The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism

Picked up some interesting "light" reading for the weekend.. A major article in Environmental Politics

The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism
Environmental Politics: vol 17, No.3; June 2008, page 349 -385

Article abstract:

"Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed "sceptics" claim to be unbiased analysts combating "junk science" This study QUANTITATIVELY analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical BOOKS published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 PERCENT of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are LINKED TO CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS (CTTs). Further, we analyze CTTs involved with environmental issues and that 90 PER CENT of them ESPOUSE ENVIRONMENTAL SCEPTICISM. We conclude that SCEPTICISM IS A TACTIC OF AN ELITE-DRIVEN COUNTER-MOVEMENT DESIGNED TO COMBAT ENVIRONMENTALISM, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection."

        The stats are revealing to say the least :-0

        92 percent (that's 12 out of 13!!) of  environmentally "sceptical" books are linked to conservative think tanks, reactionary propaganda machines.

        Flipping things over and considering CTTs actually INVOLVED IN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: 90% - or 9 out of 10 - take the side of reactionary agitation-propaganda ("espouse environmental scepticism") Talk about loadin' the dice in one direction..
  
Here's the pdf file:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644010802055576

        It's not as long as it looks. At least half the pages are tabulations: Conservative Think Tanks (CTTs) with their noses into environmental issues, anti-environment publications and their affiliations with CTTs. For this type of publication - academic, in the social sciences - it's actually a fairly decent read (mercifully low on jargon..) 

                          large scale solar energy production: Spain

       What is aggravating to me is not so much the dissemination of lies per se but the fact that the that the CTT attack on environmentalism is a de facto attack on Green Energy and all that implies: 
 
       Green Energy has the potential to create a freer, more participatory, more just, more egalitarian society. For example, contrary to CTT lies, Green Energy actually tends to create more jobs per dollar invested than fossil energy or nukes (which are capital / infrastructure heavy and manpower light).

       Green Energy is well suited to decentralized, locally owned and controlled implementation which, in my mind, fosters more participatory, empowered communities. Fossil fuel and nuclear energy foster centralized power structures which suck life, cohesion, political clout and conviviality out of local communities.

       Green Energy is more environmentally friendly (in terms of climate, human and ecosystem health and also, often, in terms of aesthetic beauty).

       If you are still sitting on the fence regarding the reality of climate change you should read this paper and peruse the table of anti-environment publications and their links to CTTs, Table 1. Or Table 2, environmentally concerned CTTs and their position (negative, "sceptical") toward environmental issues: climate change, habitat protection, worker safety.. The CTT agenda is really quite clear: clear the decks for the uninhibited profit making of large multinationals. These companies, through their powerful lobbies, have their arms up the backsides of national politicians just about everywhere (maybe not so much North Korea, but that's an exception..)

        The Union of Concerned Scientists (USA) has this to say concerning the linkages between climate "scepticism" and fossil fuel controlled Right wing think tanks:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html#.V6jikKJApQI 

Fascism: control or seizure of the State by the corporate elite.

        My favorite definition of fascism.. We're not where fascist Europe was in the 1930s yet, but we're headed there..

          In reality, the corporate agenda has been clearly stated by New Right on numerous occasions.. for those who have ears to hear. According to the authors, several factors converged to launch the concerted, corporate driven, anti-environment movement post-1990. The first was the sudden, unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union (and of what was left of communism globally). The resulting power vacuum deprived the Right of the Communist / Socialist /"godless atheist" bogeyman which had served so well to scare the "masses" into ideological compliance. The problem was solved by replacing the Red Scare of the now defunct Cold War era by the Green Scare of the dawning millennium. Such a reconfiguration of political theater was rendered plausible by the emergence of environmental concern as a geopolitical force after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. 

       Anyone who grew up in the emotionally charged Cold War era in the States, as I did, will recognize

- the fanatical hatred, 

- the brazen and cynical manipulation of populist sentiment (often under the guise of patriotism), 

- and the  craven sacrifice of objectivity to self-interested corporate business agendas. 

       During the Cold War era Right wing propaganda was directed against "leftists", "commies", "socialists", "liberals", feminists and civil rights activists - anyone, in short, who was not a craven supporter of the militaristic, protofascist American Right. Today the invective and lies are directed against those struggling for an ecologically viable planet to pass on to the next generation. The goals of the Red Scare and the Green Scare seem similar though, 

- the maximization of profits for multinational corporations and their shareholders, 

- the furtherance of social inequities, 

- the suppression of true democratic voices.. 

