The Colonial Pipeline spill has caused 6 states (Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina) to declare a state of emergency. Gasoline (petrol) prices on the east coast are likely to spike. Yet, most puzzling is how this vast emergency and its likely effect on cost of living has gone unnoticed by mainstream media outlets. The pipeline is owned by Koch Industries: is this why the media is silent?
[Are there any Soylentils in the affected area who can corroborate this story? Have you heard of the spill, seen long gas lines, or any price gouging? -Ed.]
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Six US States Declare Emergency after Major Gasoline Pipeline Spill; Media Almost Silent
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(Score: 5, Informative) by isostatic on Monday September 19 2016, @09:40AM
I agree that news seems a little thin, and aimed mainly at consumer effects (price of gas increasing to 30% of the price of gas in europe), but there's enough out there to "corroborate this story".
When it happened:
WSJ: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/09/15/how-a-pipeline-leak-in-alabama-can-move-gas-prices/ [wsj.com]
Trying to prevent a price surge:
AJC (Atlanta newspaper): http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/09/16/how-georgia-is-trying-to-prevent-a-surge-in-gas-prices-after-pipeline-spill/ [ajc.com]
About the shortage
ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/US/states-facing-gas-shortages-colonial-pipeline-spill/story?id=42153670 [go.com]
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fuel-supplies-in-at-least-5-states-threatened-by-alabama-gasoline-pipeline-spill/ [cbsnews.com]
WAPO (AP) reporting there's no shortage: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/pump-problem-ga-gov-says-hes-received-no-complaints/2016/09/18/3442cfbc-7e0a-11e6-ad0e-ab0d12c779b1_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
State of Emergency:
ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/governors-declare-states-emergency-gas-crisis-42157739 [go.com]
I assume that a lot of the time on airwaves was coverage was from the terrorist* attack in NY/NJ. I get the feeling that many people just aren't interested in a massive ecological disaster, unless it hits their pocket or can be blamed on Trump/Clinton/Muslims/NRA/etc. Boring news doesn't bring in the viewers, and thus eyeballs, and thus adverts.
* Original meaning of word - action performed to cause terror
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 19 2016, @11:34AM
Environmental stories regularly get short shrift. That's because there's big money behind burying the story, and no money behind telling the story.
For example, it's entirely possible that you had no clue that there have been thousands of people protesting a pipeline in North Dakota for the last few weeks. The reason why is that there's been a noticeable blackout of the news about it: NPR had 1 story about it, the New York Times ran a human interest piece profiling the protesters without actually explaining why they were protesting, Reuters has a couple of wire-service articles about it that were picked up by a few newspapers' online editions, and that's about it. Fox recently started acknowledging the existence of the controversy, but only as a "Obama is angering everybody and is terrible" piece.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:37PM
I read tons of stories and saw videos about it on BBC. Maybe people should diversify what sites they visit for news.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday September 19 2016, @02:10PM
Yes. That.
Rewind a few years. CNN shed many reporters and foreign bureaus. That foretold that it was getting out of the "news" business and would focus more on entertainment. And it did. It was addictive. The constant promise of real news (which never came) right after the break.
Then came SOPA. Not a peep in any main stream media. Not until the major internet sites went dark for a day explaining how SOPA was an existential threat to the Internet. Then all main stream media reluctantly covered it. That was an eye opener about how controlled everything was. (by someone or some group) I almost stopped watching CNN a that point, but could not break the addiction.
Later came Snowden. CNN covered it alright. But it was totally one sided. No contrary view. No suggestion that there might be another side to this story.
That was the point I just quit watching. Cold turkey.
I started looking elsewhere for news. A good first start was Google News. But then I found other foreign sources that don't have the American slant. BBC. Jerusalem Post. RT. Al Jazeera.
Like American news outlets, they all have their own bias and slant. But I'm a grown up. I think I can recognize propaganda when I see it. It opened my eyes to seeing US propaganda too. (say it ain't so!)
Here is one example of the stark contrast in media in the last year. There has been real news happening in the world. Almost daily. We haven't heard most of it on US media because . . . .
Trump, trump , trump, trump . . .
Welcome to the Trump Show!
Daily coverage of the most outrageous reality TV presidential campaign evar !!!!
You'll laugh. You'll cry. But you won't get any real substance -- or any real news.
How did we get to this point? FAILURE of our news media to keep politicians honest and hold their feet to the fire. They are controlled by the government. Not in the traditional way of the last century. But by willing participation. "If you don't tell the party line, your news organization might lose access to press conferences, and embedded access to the military, and other access." No wonder CNN and others had such a consistent story about Snowden. It's obvious in hindsight.
If you just look at US news only, you really don't have a clue what is going on in the world. Or even if you are informed, you're not necessarily seeing all sides or viewpoints.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @06:33PM
shed many reporters
...and what's left is pretty gutless and/or useless.
Some recent items:
US Media Ignores CIA Cover-up on Torture [consortiumnews.com]
Data Transfer Interrupted 8-(
The Biggest Strike in World History? No Thanks, We’re Focusing on the New iPhone [fair.org]
Nationwide Prison Strike Mostly Ignored by National Media [fair.org]
Colleagues Mostly Fail to Rally for Amy Goodman, Threatened With Jail for Journalism [fair.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 19 2016, @07:05PM
> How did we get to this point? FAILURE of our news media to keep politicians honest and hold their feet to the fire.
Correct but incomplete: have a cat video.
Two things drove US coverage, one still does:
- What's the ratings? Talk about a vanished plane for months at a time, because nobody care about South Sudan, the Philippines or Kabul... Assume the viewers are really dumb, and serve them pre-digested easy "news" that fit the feel-good, watch-that's-awesome or be-scared narratives.
