NYT said this about the Mitsubishi plant:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/busin ... nvironment
The company and Malaysian regulators said that it was statistically possible that the leukemia cases were a coincidence because tin mining towns tend to have above-average levels of background radiation. But an academic study of another tin mining town suggested that communities of Bukit Merah’s size should only have one leukemia case every 30 years.
I am also not sure the studies correctly identify the affected population, since if they did, the numbers would not support any need for cleanups or closures. Or anything at all.
Thanas wrote:Let us not pretend the Chinese decided to stop rare earths due to environmental impact. They did so because they wrongly thought they could control the market and give their industries an advantage. Let us also not pretend that the west forces itself on the third world when it comes to them making products for sale. So far the only Malaysian posting in this thread does seem to be in favor of it.
Sometimes a word is just a word, Thanas. There was an environmental study in the 2010s in China before the legislation was used. Also I am not sure how this gives their industries 'an advantage' - it prevents other nations from reaping all the benefits along while leaving China to handle
all environmental costs of the deal - I think that's only fair. Think of it as of an eco-tax - want to extract something polluting in a nation, be prepared to improve this nation's living standards by indirectly subsidizing it through localization of production chains. Otherwise it is simply a colonial model where the colony is sucked out dry while all the high-tech clean production and final product is in the metropole. I am sure that's not fair in any book.
Besides, paying people to pollute their country instead of yours may be an agreement many in poverty would take, but that doesn't make it moral. Not any more moral than me paying to an African so that he would cut off his limb for my amusement.
Thanas wrote:As to coal mining, I refer you to Alyrium's first post in this thread.
I am not sure Alyrium is perfectly fine with a manifold increase in rare earth mining just to make sure coal mining doesn't kill more entitled people from our industrial civilization. Coal also kills. The so-called 'clean energy' kills too.