        Some people might find it curious that a goal might be the furtherance of social inequities, given the negative impacts these create: higher crime rates and infant mortality, with reduced national life expectancy, social cohesion and socio-economic mobility (the much-loved and emulated "American Dream"). In addition, psychologists have shown that social status is a very weak indicator of self-reported "happiness" (only 10% of the "variance" in happiness is due to social status while genetics and self-effort account, about equally, for the other 90%). Looked at from the perspective of the multinational, however, sharpening the sense of social status and linking status to "ostentatious rank-identifying consumption" is a sure-fired money maker for multinationals.

http://mecteam.blogspot.ca/2008/04/herv-kempf-how-rich-are-destroying.html

Lac Mégantic inferno: Transport Safety Board's damning report indicts deregulation

           The following article gives a neat, concise overview of the Transport Safety Board's report on the Lac Mégantic, Québec, train derailment of July, 2013, which killed 47 people.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lac-megantic-report-the-five-recommendations/article20108023/

            Basically, as we have harped upon repeatedly in this blog, the neoconservative ideology and it's obsessional deregulation policies have created a situation in which the costs of deregulation are beginning to outrun whatever savings they initially provided.

            Koan: deregulation is like salt, too little you die, too much you die.

 

               Here's the trick for the koan. Because our bodies need sodium and chloride, if you don't get enough salt, you die young. But past a certain dosage - which varies from one person to another - too much salt can cause you heart problem so with too much you die young. It's the same with deregulation. Too much and you stifle creativity and innovation, etc. Too little and 47 innocent people die in an absurd conflagration in the middle of a Saturday's night's dancing..

                   The implication: for each industry there is some, broadly defined, "optimal" level of regulation (see Figure above). There is not so much red tape and bureaucracy that creativity and investment are stifled, taxes are not wasted in nested bureaucratic loops and people do not die needlessly from accidents or intoxications that need not have happened..

internal blog links, keyword: budget cuts - 13 entries

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/harpers-anti-keynesean-cuts-create-jobs.html 

here was a truly wonderful program axed apparently for purely "ideological" reasons although the reasoning rather escapes me. The young people working for Katimavik were learning to develop personal initiative while building a strong bond of national unity across the country, supposedly Conservative values!!

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/rip-29-march-2012.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/03/experimental-lakes-areas-curious-episode.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-plea-for-fundamental-scientific.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/05/you-gets-what-you-pays-for.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/03/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html 

Deregulation blues: anatomy of an inferno

          Lac Mégantic, Québec, July 6, 2013: a driverless train carrying highly volatile crude oil from Bakken (N. Dakota) shale oil deposits, careens into the town center at high speed in the early morning hours. It derails, spilling oil. The oil ignites during the crash and 47 people are burned to death in the conflagration.

internal blog links: keyword - Lac Megantic (6 entries), the most pertinent being:

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/07/petro-transport-rail-or-pipeline.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-praise-of-folly-you-get-what-you-pay.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/08/beating-dead-horse-deregulation-why-it.html 

 http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/10/lac-megantic-2-sequel.html


              The federal Transport Safety Board recently released a report with recommendations. Some improvements in rail security - affecting the entire integrated Canado-american rail system have already been implemented:

"Changes have already been enacted, including tougher standards for the DOT-111 tanker cars that were involved in the Lac-Mégantic crash. The DOT-111s are considered the workhorse of the North American railway system."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lac-m%C3%A9gantic-report-to-be-final-act-for-tsb-chair-wendy-tadros-1.2735158 

             However all is not as rosy as might appear at first blush. Attempts by journalists to obtain details about the circumstances leading up to the crash - records of inspections of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic rail (MMA) in particular - through freedom of access to information legislation have met with bureaucratic stone walls. Accessed documentation is heavily redacted on the basis of "confidentiality of third party information" or a desire "not to interfere with ongoing judicial proceedings". What has been obtained, though, paints a picture of an industry suffering from a lack of adequate regulatory procedures. MMA was found to be in dereliction of various safety and maintenance codes on a number of occasions. Fine, OK, no one is perfect - but why the hell didn't the government take action against MMA's owners to enforce compliance? We are talking about regulations to assure public security, after all. Is this more blowback from the Harper government's neoconservative ideological stance of laissez-faire capitalism: any goddam thing industry wants is OK? Including - perhaps - burning 47 people to death.. (until the people have had enough, of course..)


 http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/08/15/transport_canada_keeping_secret_details_mma_safety_inspections.html

               An investigation by Radio-Canada (the French language arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) revealed what I personally consider to be shocking dereliction of duty on the federal officials charged with regulating rail safety. The investigation even raised the troubling question of who, exactly, does the government of Canada receive its marching orders from. "The two person rule" in the following quote refers to the traditional practice of having two engineers per train so that each can monitor the other's compliance with safety regulations. The idea is to reduce the probability of human error.