- Thou Shalt Not Criticize The US: Avoid talking about anything which might threaten the overarching concept of "USA, USA, USA #1". Under W, that would amount to treason and get you listed as an enemy of the people. People want to be told they're the best. People don't want to be disturbed by complex concepts with spectrum of viewpoints. Tell the people their ideas are the best and their lifestyle is right, especially if they buy more shit. Success for detailed criticism like John Oliver or even Trump was inconceivable for a while, with barely a John Stewart turning it into comedy. Not something you'd see on actual "news"
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday September 19 2016, @11:43PM
Yes, but its hard to watch the news while keeping up with the Kardiashians. It's like in the same timeslot or something. I think the news was also totally boring, I mean they kept promising this cute puppy thing after the break but it was at the END of the newscast? I was lost in the bathroom by then.
Other than that I concur with your views; I gave up a while ago and try not to get all of my news from the same place. TV I gave up on a while ago and I just buy the DVDs or rent or something when there is something I hear that is good to watch. Following word of mouth advice like that usually means I can save time by not complaining nothing is on.
As to the propaganda, yeah. I think it's a requirement, and as such you don't get much coverage *about* it.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 19 2016, @03:21PM
The CBC has been offering significantly more coverage than any of the US-based news networks as well. That's why I always include at least one non-US-based news source if I'm looking for a less biased view of reality.
The powers-that-be know that it is possible to get around news blackouts. However, news blackouts do keep the population that is ignorant and/or unfamiliar with the Internet from figuring out what is going on. That's working less and less as people who grew up with the World Wide Web existing are slowly but steadily becoming a majority. As the longtime saying goes, "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it."
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 19 2016, @03:58PM
PBS NewsHour and BBC are my two go-to news sources.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday September 19 2016, @04:35PM
For me, it depends a lot on the subject at hand.
For example, the BBC and PBS will not give me anything close to an unbiased view of anything to do with the Middle East. Neither will Al Jazeera, on its own. But if you put the BBC, Al Jazeera, the Jerusalem Post, and PBS together, you'll get some sort of approximation of the truth.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @06:43PM
The PBS NewsHour was bought by a a Right-^W Wrong-Wing syndicate in Richmond, VA quite some time back.
Starting in the early Noughties, what they covered and how they covered it took a dive.
Most notable is what they -won't- cover.
If you insist on turning to any of these Lamestream Media outlets (anything with corporate sponsors), you would do well to see what FAIR.org (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) has to say about that.
(FAIR also does a weekly half-hour thing called "Counterspin" that airs on my Pacifica Radio affiliate in Los Angeles (KPFK) and on an NPR affiliate (KUCI) in Orange County.)
MediaMatters.org (Media Matters for America) is another place to check about LSM's veracity.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @02:03PM
> NPR had 1 story about it,
PBS spent a lot of time on it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @02:50PM
Try smaller regional papers. The Lincoln Journal Star has been covering it, and the issue isnt evern taking place in Nebraska.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:08PM
It's also because this mostly affects the southeast. The very populous northeast part of the country isn't as affected because they also get gasoline via the major northeast seaports and refineries. Not sure why the original submitter decided there is some sort of media coverup going on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @07:15PM
Your comment seems to assume that there are no media outlets south of the Mason-Dixon.
...and the last time I was in an airliner at night over the southern part of Eastern Seaboard was years ago.
Even then, there were giant bands of light (populous areas) much of the way.
Additionally, the traditionally anti-union[1] attitude of The South had/has the remaining USA industrialists moving their operations from The Rust Belt to places southward.
...and Atlanta, Charlotte, and the Research Triangle area, as examples, are huge and still growing like weeds.
I think you are working from a very old dataset.
I don't put this phenomenon on population concentrations at all.
I put it on the USAian brand of "Capitalism" (externalized costs), Reactionary politicians gutting the regulatory inspection budget, and crappy, corporate-friendly media giving lameoids a free pass.
In short: people not doing their jobs properly.
[1] I've heard it said that Southerners still subliminally think "Union Army" (Sherman) when they hear "union".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @10:08PM
No, I make so such assumption. My point is that this has not affected much of the country outside of the southeast. There has not been a huge increase in gas prices, and there have been no shortages. As others have pointed out, there has been plenty of coverage both regionally and nationally, and internationally. The biggest point of this story is showing itself to be the fact that the article submitter needs to poke his head up out of his media safe area to look around before crying Koch coverups.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:33AM
Southern California, USA here. Note this is a late post. I have noted no unusual spiking of prices over here, matter of fact the diesel fuel I use went down a nickel.
Here's a nationwide map of gas prices... [gasbuddy.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday September 19 2016, @01:57PM
Dunno about "no news". There was a story on it on the national news saying shortages were expected, then the next day saying there were shortages, then the next day saying prices went up. Did you expect them to break into reruns of Three's Company with a breaking news alert or something?
What got me was the one on prices going up. They showed the new, higher prices. Still $0.50 less than I pay in California. sigh.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Monday September 19 2016, @01:58PM
I get the feeling that many people just aren't interested in a massive ecological disaster
It helps that it isn't actually a massive ecological disaster. It's apparently somewhere over 300,000 gallons of gasoline spilled. That's roughly 5500 barrels of hydrocarbons. Meanwhile the worst of oil spills, Deepwater Horizon is thought to have spilled roughly 5 million barrels of oil, almost three orders of magnitude more stuff.
Further, the gasoline is apparently contained in a holding pond at the site. Could be a problem down the road for local groundwater, but it's not entering a river right now.
