Apple iPad casing supplier under fire over alleged water pollution - Page 2

You should provide some links. I'm sure you can find some. I never intended my original statement to imply an absolute only that generally speaking the pollution situation in the US is greatly improved from even a few decades ago. Due to environmental law enforcement we enjoy much cleaner rivers than much of the rest of the industrialized world.

I recently visited Portland and was rather impressed with their metro light rail system, which is free for the city area and quite affordable for the outlying areas. It was very convenient. When I travel, I usually rent a car but in Portland the rail goes right to the airport and I used it exclusively during my 1 week stay.

 

What do you find objectionable about light rail and what technology do you suggest as being more forward looking and innovative?

Total aside, was it diesel or electric?

Electric

You don't think there is still tremendous pollution in the United States?    While we might not be as obvious about it as the Chinese, we're still pretty bad.    And the reality is that until your own water is bad or until there's a cancer cluster close to where you live, most people don't give a crap.   Given a choice between clean air or water and jobs, most people in the U.S. (and certainly most Republicans) will choose jobs and profits.    When people talk about reducing government regulations on business, what do you think they're referring to?   While some of it is about record keeping and SOX compliance, most of it is about environmental protections.  

 

GE and Kodak polluted the Hudson River for decades and we're still feeling the effects - the river is still filled with PCBs.   There are still thousands of Superfund toxic waste sites in the United States.    

 

 

One of the reasons why this happens in China is because companies like Apple and WalMart force the supplier chain to manufacture for such low cost, it's simply not economically feasible to either pay employees well or to follow strong environmental practices.    But like Apple ][ above, given a choice between paying more for Apple devices to insure proper environmental practices in China or paying less and not caring, I believe that most people would prefer not to care.   

To create a utopian society in Ca., Gov. MB & other State leaders have driven out a lot of businesses to other states by over-regulating with environmental & pollution standards that are, at times, beyond the scope of existing technologies (additional businesses fled/flee due to very high tax rates). However, goods produced in other countries where pollution is hardly addressed, apparently are allowed into the state. It seems to send the message, 'you can't make it/pollute here (with U.S workers), make it/pollute elsewhere & you'll be fine.'

Likewise, the federal leadership has enacted new, drastically reduced, fishing catch limits that apparently will cause thousands of fishing families to go out of business, forcing them to sell their boats. Will the federal government still then allow the import unlimited quantities of the same fish from other countries whose fleets are not bound by those restrictive laws, yielding unlimited catches, fishing to depletion, &damaging the habitat?

I'm not saying this specifically about Apple, but about the corporate government double standard of attitude & values. Make the stuff, just NIMBY, "not in my back yard." It costs $ to not pollute, so jobs go overseas. We have less work in the U.S., so the need is great to buy cheap foreign goods. I'm sure nobody planned it that way. To boast about how "we cleaned up this State," yet allow 'dirty products' in from other countries undercuts the credibility of the efforts, however, 'noble!'

This is not just an Apple problem. It's also national problem for China for pushing to expand and keeping the big economy running...and a global issue. China can't ignore smog and bad water forever, it'll come back to bite them big time.

Who ever has the power to stop the pollution should just do it. Hero status