"A Radio-Canada investigation by Enquete has shed new light on the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring that gave MMA its exemption from the two-person crew rule.

MMA applied to Transport Canada in 2009 for permission to operate with one-person crews as it was doing across the border in Maine. Transport Canada officials opposed this request because of the company’s history of safety violations.

A year later, a Transport Canada audit of MMA revealed major deficiencies in its performance and procedures, including train inspections and brake tests.

Yet MMA returned with the same request in 2011. Transport Canada’s Montreal officials again opposed the request saying, 'We consider that this major change in its operations would expose the crew and surrounding communities to greater risk.'

At this point the CEO of MMA’s Canadian subsidiary wrote to the industry lobby, the Railway Association of Canada, complaining about Montreal office opposition. A senior RAC official promised to “make some calls.” This intervention apparently succeeded because MMA got permission in 2012 — over the objection of public servants and the union — to run its trains with one-person crews.

Who made this decision and on what grounds" (emphasis added)

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/02/27/lacmgantic_time_for_an_independent_inquiry.html

           Sooo... If I get that correctly, Ed Burkhardt, the former owner of MMA, did not like the fact he was refused the privilege of running trains carrying dangerous cargoes on decrepit rail lines with only one engineer aboard. Ed called his buddies at the Railway Association of Canada - an industry lobby group - and these dudes "arranged things" with "some calls" - presumably to federal regulators (??) and Ed got his way. That's neat! And 47 people burned to death. Obviously, one cannot prove cause and effect, any more than one can "prove" that a given freak weather system is due to global warming. One can only assign probabilities..

           And that's where things get sticky. Generally speaking, post mortems of major accidents like the Lac Mégantic conflagration reveal that such accidents are the results of rare combinations of events occurring in a fortuitous chain ("bad luck"). Safety therefore should involve reducing the probability of error at each potential step of error. Thus two engineers versus one so that one can check on the work of the other. In some cases, safety involves pre-emptively removing entire links in the potential chain of error. The MMA train that crashed into the Lac Mégantic town center was left unintended and on a slight incline. It's brakes failed - after firefighters had put out a small fire aboard the engine and left the scene - causing it to roll downhill several miles, gathering speed.. One could have eliminated a link or two in the chain of errors by assuring, for example, that trains with dangerous loads are not left unintended overnight and that they are not parked on a gradient. But neoconservative "business-is-always-right" ideology cuts corners on safety measures to maximize profits in privatized industries (like the rail industry). But now we are beginning to discover the "hidden costs" - the "externalities" as the economists like to say - of neoconservative policies. 47 people died. 

"Why did Transport Canada — despite repeated Transportation Safety Board warnings that DOT-111 tank cars, which punctured and exploded at Lac-Mégantic, were unsafe for transporting crude oil — not take strong measures to mandate their replacement?"

               And be assured, things will only get worse, not better unless the public demands better of our elected officials:

"The recent federal budget contains no increase in regulatory resources.

To my knowledge, as of mid-September 2013 there were 35 transportation of dangerous goods inspectors for all modes of transport.

Meanwhile, crude oil shipments increased from 500 carloads in 2009 to 160,000 in 2013. They’re projected to double by the end of this year. 

This is the equivalent of one inspector for every 4,500 carloads of crude oil, up from one per 14 in 2009. By the end of this year, it will be one per 9,000 carloads." 

                 Deregulation blues: cuts in regulation cause errors to pile up on errors..

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/low-cost-repair-linked-to-engine-fire/article20091811/ 
  
                  When will the public decide that it has had enough of this madness..

Lac Mégantic 2: The Sequel

            It's like one of those horror movies where a nightmare repeats itself. One weekend evening this summer a runaway train carrying high volatility petroleum smashed into the town center of Lac Mégantic Québec, overturned, caught fire and exploded, releasing a sea of burning oil over the town center where people were celebrating the end of the work week in pubs, taverns, cafés. 47 were burnt beyond recognition and had to be identified by DNA.