So right there, being so far off from the worst oil and hydrocarbon spills and not having short term harm means that the press just isn't interested. This has nothing to do with the Koch brothers.
So basically, it's just a short term supply issue with plenty of backup both in pipelines and in ground, rail, and water transportation combined with a relatively minor ecological issue which the company can mostly fix without causing a lot of ecological damage (whether they proceed to do so is a different question which could become a big story in a few months or years).
(Score: 1) by ewk on Monday September 19 2016, @02:23PM
5500 barrels in a pond with a possibility to contaminate groundwater?
Put a match to it and be done with it in 2-3 days tops....
Burn it there, or burn it in the cars that it was meant for.
The environment won't notice the difference.
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday September 19 2016, @05:04PM
You seem to be implying that the cars in Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina don't have effective pollution control equipment, and that their engines don't control the mixing of fuel and air. Is "rolling coal" really as popular as that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:05AM
Burning inside an engine is highly regulated as exemplified by the recent VW emissions cheating scandal. In particular the composition of the fuel-air mixture is critical. You bet the environment will notice...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Air_pollution [wikipedia.org]
Of course this is a false dichotomy, there option to use an engine is long forfeited. Perhaps you were joking.
(Score: 1) by ewk on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:19AM
Sort of joking...
More like the choice of having 1) a small temporary hickup (Really... 5500 barrels to burn isn't that much. Perfect mixture or not.) in air quality or 2) a long term poisoning of your ground water.
Take your pick...
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 19 2016, @05:50PM
When the article says "The Colonial Pipeline spill has caused 6 states (Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina) to declare a state of emergency." it makes it sound like the spill is the emergency. It should be noted that the state of emergency was declared for the potential fuel shortages, not the spill. The emergency measures put in place loosen up transport limitations, mostly, to help get gas to where it needs to be.
Additionally, from the 2nd article: U.S. EPA personnel at the site of the spill in Shelby County say local residents are not in danger, and the spilled gasoline appears to be contained at the site and unlikely to enter the nearby Cahaba River, which is home to a number of endangered species and other sensitive wildlife.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @06:07PM
It's also getting far more radio airtime in the effected areas than the NY/NJ attack (albeit based on a small sample).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @11:59PM
> I assume that a lot of the time on airwaves was coverage was from the terrorist* attack in NY/NJ
Just like the news that the Pentagon lost track of a mere 2.3 trillion $ in a pr conference the day before 9/11, (anti-conspiracy sites report it too) [911myths.com].
Those terrorists are very unlucky, they always end up being more useful to the enemy than to the cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @09:42AM
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-13/colonial-sees-gasoline-shipments-back-by-weekend-after-spill [bloomberg.com]
http://abcnews.go.com/US/states-facing-gas-shortages-colonial-pipeline-spill/story?id=42153670 [go.com]
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/16/investing/gasoline-prices-shortage-pipeline-leak/ [cnn.com]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/gas-prices-to-rise-as-pipeline-spill-sparks-supplier-red-alert [bloomberg.com]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-regulators-investigate-colonial-pipeline-leak-1474072198 [wsj.com]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/09/16/gas-prices-colonial-pipeline/90502492/ [usatoday.com]
But nytimes only put an AP story recently. Can't find a mention on BBC and only found one short mention on MSNBC.
(Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Monday September 19 2016, @09:55AM
Eastern Europe here (almost the same for western one): Cars run on gasoline, diesel, propane and CNG in comparable numbers (and some on electricity). Those have pretty much different logistic properties. Try to fail them at once!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday September 19 2016, @11:01AM
I am in an affected area. The shortages came out of NOWHERE on Saturday. I had heard something about a pipeline problem last week, but didn't pay any attention to it. I had no idea it would affect gasoline like it did. Everything was normal Saturday morning. No news about shortages or anything. Gas stations operated normally. News reports of gas shortages started on Saturday afternoon/evening. By Sunday morning, almost every station was out of gas. I managed to find one and top off my tank very early. A couple of hours later there was a large crowd at one of the only stations that still had gas.
I was surprised by the suddenness of this shortage. It literally happened in a few hours. There was no warning or anticipation of it at all. Hopefully this won't be extended for any period of time.
The local media covered the shortages, but no one knows anything. They just talked to local gas stations, which are dependent on their suppliers which are dependent on the pipeline, so no one knows when more gas is coming.
People commenting on local media were uniformly taken by surprise. No one saw this coming. No one thought that after Ike in 2008 that we'd be so dependent on a single pipeline. Most comments were bewildered.
I suspect that by next weekend everything will be back to normal.
Did I get gouged? I actually paid less for gas Sunday morning than I did two other times over the summer. I might go back to that station!
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DECbot on Monday September 19 2016, @03:46PM
People commenting on local media were uniformly taken by surprise. No one saw this coming. No one thought that after Ike in 2008 that we'd be so dependent on a single pipeline. Most comments were bewildered.
This is something that I'm seeing more often. I live in a mostly rural area in the Midwest, and I've notice the increasing difficulty in obtaining local news. The local papers are not owned locally anymore, and thus staff has been cut and most reporting is outright regurgitation of Reuters or Associated Press. Subscribers then cancel because they get the same news online. Getting any information about my local city, county, or state is futile. When the local convenience store closed suddenly, it was weeks before I learned through co-workers that the closure was due to a car smashing through one cinder-block wall, and nearly knocking out the back wall too. Something like that I'd expect in the local paper--at least in the police reports section, but I never saw it.
