rest of us suffer too for their arrogance and tribalism. The voters are the only ones to blame. This is why your mob rule sucks. Please, stop the blame passing. We live in a world that we made.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @05:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @05:48PM (#699914)

        The "Disagree" mod does not explain why the American system is any worse than the parliamentary system in the countries mentioned above. It is simple blame passing by the voters who don't want to make the effort to bring about the desired changes.