            Now it's happening all over again in Gainford, Alberta. Only, this time they were luckier! No one died but people were evacuated for several days - stressing! - and their land is now contaminated. Long term environmental damage has yet to be assessed. It's still early days..
 
           
internal blog links:

The following link itself contains several backlinks dealing with the blowback from radical, ideologically driven deregulation.

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/08/beating-dead-horse-deregulation-why-it.html
 
              When will we wake up and smell the coffee? Transport of petroleum products by rail has increased "exponentially" over the past decade. Meanwhile, meanwhile.. deregulation (driven by neoconservative ideology, NOT by actual need) has gutted regulatory mechanisms whose function was to maintain public security. In a pathetic attempt to win libertarian, anti-government support by penny pinching at the regulatory level, the rail industry was asked to self-regulate. Is that not a formula for disaster?

report_pins_blame_on_weak_government_regulation.
          

beating a dead horse: deregulation, why it no longer works

            Early Saturday morning, July 6th, 2013, a runaway driverless train, loaded with light crude oil, crashed at high speed into the town center of Lac Mégantic, Québec. It overturned, spilling oil which ignited and creating a general conflagration which obliterated the town center. 47 people died in the fiery apocalypse that morning.

            The rail carrier, Montreal Maine and Atlantic railway (MMA) is a small regional carrier, typical of the deregulated rail industry which resulted from the breakup of our great national carriers several decades ago. "All in the name of Efficiency" we were told - and now we see the results.. Efficiency and Profit are jealous gods and Molochs to which the finest fruits of the earth must be sacrificed..

            MMA has, in the wake of the Lac Mégantic disaster, filled for bankruptcy. And for good reason: their insurance coverage amounts to about $25 million. The clean up of Lac Mégantic alone will cost a cool $200 M, eight times MMA's coverage. And then there's the lawsuits..

             Deregulation of the rail industry has meant what exactly? Well, the federal government does less inspection. Instead of making rules with penalties, it issues inspiring "guidelines" which railways are more or less free to interpret as they will. We have, it is rumored, fallen into a bog of shoddiness that would shame a third world country with a tinhorn dictator (propped up by the CIA, usually). The feds, it is said, knew for years that MMA was close to insolvency, without adequate insurance and a rotten safety record to boot..

             The future does not look brighter. While standards head south, oil heads north (from the Bakken shale oil fields in the US Dakotas in the case of the Lac Mégantic conflagration). Unbeknown to the innocent public, oil shipments have risen astronomically in the past decade. This does not bode well given the evident sloppiness and cavalier attitudes toward safety regulations which deregulation has brought in its wake.

oil-shipments-have-increased-28-000-per-cent-since-2009

             At this point in the game, the Québec government is doing all it can to recuperate some, at least, of the cost of the clean up and reconstruction. Lawsuits are flying thick and heavy and some big players, with deeper pockets than MMA, are being named. Canadian Pacific Rail, for example (in effect, MMA was merely a subcontractor hired by a major shipper - the lawsuits target those who hired MMA to carry their oil).

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-wants-cp-railway-to-help-pay-for-lac-megantic-cleanup-1.1411159

             Deregulation no longer works in our present economic and regulatory environment. It has degenerated from the rank of common sense to that of ideology - always a dangerous sign. As in most things, moderation seems the best policy. Deregulation is fine as long as you really are "cutting out the fat". But no process can continue unabated in one direction without danger. Failure to regulate when regulation is called for actually results in increased costs. Why? Because the damage done by incompetents and crooks ends up exceeding the money you saved in the first place by "cutting fat".. As granny used to say: penny wise, pound foolish..

mma_railway_had_poor_safety_record_in_USA

internal blog links:

 http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/07/petro-transport-rail-or-pipeline.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-praise-of-folly-you-get-what-you-pay.html

In praise of folly: you get what you pay for.

         There is an old category of wise saying: you get what you pay for. Or as the Romans put it: caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. Or again: don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Our contemporary dominant ideology refuses to admit this wisdom. By cutting "bureaucratic fat" - government services - neoconservative ideologues hope to stimulate the economy by making the rich richer while contributing even less to the common good. The (obviously) self-serving formula is that since "business is more efficient than government" (an unproven premise), real wealth will "trickle down" to the lower levels of society at a lesser cost than inefficient government bureaucracy could provide equivalent services. Also known as The Golden Shower..