The newspapers call the internet as the end of newspapers, but I really think it was the lack of news and journalism. My hometown's paper was bought by a big city paper and its quality dropped long before web 2.0 came about.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:23PM
This is the truth, though you won't see it brought up often.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday September 19 2016, @05:54PM
Yup. Wanna know the secret that is keeping the small local papers going despite the fact you look at them and can't figure out why anyone sane would buy a copy? Two reasons, both government related:
1. Legal notices. The government is required to pay to publish them in the local 'paper of record' even though they could put them on their local webpage and reach more people now. State laws still require they pay the paper. Guess why?
2. My State, and probably your State too, have laws forbidding the schools from putting 'personally identifying' information on their webpage, including photos of students, most especially the players on the local sports teams. Guess who isn't limited? Guess who actually writes most of the copy though.... cozy. And very profitable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Monday September 19 2016, @06:21PM
Makes you realize how dependent we are on a very fragile supply chain. And this is a relatively small and localized shortage. I'm looking into solar and an EV for this reason.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 19 2016, @11:37AM
That's why the goal of personal energy independence is so appealing. Pipelines will keep failing because the companies that built them skip maintenance to boost profits. Terrorist attacks will keep happening because the stuff conveyed in the pipelines comes from their countries through various shenanigans. Extreme weather events will keep knocking out infrastructure, because the burning of the stuff in the pipelines has trapped too much of the sun's energy in the atmosphere.
There is also the destruction by design of companies raising rates, governments taxing to death what you buy, etc., etc.
Put solar panels on your roof, drive an electric vehicle charged by them, and sever your tie to the grid. Pipeline failures and government taxes for energy will never bother you again. For extra points, set up an aquaponics system in the basement and you'll even have the protein and veg you need when Bayer-Monsanto puts franken genes in store-bought food.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stretch611 on Monday September 19 2016, @11:57AM
...when Bayer-Monsanto puts franken genes in store-bought food.
What do you mean when???
Its already happening. Monsanto makes roundup ready crops... which are genetically modified to be resistant to roundup (and made sterile to force farmers to buy seeds every year instead of saving seeds from the crop to plant the next year.) http://web.mit.edu/demoscience/Monsanto/about.html [mit.edu]Roundup ready crops have been around for 20 years now.
Also a year ago farm workers started suing Monsanto alleging that http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-monsanto-lawsuits-idUSKCN0S92H720151015 [reuters.com]roundup causes cancer.
So it seems that the franken genes are already in all our food... and to top it off, our food is covered in carcinogens. No wonder why all of congress wass bought off to overrule Vermonts GMO labelling law.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:38PM
That is true, but it has been possible to buy organic produce to evade GMOs. But then this story [treehugger.com] was published over the weekend. Does anyone really think that Big Ag-produced "organic" produce will really be unmodified? The only to be sure is to grow your own.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by TheSouthernDandy on Monday September 19 2016, @05:34PM
our food is covered in carcinogens
Possibly, but not from most organophosphates. The charge on phosphate groups tends to make them water soluble, and unable to intercalate between DNA bases, where they would cause mutagenesis.
One of many documents here (http://www.nj.gov/dep/enforcement/pcp/bpc/wps/ops.pdf) mentions that this class of compounds is not generally considered carcinogenic, and the EPA is only considering two (parathion and phosmet) as possible ones.
That's not to say you can't tack a phosphonate group onto some huge planar organic compound that is a carcinogen, and make an organophosphate carcinogen, but what's the point? It's lousy in both roles (water insoluble AND probably less carcinogenic).
Sadly, it's this kind of argument ("it's alleged, so it must have some truth because CONSPIRACY!") that gives me pause on voting Green. Then again, I've no doubt about the evil that corporations are willing to do for a quick buck, and some checks (however ill founded scientifically) would do the world good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @05:47PM
Roundup (which OP mentioned) is not an organophosphate.
There are tests showing that Roundup's declared active ingredient glyphosate is safe but the thing is Roundup isn't just glyphosate it has other ingredients.
And the combination can be a lot more toxic than glyphosate alone: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ [scientificamerican.com]
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/17/new-evidence-about-the-dangers-of-monsantos-roundup/ [theintercept.com]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955666/ [nih.gov]
As for organophosphates if you're unlucky they might give you neurological problems (not so much cancer): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328070136.htm [sciencedaily.com]
In short, cancer is not the only problem with pesticides and other poisons: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/parkinsons-disease-and-pesticides-whats-the-connection/ [scientificamerican.com]
(Score: 1) by TheSouthernDandy on Thursday September 29 2016, @03:33PM
Quite right, my typo--glyphosate is an organophosphonate (extra "-on-", I got it right latter in the comment :} ).
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:48AM
Organophosphates, which were developed to kill people quick by interfering with the nervous system, aren't the problem. The common household ones such as Malathion are broken down by liver enzymes pretty quick in most people and on farms the stronger ones also break down fairly quick, which is why they replaced the Organochlorides, of which DDT was the most harmless.
The parent was talking about glyphosate, a herbicide that is considered quite safe. The problem as the sibling AC said is the surfactants, emulsifiers and such, which are totally unregulated and not talked about as they're not the active ingredient.
(Score: 1) by TheSouthernDandy on Thursday September 29 2016, @03:49PM
The problem as the sibling AC said is the surfactants, emulsifiers and such
That could be, I wasn't responding to the sibling. Although, we'd have to know how much of these compounds make it into the ingested plant parts, are removed in processing, and their persistence in the environment, to know whether they are problems as carcinogens. Carcinogenic chemicals that don't actually make it into an organism may not be such a problem. A gas-powered mower may put out more carcinogenic aromatics in one's immediate environment via incomplete combustion than they're exposed to via agriculture, but we don't think too much about it because the exhaust gets diluted quickly, and it's unrealistic to demand everyone use electric or manual mowers.
