“In our free-enterprise economy, the benefits are privatized but the costs of pollution are socialized.” Ricardo Navarro speaks the truth. The lesson you taught on Thursday I believe really shows this, because it consisted of the disgusting money-hungry companies as well as what exactly pollutes the air, and how that has an effect on all of our lives.
And I have to say, the story of Arthur Kill really reminded me of how greedy some people can be, especially when you put them together into a business company. Showing the amount Exxon made in profit is what did it. They made $40.6 billion in 2007, and then $41.1 billion in 2011. What. I cannot understand why they and so many other companies believe that getting rid of toxic materials by burning or whatever they choose, as long as they get rid of it, is “too expensive.” Really? It wouldn’t even take a billion out of your profits, but it’s still too expensive for them to consider. That just baffles me. Exxon was well aware of the fact that they were doing something wrong. They intentionally altered their test method because they knew what they were doing was creating a hazardous amount of benzene. Knowing this just makes it worse, and I can’t understand how they couldn’t be charged for lying (understatement) as well. But of course, it only took eight years until the court system did something about it, when in reality they really didn’t. It should not have ended with a consent decree, and it should not have only ended with a fine of $11.2 million. By that I mean the courts should have kept an eye on that money to make sure it was being put to good use. But now, we have no idea how the majority of that money was used. It might as well have been thrown into the air, along with the other pollutants in society.
Speaking of air pollutants, I mostly just think of cars and gas when I hear of it. I wouldn’t have thought of spray painting, out of all things! I of course instantly thought of graffiti, but it makes sense that living in such a big city would mean that all those buildings would be spray painted, instead of painted by thousands of hands. Excluding this (and several others) ignorant moments, I was aware of quite a number of things, thankfully. For example, I think it’s pretty well known that lead affects brain development in children. I remember there being such a big deal a few years ago about children toys being extracted out of toy stores because the paint they were made out of consisted of lead, thanks to China. I didn’t know, though, that in 1996, gasoline that had tetraethyl lead was banned, leading people to believe that this made a decrease in blood lead level as well as in the atmosphere. But this isn’t actually the case, since a study was done in the Central Park Lake using four sediment cores to determine when the lead levels really did drop. Surprisingly, it was at a max. from the late 1930s into the early 1960s. So it wasn’t the gasoline usage then, since people were still using the tetraethyl lead gas a lot during this time. What was it then?
Unsurprisingly, we were left to wonder until the next class. Obviously, some members of the class will look it up (I just did). But I will try my best to act surprised during class.
That, and I will try my best to remember the most important event in history. Even though I have barely listened to them. (Sorry!)
