Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing
[2] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081811
[3] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081814
[4] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081820
[5] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081831
[6] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081835
[7] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081839
[8] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081846
[9] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081855
[10] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081955
[11] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081969
[12] http://rabble.ca/print/babble/body-and-soul/entrenched-thought-processes-indoctrination-and-brain-washing-part-2#comment-1081970
[13] http://rabble.ca/user
[14] http://rabble.ca/user/register
You say that there is "probably" enough evidence to show that there is health "damage" associated with sour gas flares. This is incorrect. In fact it has been incontrovertibly domonstrated that these emissions can be fatal to workers who are exposed to them. When workers live, they often suffer long-term neurological damage manifested in many different ways. This is a known fact. Tragically, there are also reproductive effects, proven to the standard of certainty that you are citing -- scientific causation, or 99% certainty.
It is easier to prove a causal link regarding the short-term consequences of exposure, because it is not only common sense but also medically recognized that when an identifiable adverse health event preceeds a health consequence, when it is physiologically plausible that the two are connected, then more than likely, absent a better explanation, they are.
Cancer is also pysiologically -- ie scientifically -- compatible with long-term exposure to flare emissions, which contain over 250 identified toxins including not only carbon dioxide, methane and particulate matter (smoke), but benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthlene, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and for sour gas flares, supher dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide. Flares are so hot that nothing will grow in their area.
http://www.climatelaw.org/cases/country/nigeria/cases/case-documents/nigeria/report/section7/doc7.1.pdf (6-pg PDF, see p.2)
The difficulty in establishing causation wrt cancer is that cancer is multi-factorial; many things can cause cancer, and the more of those things that a person is exposed to, the more likely they are to develop it. Cancer is a long-latency disease, so a population must be studied for 20, 30 or more years before the full excess incidence will be seen; at that remove it is difficult or impossible to accurately estimate each person's exposures, both to the emisssions being studied, and to other "lifestyle" (such as diet and smoking), environmental (including radon in clay soils), or occupational confounders. The size of the cohort must be large enough so that the results are statistically significant. Any changes in the industry during the period can also be taken into account -- to the extent that it is legitimately possible to do so, and beyond.
This takes a lot of money, over time, and it takes political will, both of which you can hopefully agree may be lacking wrt studies that would damage the oil and gas industry. This goes to the problem that was pointed out above: there is no "scientific" proof one way or the other, because no one has apparently looked for it -- although it begs the question why not, when oil and gas are rich industries; surely if it could be shown conclusively that these exposures are not harmful, the funding would have been extended and the evidence published long ago. Secondly, even when adequate studies are undertaken in good faith, there are so many assumptions required to produce a result that it is normal to see divergent results. It often takes many studies with meta-analysis over time, interpreted with the benefit of evolving scientific understanding, before a conclusive outcome can be reached.
Furthermore, there are separate questions to be addressed in considering the cause of a specific individual's cancer. The primary site of the cancer and cancer type must be determined, and this is sometimes possible only through autopsy. It is necessary to outline the individual's chronic exposures -- a complex question on its own -- as well as any acute exposures such as may result from fires. This information is routinely supressed by employers in which case it can only be established through a full-scope community hygeine investigation. The family history of cancer will be reviewed along with the question of whether a positive family history of cancer may be attributable to the same exposure history. In some cases, a person may have had gestational exposure, if they were born in the area. There may be other related exposures -- for example, mesothelioma is present in many oil and gas workers, caused by exposure to friable asbestos, and those fibres can also be present in the local environment and carried on clothing into the home. There are other medicolegal questions -- eg. if a person has a predisposition to cancer, less exposure may be needed to trigger a tumour in that person.
People living around gas flare activity can't wait for another twenty or thirty years until these questions are conclusively addressed. They are not offered inquests to address their specific circumstances. People are living their lives in these conditions, they are having children there and their children grow up under these conditions. They are not able to sell their houses, or they have no alternative source of income. They are dying now, and trying to make sense of their lives.
Thank you for this too tricia, making sense or trying to of their lives is overwhelming accurate...
"Nothing that I have learned has shaken my inclination to prefer "natural right," especially in its clasic form, to the reigning relativism, politivist or historicist. " Liberals, says Strauss, choose the "uninhibited cultivation of individuality" on a "demonstrably false premise, namely, that men can know what is good." And then he sets about to argue, in 323 pages, that it is "superior individuals" who can and must lead.
That's the dominant prevailing moral and political sentiment, linked to industry and the corporation. And it's not easily challenged, just as the oil patch continues on its way in spite of world opinion that it is a pathological product of technical development - the internal combustion engine. And we rail against it, even while enjoying the freedom of the ride.
Please pardon my going all philosophical on a question rising out of people's deaths. But I have been watching the process in another rather close-up for a decade now, and I've had to turn to history for answers, or go bonkers. And all I'm saying, finally, is that it is too damned bad that folks can't bring that perspective to understanding what hits them. We might be able to mitigate the effects of some of the worst features of modern industrial capitalism.
Thank you for this george, I absolutely agree, and it is incidiously spawned, here, there and everywhere.... 3/4's of world's populations are in no position to say; "your not fucking superior, you just keep everyone else down, so you can keep on pretending that you are"
remind, you're very welcome. All the best to you and your family in coming to terms with with this horrible situation.