I agree that it would be better to use safe chemicals when available and realistic to do so, but I also hold that digging into the issues presents more nuance than is presented here, and that risk is quantitative--it must be balanced against the alternatives (agriculture without those chemicals, or with alternatives).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:21PM
> Pipeline failures and government taxes for energy will never bother you again.
Nice idea to be resilient for your transportation needs (could also be accomplished by a bicycle with a basket, in many areas), but far from resilient in general. This will become apparent if the pipeline failure is diesel fuel and trucks stop running in your area. Watch how quickly the store shelves empty out.
In general this thing we call "civilization" is a pretty thin veneer which takes a lot of infrastructure to maintain.
One example, a friend worked at a local oil refinery which also included a number of huge storage tanks. The amount of finished fuels in the tank farm went from nearly full to nearly empty at least once a week, there was very little buffer. (have forgotten exact details, the time scale might be every day or two?)
Nevil Shute wrote about the rapid decline in services and rapid increase in gouging in the London area, during the early days of bombing in WWII, "What Happened to the Corbetts" (available through Gutenberg in some countries). At that time, England was fairly resilient with many small family farms able to absorb some of the people that left London and other cities.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday September 19 2016, @03:58PM
I believe (though I believe more crazy things) that the resilience you mention is one of the two components of the European Union's "secret blueprint plan".
I believe that the Common Agricultural Policy [wikipedia.org], which means that every EU citizen pays an arm and a leg to heavily subsidize farming all over the place, is a secret "safety buffer" for the secret plan component called "no more famine".
If you think about it, 15 years before that immensely expensive C.A.P. plan, people in Amsterdam walked 100 km to buy potatoes, or they ate cats and tulip bulbs. As Bertold Brecht [wikiquote.org] put it,
It is a very anti-capitalistic idea: food production is not for the economy, food production is for living.
Maybe I shouldn't use the word "secret" but "esoteric", because the information is hidden in plain view: it's just so boring and basic that normal people never think about it. Food comes from a supermarket in the city, right? :-)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 19 2016, @04:32PM
Running a big farm to grow crops for sale is very hard work. Growing enough vegetables and keeping chickens for your own consumption is quite manageable, assuming you live at least in the suburbs or have plot of land 1/4 acre or larger. It doesn't take a university degree or a $1K Learning Annex course. Put seeds in dirt, then water them. For extra credit, add fertilizer, and weed once in a while. Anyone can do it, and in most of the world, they do. People who have never seen the inside of a school are perfectly capable of growing their own food.
The produce tastes better that way and is better for you than the tasteless objects they sell at Walmart. And for a convenience food, nothing beats walking out to your yard to pick ripe tomatoes off the vine, peppers off the plant, and basil from the herb patch to make your pasta sauce--no driving, hunting for parking spots, pushing shopping carts, waiting in line, fiddling with coupons, and ferrying back to the house involved.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @06:07PM
Growing enough vegetables and keeping chickens for your own consumption is quite manageable, assuming you live at least in the suburbs or have plot of land 1/4 acre or larger.
Big assumptions there.
There are advantages to people living in cities. Even from an ecological and environmental impact perspective ( http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/ [citylab.com] http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/energy/environment/want-to-save-the-environment-build-more-cities [ieee.org] ). It's not the cities themselves are that wonderful for wildlife or the environment, it's more of keeping most of us and our shit in one spot. Imagine the millions of people living in cities spread out with 1/4 acre each. How much land left for other land animals? How much land for other _wild_ land animals? And how much more damage we'd cause to the world?
There's about 3.5 billion acres of arable land. That's about double the 1/4 acre per person figure you mention. That's great eh, or not? Of course land suitable for agricultural is more than just arable land but it should give you a better idea of the size of the problem.
There is no such thing as sustainable growth on a finite world and we are not far from its limits. If we want to keep billions of humans around we may not have that much room for mistakes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @11:49AM
That's all that is.
The notion that the liberal media would try to run interference for Koch Industries, rather than blaring the news from the rooftops, is, simply, batshit insane.
Nothing here to see. Just another left-wing moonbat with a tingle up his leg, over Charles and David's Koch audacity to exercise their 1st amendment rights.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:09PM
The "liberal media" is owned by rich conservatives.
Furthermore "liberal" is way too one-dimensional. The reporters are liberal in that they live in big cities where multicuturalism is rampant, they eat at ethnic restaurants, they have friends and even family members that are either immigrants or come from immigrant families, they know people who are gay, out and often married. For them being "liberal" is just a function of their environment. But none of that cultural liberalism translates into being economically liberal. Historically the more educated and the more rich you were the more likely you were to be a republican. Not for the racism, that's for the poor wing of the party, the people for whom "you may be poor, but at least you are still white" was comforting, but for the economic policies.
I'm not saying there is a conspiracy to suppress the story about the pipeline burst. But what I am saying is that the press is a lot more friendly to the rich than you make it out to be. Hell, the Koch brothers are one of the biggest donors to PBS. For many years David Koch was on the board for WGBH-TV, the Boston PBS affiliate that produces two-thirds of PBS's nationally distributed programming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:43PM
Gee, I didn't know that the New York Times, Boston Globe, ABC, CBS, and NBC, are all owned by "rich conservatives".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:51PM
Well now you do know.
