Comment by scoofy
2 days ago
It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics.
You either make it doable or you don't.
2 days ago
It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics.
You either make it doable or you don't.
This is too strong of a statement. There are perfectly sensible reasons to NIMBY certain activities. For instance, burning wood is probably ok in general, but a horrible idea in heavily populated cities.
Obviously, California is not composed exclusively of heavily populated cities. But it does contain a lot of them! So it is not completely insane that the regulation is skewed in favour of this.
Of course, for things that are equally polluting no matter where you do them (like burning fossil fuels), moving production outside of the location but still buying produced materials is simply passing the buck. But it's not totally clear to me that's what's happening here.
That's exactly why the Bay Area Air Quality Management District exists (established decades before the federal EPA):
> Charged with regulating stationary sources of air pollution emissions, the Air District drafted its first two regulations in the 1950s: Regulation 1, which banned open burning at dumps and wrecking yards, and Regulation 2, which established controls on dust, droplets, and combustion gases from certain industrial sources.
> Much research and discussion went into the shaping of Regulation 2, but there was no doubt about the need for it. During a fact-finding visit to one particular facility, Air District engineers discovered that filters were used over air in-take vents to protect the plant's machinery from its own corrosive emissions! This much-debated regulation was finally adopted in 1960.
https://www.baaqmd.gov/en/about-the-air-district/history-of-...
Yep. And it's why it's hard to paint cars in the Bay Area, but you can do it in less populated areas with better average air quality.
Fossil are not equally polluting. There's a difference between living next to a generator with exhaust at ground level, a properly designed smoke stack, and just being further away so the reactive emissions can dilute and degrade.
CO2 might be a long term problem, but it isn't the core health concern of living near combustion facilities - moving those away from residential areas isn't passing the buck, it's just good sense.
Depends on the fossil. Coal emits all kinds of poison in the smoke.
> It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics.
This statement doesn't acknowledge why NIMBYism is odious. The reason is that we all need housing, but new housing may devalue current housing. While some may wish to protect their housing values/community feel/etc, others wish and may rightly deserve, access to housing at the same levels of access as earlier generations.
The analogy to manufacturing does not exist—to suggest it does ignores the real negative externalities to people who live next to polluting facilities, especially those where the pollutant was not recognized during use.
They are not fundamentally different. The underlying hypocracy of NIMBYism is wanting the positive outcomes from something (more housing, factories producing goods) with someone else having to suffer the downsides. How obnoxious it is depends on that upside/downside risk, but fundamentally if you want a thing to happen but you want it to happen near someone else, you are part of the NIMBY problem. (Note that wanting it to not happen at all, or wanting a version that is more expensive but nicer to be near, is not the same, so long as you're happy to bear the outcome of that thing being more expensive)
I think it’s reasonable to want factories and pollution to be far from anyone’s dwelling, no? And for all factories to have appropriate pollution control.
Do the factories need to be polluting? Or can it be done less polluting or even neutral?
But is that really California's stance? Or is it more "if you do it here, do it the right way" and then everyone uses the more polluting production methods in a state that doesn't care
The outcome is the same as long as only California does it, but the ethics of it and the outcome if every state acted like that is vastly different
The notion of comparative advantage says you don't. It's not NIMBYism. And it's not a good faith argument when it comes from folks who have a bunker in New Zealand.
Similarly saying “you can’t have slavery but you can buy stuff made by enslaved people abroad” is morally inconsistent. I don’t know the obvious answer to this though.
it's just specialization, in most cases it's not efficient to do locally
Why? Manufacturing,design and engineering need highly different skill sets it's just not feasible to have both in one location because of the workforce required. It's the same in every other country some parts are industrial hubs and some design/engineering.
If this were really the case, you wouldn't need to ban the practice. You could just offer recommendations
Despite the catchy url none of the examples from the site are bans...
So you're fine with having a fab in your backyard?
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/08/28/18869003.php