Tigana, thank you. Not to drift too far from remind's topic but if you are in Ontario and interested in learning more about how causation is scientifically and legally assessed for long-latency illness, I can highly recommend the occupational disease course offered by the Ontario Federation of Labour. Most of the content applies equally to non-work exposures.
http://www.odrt.ca/courses.html
Thank you tricia....
I have found through giving palliative care, that most understand they have lied to themselves for most of their life...not long before they die.
Death bed confessions are an interesting thing.
I wonder if I can predict what mine will be... if I'm so fortunate as to have someone there, such as yourself, with the willingness to listen.
It is my view that it is very important to have someone there, and would like to see it become a profession, beyond just hospice and palliative care nursing.
But that is perhaps for another life time... ;)
And I am constantly surprised by the happenings of 5 years forward, from any given point in my life, on the non-predictability scale.
thus making sure that I am not lying to myself, is all I can do... :D
triciamarie wrote:
"Brian White, by the standard of certainty that you want to apply, tobacco does not cause lung cancer; at least, that is, or was for many decades, the tobacco industry's position".
That is unfair. My comment only applied to cluster analysis. People waste a lot of time and energy saying a cancer cluster is related to a certain industry. And the reason is because clusters occur randomly anyway.
They are normal and a whole lot more of them occur randomly than people realize. (Do not take my word for it, look it up).
So it is a devil of a job finding the background level of clusters and screening for the ones that ARE caused by industry.
I think your best way to make progress is to carry out your main attack with stuff that is known right now. H2S is a very well know poison, (more deadly than cyanide by the way). When I did my lab training we had to evacuate a lab ( and you could barely smell it) because the levels were too high in the air. Hydrogen sulphide is especially dangerous because exposure to it dulls your sense of smell. (So a few minutes after getting a stink of rotten eggs, you do not smell the eggs anymore and think you are safe).
And there are other gasses involved too with sour gas. A better approach might be to monitor the levels of H2S over a year. The companys probably monitor them and average out the readings. If you can monitor them at a distance and prove that they go up and down a lot day by day, you can prove that the company is breaking the law a whole lot. And if there are hills about you need to figure out the best place to monitor it so that you get the most pronounced up and down effects. Find out where the downdrafts occur.
The company is probably monitoring it on the west and the wind is probably blowing the polution to the east. It is easy to fake compliance with any law.
There is only so much money to fight these cases. You can blow it very quickly on studies. Better to buy good monitoring hardware and put it in the best spots.
Interesting insight brian.....and i agree about faking compliance
Brian White, it sounds like someone with your knowledge could be a great deal of help to a community who is trying to prove that a company is exposing residents and workers to unacceptable levels of toxins. Frankly however I think that is all somewhat besides the point of this thread, which as I see it is about one person's efforts to come to peace with her own disease, and what we can learn from that about the political ramifications of the personal compromises we all make in our struggles through life.
You pointed out that it is not a proven fact that flare exposures cause cancer. My whole long reply was to show that this issue is contentious only because the question has not been adequately studied. There is plausible medical compatibility between gas flares, particularly sour gas flares, and many types of cancer. There are elevated cancer rates in areas of western Canada with significant flaring activity. Furthermore, this question of general causation is only part of the analysis that would have to be conducted to determine the factors contributing to a particular individual's disease; that person's own characteristics and exposure profile must also be considered. All this is in addition to the incidence of any cancer clusters.
Taking all these factors into account, I think it is completely reasonable for a person who has lived in these conditions, who has known the acute dangers and pollution caused by these plants and has watched others die too young, to conclude -- for the sole purpose of taking the measure of their own life -- that the petroleum industry has played a role in their mortality.
This is accurate, and valid I believe......
..when my stepfather was dying from cancer, after years of working at the pulp mill, and watching many of his co-workers die from cancer, he understood what part he played in his own death. And what should have been done differently....
Death bed confessions are an interesting thing.
Of course, I am speaking to entrenched thought processes. One could inject power lines here and go through the same talk. It ;s about something much deeper then?
Brain washing?
Shall one tell another how to grieve after the chord is cut? Or do we respect our differences? That your experience somehow supplants, by your learning psychology, can replace the depth to which one experience their own times when dignity and respect went out the window, and you felt how that respect for life must be given?? Shall I tell you what "your dreams" mean to you?
It requires then a book "about life?" A way to measure "how truthful one is to them self."
By such selection, the future then becomes a progressive one by "adoption of principle." That we can change by recognizing the weight of the decision and conscience we assume by such selection. It may not be the same for someone else, yet it is by such selection that we do in fact determine our future.
So the measure is "an idea of scale." Whose scale? Definition is open then to what an individual believes is their sin or death bed confession. The seriousness with which they have acted in their own life. How is this measured? Truth to self?
Truth, on one side of the scale, is the feather. The heart is your principals in life. How weighted our/your description as one examines the deathbed confession. That we assign this time, to any time other then just death?
That's the hidden message in that picture as I have come to understand it. Then, you can assign color to weight and think what colour are the thoughts that surround me and how am I held to this world of matter?
A interesting story, one way, or the other. Somebody who sits in judgment "other then yourself?" Why do you think we are tied to circumstance and our futures?