Hell, Carlos Slim is the largest shareholder of the NYT. Nobody would ever confuse that guy with a liberal.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday September 19 2016, @06:20PM
Oh I dunno about that. He grew up in a Socialist country (you might have heard of the Mexican Revolution. If you were educated in the U.S. you weren't taught that it was one of 'those' revolutions. It was.) Read Slim's Wikipedia page, note (and note how carefully it isn't openly stated) how plugged into the Mexican government he had to be to pull most of his deals. Add in the observable fact he was allowed to gain effective control of the U.S. Socialist Party's principle propaganda pipeline. He was known to them and is believed an acceptable holder of the asset. In exactly the same way Bezos was carefully vetted before being allowed to outright buy the #2 PR shop pushing Party propaganda into the media bloodstream.
But the big tell is that Slim is one of the richest people in the world, he isn't a God of Silicon Valley and yet the usual suspects do not hate him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:07PM
> Read Slim's Wikipedia page, note (and note how carefully it isn't openly stated) how plugged into the Mexican government he had to be to pull most of his deals.
Only in jmorris's fantasyland is corrupt government cronyism a sign of being liberal.
Here's a clue for you: Money makes you illiberal, the more money the less liberal you are likely to be because, as the original social justice warrior once said, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:13PM
...because it's anti-Capitalist in Mexico and The Workers own the means of production there.
What's that you say? That's the complete OPPOSITE of the facts?
Hmmm. That must mean that jmorris is still full of shit.
one of the richest people in the world
...in a "socialist" country.
jmorris continues to use words that he doesn't understand.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:32PM
Actually, it's the notion that the media are liberal that is, simply, batshit insane.
Things that we would hear more of if the MSM really were liberal
Single Payer Health Care
Workers' Rights
Breaking up "too big to fail"
The DNC's suppression of anti-Clinton voices
East Timor
H1-B (aka modern bracero program)
Election Financing reform
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Monday September 19 2016, @01:40PM
The worst thing about it is that the press keeps trying to appease the batshit insane contingent by giving the right coverage that's downright charitable. It took the press about 6 years to start actually taking President Bush to task for the various misdeeds that were going on. 6 freaking years.
But, you still get people whining about the liberal media even though the evidence is pretty damning that not only are they not liberal, the coverage is usually quite conservative. Good luck getting factual information from the mainstream press about the various crimes against humanity being committed by the Israelis or the destruction that the federal reserve has caused in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @10:20PM
Nah, you're just paranoid because George Soros hatched a plot to make weed legal, and even if you don't smoke it yourself it causes paranoid memes to propagate. I know, because Soros is to conservatives what Koch is to liberals.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 19 2016, @12:00PM
Maybe its good. Not entirely kidding. If they cover the "great gas shortage in Atlanta" over in California you know that there will be enough idiots rushing out to top off their half full tank to full, that they'll cause their own unrelated "bank run" style shortage in California.
Something to think about is in the upper midwest we have a killer blizzard maybe once a year and the authorities tell everyone to stay home and if possible work from home that day. Its just BAU and not a big deal because we're used to it. IF it were a serious problem then you'd see the state highway patrol advising people not to travel if at all possible and major corporations emitting saccharine PR puff piece news releases about how they're saving gas for the fire trucks by having office employees stay home and VPN in rather than burn gas. I'm not seeing that. Southerners aren't stupider than northerners, so I'm sure they'd be implementing that stuff if there was a real problem. Then again this could be the economist refusing to pick up a $20 from the sidewalk because markets are efficient therefore the $20 bill can't exist.
(Score: 2) by schad on Monday September 19 2016, @12:55PM
Nobody in the major Southern cities is ever prepared for anything. Every time anything goes wrong, there's panic. We can't even handle really trivial things like traffic jams or lane closures. Anywhere else in the country people would just route around the obstruction. Not here. Here, people seem to believe there is exactly one way to get from A to B.
The only emergency we're really equipped to handle down here is losing the air conditioning.
That's actually a great example of the different types of intelligence. Northerners have the book learnin'; Southerners just get 'er done. That's been very much borne out by my experience living in both areas.
But there's nothing in this world dumber than a northerner who's living in the South, and they (we) seem to make up a majority of the residents of southern cities.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 19 2016, @02:44PM
Nobody in the major Southern cities is ever prepared for anything.
Hurricanes? Tornados?
I lived in high tech redneck area in Alabama for a year maybe 20 years ago and I enjoyed it greatly although I donno how representative it is to have a community where like 50% of the civilians have PHDs.
Both the PHD locals and the general population you'd see on the news tended to have it together for hurricanes and tornadoes (it severe thunderstormed like every freaking afternoon in the late summer, or so it seemed).
I never got to see them in a frost or snow flurries situation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by jrbrtsn on Monday September 19 2016, @12:01PM
Yesterday I filled my gas tank. There was one popular fuel station (QT at I385/Pleasantburg) which had no gas, and nearby stations had bumped the price up by $0.20.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:15PM
The price bump is due to the extra costs of shipping by tanker truck rather than pipeline.
And this whole "State of emergency" is about those tanker trucks - it gave the state governors the legal authority to suspend the rules for tanker drivers so they could spend more time on the road.
The term "state of emergency" is really misleading, it helps to think of it is as "special circumstances that require temporary changes to the law and sometimes also money from FEMA."
(Score: 4, Informative) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @12:25PM
Let those who pushed so hard to get the pipelines clean up THEIR mess, and pay for it.
And this is exactly why the Native Americans are protesting the pipeline construction in the Dakota's.
Yet again, we(the citizens) are paying the price that should be assessed to the corp.'s who installed and allegedly maintain these pipelines.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 19 2016, @12:52PM
Pipelines leak, a lot, even when they're functioning normally. They only get fixed when it's economically advantageous to do so, and it's really expensive to find and fix pipeline leaks, so they go on for a long long time before being addressed.
