[thearn4]

I'm thinking about what I've read on social media (twitter, reddit, etc) about the event. The posts getting the most engagement/traction are convinced this is larger than Chernobyl. However, relevant authorities do not seem to agree with this.

But I have no environmental sciences credentials to speak of.

[Rimintil]

> I'm thinking about what I've read on social media (twitter, reddit, etc) about the event.

Social media is social media. It requires critical thinking skills to navigate what you can trust versus what you cannot. I would have put this point in your GP, though. The GP otherwise reads like it has an agenda.

> relevant authorities do not seem to agree with this.

They're (probably) a more reliable source than social media, so I'd have to refer to the relevant authorities.

Social media (likely) isn't out there gathering soil samples, air quality metrics, and water quality metrics in a uniform or scientific method that would qualify 'social media' to make a judgement call about the impact of the disaster.

[ng12]

I think the overt issue is that both state and fed gov completely bungled their response. Their absurd, stubborn silence, even after the issue has been lighting up social media for a week, gives the impression they know it's deadly but don't care -- whether or not that's the truth.

[phpisthebest]

That is the "conspiracy" non-conspiracy minded people like myself agree they bungled their response but that just confirms my long held position that the government is completely incompetent and we look to them for guidance, or solutions to a given problem at our own peril.

As the famous axiom goes... "Government: If you think you have problems now, wait until you see our solutions."

Their bungling of the response is completely predictable, extending a long long history of bungled responses to emergencies. Of course the predicable reaction to this bungling is not to simply acknowledge the reality of government incompetence, no.. it will be as it always is a mix of not enough money, not enough power, and capitalism / lack of regulation that will be to blame. Government agencies are always pure as the driven snow, and with out fault

Government is always measured by their intentions, never their results.

[pixl97]

Eh, the problem here is you're taking 'government' as a single entity, but it's not at all.

If it were up to the singular 'government' there would have been better brakes on the trains and the company would have been following the law on transporting the chemicals. All the issues at hand were well known about for years.

The problem here is very little government but instead for profit corporations going "How can I squeeze more blood out of this penny" and look for ways to get out of the regulations that prevent disasters in the first place.

Really no one does a 'great' job of dealing with disasters, hence why they are disasters. The best regulations/forms of government prevent the damned disaster based on the inevitable outcome of human greed in the first place.

[phpisthebest]

Right on schedule here we have exactly that I predicted. Government is good, they just did not have enough power to stop the evil capitalism... because the evil capitalism forced other parts of the government to stip the good parts of the government of power...

Responses like that should be laughable but far too many people believe that narrative. Never mind that rail is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and even if more regulation was passed the next disaster will be again "well there is still not enough regulation" because again government is measured by intention not results

There is never "enough" regulation, there is never "enough" power transferred to government, and it could never ever be that government failed in their duty to enforce existing regulations, or failed to use their existing power. No it is always evil capitalism corrupting the pure government preventing the noble public servants from protecting us all...

Never mind that the regulation that everyone talks about (the brake system) has been shown that even if that regulation was in place it would not have applied to this train at all

Never mind that we do not even know what the cause of the derailment was at this point.

It has to be that norfolk southern tried to "squeeze more blood out of this penny" as evil capitalist, and the good pure government could have stopped it if they were just given more power, more money, or more regulation....

Same story over and over again through out time, Authoritarian Statists have no other tale to tell

[pixl97]

"Chronic libertarian eaten by bears after no other libertarian neighbors want to pool together for trash service. His last words were 'at least the communists didn't get me'."

[pixl97]

Someone would think this is larger than Chernobyl if they were critically uninformed on just how big and stupid Chernobyl was. Burning the contents of the train cars will destroy a lot of the dangerous chemical compounds you originally had. A vast amount of the danger by weight is gone. The biggest issue is determining the dioxin output.

With a nuclear fire that is not the case. When things go out of control you make even more radioactive stuff, and you can't even clean up the mess in the first place without dying and killing all of the equipment that is working on it. It is just an unimaginable disaster that most of us can't fully comprehend.

[ars]

It's more like 3 Mile Island than Chernobyl - huge fuss, little actual long term damage.