If the contract for the pipeline included adequate monitoring and shutdown upon leak detection, a pipeline could be relatively environmentally friendly - but adequate monitoring and shutdown upon leak detection would make the pipeline so much more expensive that carriage by rail tanker would be cheaper. And, of course, rail tankers leak... occasionally catastrophically.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:08PM
And your point is...what, exactly?
If the money spent on pipeline mishap cleanup and repair over the decades, was spent on advancing clean power infrastructure instead, we would not be having this conversation.
Instead, the rich get richer at our expense, AND we have to pay to fix their fuck-ups, yet again. I'm sick and tired of it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 19 2016, @01:30PM
My point is: pipelines are a lot worse for the environment than most people think. They _can_ be operated cleanly, but at greater expense, and that's not why pipelines are built. Pipelines are built to save money.
"Advancing clean power infrastructure" is a noble goal, one I hope we pursue.
Meanwhile, your 401(k) is calling for higher returns, this quarter, and clean power infrastructure doesn't support that goal.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:37PM
Well, until your last sentence, we are in agreement.
There is no 'my 401k', that disappeared in 2008 with the 'crash'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:45PM
That makes 0 sense unless you did not invest your 401K into an Index fund, as all those stocks not only rebounded but also increased year over year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @02:34PM
Unless you are just about to retire, your 401k probably shouldn't care less about 1 quarters performance and be invested for the long term.
America, long term, ROFLMAO.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:00PM
It seems a little early to use this particular spill to advance an existing agenda.
First we need to see why the pipeline failed in this particular spot.
Hopefully it was an external cause.
If not, then hopefully is was just localized poor maintenance.
If not, the hopefully just a small section is involved.
If not, and the the whole line is suspect, then it's time to hold somebody accountable.
If this is the case, then it doesn't seem right to neglect a critical piece of infrastructure while milking it for profits.
Such a senario should stick even to these owner's teflon suits.
This issues to raise are both liability looking back and ownership looking forward.
Something like a TVA might do well in running such a thing.
Just make sure it's not run by something like the EPA.
The folks on the Colorado river can attest that actually running this sort of thing is not a job for lawyers.
These days, it seems like an internal ultrasonic inspection should be fairly easy and routine?
What's the state of the art of pipeline inspection?
Such a discussion would be interesting here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:23PM
> First we need to see why the pipeline failed in this particular spot.
Do we? Sounds more like your goal is to focus on the trees and ignore the forest.
Are you, perhaps, on the spectrum?
Because the OP's point is that pipelines break all the damn time for all kinds of reasons and that's why people are protesting the dakota pipeline. When your water supply is polluted and you can't farm because of it, the exact reason why your water supply was contaminated is fucking irrelevant. That's a problem for the people who want the pipeline to worry about. The effects are the problem of the people affected.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 19 2016, @02:05PM
No, I have to disagree with you. If the cause of the leak is an external factor, then perhaps the problem is absolutely nothing to do with the construction or maintenance of the pipeline itself. For example, if an aircraft has crashed onto the pipeline then the problem is caused by the aircraft crash, not by the pipeline being unable to withstand such an event. So knowing 'why the pipeline failed in this particular spot', i.e. what has caused this problem, is one of the first things that we should be looking at. Start at the fault and work outwards.
Yes, pipelines do break 'all the time' but that doesn't mean every pipeline break should have been foreseen. That a single break can have such a catastrophic result for a fairly large region of the US is something for concern, but that might be an infrastructure failure rather than a pipeline design failure. Having two or more smaller pipelines going different routes might be a more resilient solution, but I bet it will not be a cheaper one, nor as profitable. As always, you get only as much as you are willing to pay for.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:19PM
Pipelines are known to leak. Stop acting as if this is an isolated incident.
(many many leaks a year and these are just the reported ones)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States_in_the_21st_century [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 19 2016, @04:53PM
And until you know why this particular pipeline leak has occurred - stop acting as if you know what has happened and why.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:10PM
> And until you know why this particular pipeline leak has occurred - stop acting as if you know what has happened and why.
The only WHY that matters is that the pipeline was there. Without a pipeline all those possible failure modes that could lead to the pipeline leaking would not have cause a leak.
Sure it matters to the pipeline engineers and their employers. But to the people who suffer the consequences none of that does - no pipeline, no leak no matter what.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:31AM
So your response appears to be that there shouldn't be any pipelines at all? I hope that you enjoy life without a car while living in your cave, with light provided by candles and cooking on your log fire. Sure, renewables might eventually be the answer - but we are a long way from replacing oil by alternative sources for a while yet. Can you provide a more economic way of transporting that amount of fuel over the distances concerned?
So none of those suffering the consequences of the leak are in the least bit concerned with the potential lack of fuel for their vehicles, for the power that is provided for everything that they use on a daily basis? Sure, they might have their own personal generators, but they do not power communications towers, television and radio broadcasting, hospitals, emergency services and so on.
So I contend that we should find the most economic and safe way of using the energy sources that we do have, while investing more heavily in research into alternative sources.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:56PM
Let's build more pipelines, so we can keep driving even when they fail!
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:11AM
Even in your aircraft crashing into pipeline scenario, there's the problem of not monitoring enough to notice and the problem of resistance to use the shut-off valve, which may be quite a way from the leak. That plane might have missed the pipeline, so why cut into profits by shutting sown the pipeline until reports of a spill come in and are verified.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday September 19 2016, @04:53PM
Agree, that is why the DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) must NOT be built, when it leaks it can leak directly into the Missouri river, poisoning the water supply of several regions.
Actually it crosses several bodies of water, per the United States Army Corps of Engineers [army.mil]:
I believe that we have allowed greed, a.k.a. “free markets”, to get away with too much already. We pay the costs of pollution and poisoned water, while the “people who create jobs” grab the benefits; and in the case of the DAPL, they are temporay jobs, which will not offset the damage of leaks on the water supply.
Please do see the talk by Aaron Huey [ted.com], it is very informative of the way the Sioux have been betrayed by the U.S. Government time after time.
For a primer on the DAPL and the situation there, see here [heavy.com]
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday September 19 2016, @08:30PM
...the Sioux...
Heh heh, I'm Blackfoot, so I already know the score.
However, I do kindly thank you for the info, and I find your words and attitude refreshing and delightful. Seriously. :-)
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Monday September 19 2016, @10:32PM
Thank you for your kind words.
Cheers
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fadrian on Monday September 19 2016, @01:30PM
This story has been one of the leads on the evening news shows for the past three days. Just because the blogs you read don't care to share doesn't mean the news isn't out there...
That is all.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 19 2016, @02:19PM
And make the petroleum producing countries pay for it.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VanessaE on Monday September 19 2016, @05:52PM
The pipeline break/leak caused a minor gas shortage in Western NC, Asheville area. Not 1970's-level, but enough to force people off of the road and gas stations to close-off their pumps for a while. Meanwhile, prices have risen by about 15 percent in the past 24 hours.
Frankly, I think the "crisis" is manufactured. The leak dumped 250'000 gallons of fuel into a small body of water before it was shut off, and when I last read, 230'000 gallons of fuel and water have since been recovered. How much of that is actually fuel, I don't know, but even if none was recovered, it shouldn't matter in the slightest, as far as fuel availability and price are concerned, because the US uses over 380 million gallons [eia.gov] of gas every day.
That spill represented 0.065 percent of the total daily usage. Greed, thy name is big oil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @11:41PM
> The leak dumped 250'000 gallons of fuel
Now its 335,000 gallons. The way these things go it will probably turn out to be significantly more. These numbers never go down.
But the bigger problem is that the pipeline is turned off. So even though its not spilling, its not operating.
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:41PM
I might tend to agree, but according to Colonial, they switched the load over to "Line 2" (which runs more or less parallel to the broken pipe) before the weekend was up; "Line 1" may take some time to repair, but I doubt it'll be very long. Meanwhile, as I understand it, that pipe carried about 37 million gallons of gasoline a day, so not even 10 percent of the total country's usage.
I dunno, I still say the whole thing was overblown massively, all as a money grab.
I'll be glad when solar and other renewables, and cars powered by them, take over. Fuck petroleum.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday September 19 2016, @06:54PM
We should strike down all laws preventing 'price gouging' because they do far more harm than good. It sounds 'fair' and all, and I understand the politics in a country of illiterate fools, but from a practical and moral point of view the laws against it are insane.
Take this example. If the second the pipeline ruptured prices of gas in the area impacted jumped up $0.50/gal and went to $1 above baseline the next day, what would have happened? People would not have rushed the pumps to 'top up' instantly. Those who could delay a trip would have done do because of the price signal. Meanwhile those who really need gas would have still been able to get it. There would be immediate price incentives to start trucking fuel in from areas unaffected by the problem.
Or look at what happens when a hurricane threatens. Everybody flees and starts looking for an empty hotel room. Of course there are anti-gouging' laws so the prices do not go up. So people rent out three rooms for the family instead of crowding into one. Great for them, not so great for the thousands coming up behind them who have to keep driving past "NO VACANCY" signs. Not so great for the hotels who aren't staffed for the unexpected surge and can't afford to throw money at that problem to staff up for the week or two they will be at 100% occupancy. So they 'solved' that problem. Go to any hotel, even a lowly Model 6, in hurricane country and look at the government issue placard on the door with the hotel laws, emergency procedure, etc. Note the official published 'rack rate' for the dinky little basic room is $199 per night... but you just paid the 'discounted' rate of $49.95 at the front desk. So now when the hurricane is coming they stop 'discounting' the rooms. So why not just stop with the bullcrap?
After the hurricane people from all around get the bright idea to grab the trailer in their barn, roll it to their Home Dept and load up on generators. Run them into the impacted area and sell em for a fast 100% markup. If you can dodge the police who will arrest you and charge you for 'profiteering' that is. But who is harmed by this supposed crime? People who desperately need the product and are more than willing to pay a premium are certainly not harmed. The people who were trying to make a quick buck aren't doing anything wrong either. And of course a big chunk of that 'premium' the desperate will pay is risk premium against the police seizing the cargo. Yes it would be nice if charity would just deliver free generators but that does not in fact happen, and probably won't so the end result is misery and additional economic losses from spoiled perishables. It would be nice if the local Home Dept could arrange adaquate supply to be delivered from area locations in time, but that doesn't happen. In the critical first 72 hours you either already have a generator or you hope you can find an outlaw who will sell you one, knowing it makes both of you a 'criminal.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:05AM
... could shut down the entire US energy infrastructure: http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/S82-03_BrittlePowerEnergyStrategy [rmi.org]
"In this classic from 1982, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins argue that domestic energy infrastructure is vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favored in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy. The book was originally prepared as a Pentagon study and was re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that the themes from the original manuscript are still relevant. For the 2001 preface, see "Preface to the 2001 Edition of Brittle Power" (RMI document ID 2001-21)."
Seems like not that much has changed?