          There are many unexamined presuppositions in this bit of neocon ideology: why, for example, how did government end up doing the things neocons want to privatize? Perhaps government ended up providing the service because it 1- was needed (health care, education, prisons, commercial and safety regulations, highways, defense, potable water,..) and 2- private enterprise was found either incapable or unwilling to provide it effectively. In other words, it got dumped on government exactly because the private sector could not do an adequate job. If this historical perspective is indeed still correct we should expect to find more and more private - public initiatives failing to meet the terms of their contracted engagements. Services will be deficient in terms of quality, cost, or availability. And this is exactly the pattern we have seen emerge..

          In some cases, such as education, health care, and safety regulations, we are discovering that the costs incurred after budget cutting are actually greater than the saving obtained by "cutting fat from the bureaucracy". We have become as our grannies used to say, "penny wise and pound foolish". Consider the tragic case of the Lac Mégantic train wreck, for evidence:

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/07/petro-transport-rail-or-pipeline.html

          In recent decades, both Liberal and Conservative governments have set their compasses by the dominant USA inspired Neoconservative or Free Market Ideology. Government deregulated and privatized the railroads, selling off national rail lines and cutting the number of federal rail inspectors. In addition, government began issuing safety "guidelines" to rail companies. In practice, this meant the rail companies were more or less free to implement these guidelines any way they liked. In the deregulated climate of the last three decades this also meant that corners got cut. Profit not service or safety became the number one priority. Meanwhile government, due to the Free Market ideology they embraced, grew compliant and even complacent about the corner cutting. The actual cost of this corner cutting, it now appears, will be a lot steeper than Free Market ideologues foresaw. 

          An early July morning, 2013, Lac Mégantic, Québec: an unmanned freight train carrying crude oil plows into the town center at 1 am in the morning, derailing and engulfing the town center in a river of burning crude oil. The fiery holocaust burned approximately 50 innocent people to death, inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars of economic damage, destroyed sites of historic value and caused immense environmental damage (we are only just starting to find out about that!). It also revealed the intrinsic flaws of an ecologically unsound and now (obviously) failing industrial system of production.

            In a backhanded admission that they got things terribly wrong we read that the feds have released six new rules based on "common sense" which, if they had been in place, would have made it very unlikely that the Lac Mégantic disaster would have happened. That's wonderful to know that 6 simple steps - that cost nothing or close to it - could indeed have prevented the loss of about fifty lives and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic loss. But why the hell weren't they in operation the night of terror? Penny wise, pound foolish..

http://o.canada.com/2013/07/24/new-train-safety-rules-common-sense-says-industry/

http://o.canada.com/2013/07/18/federal-officials-question-insurance-coverage-of-mma-railway-following-lac-megantic-disaster/

           Thus, we learn just how lax things have really become in Neocon Lalalotus Land. The government, if I understand correctly, does not actually know for sure (and had to ask!) if Montréal Maine Atlantic rail had insurance sufficient to cover such an event.

           As stated above, "penny wise, pound foolish" is a stupid philosophy to live by when viewed from a utilitarian perspective. It becomes positively immoral, and morally unacceptable, when lives are placed in danger. Once again, the death toll in the Lac Mégantic conflagration is nearly 50, an exceedingly heavy toll in a community of 6,000. What cost do you place on human life..

          According to a recent Montréal Gazette article, 5.7 million litres of crude are still missing and not accounted for: they are in the soil and water of Lac Mégantic and environs. If these figures turn out to be correct this may the biggest oil spill in North America outside of seafloor well blowouts. Decontamination will be a big job, a complex job and a long job which, of course, means a costly job - hence the importance of assuring that rail transporters and rail lines carry adequate insurance, duh..

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/million+litres+spilled+M%C3%A9gantic/8693863/story.html

            Why did we elect these people? That is the question I imagine historians and thesis students in the future scratching their heads in wonderment over.. Why?.. Why, what were those people back then thinking, did they think, were they capable of thinking?..

Petro-transport: rail or pipeline? - Apocalypse in small town Québec

         Here is the human face of nonsustainable development based on fossil fuel energy. Early Saturday morning, July 6th, 2013, a runaway driverless train, loaded with light crude oil, crashed at high speed into the town center of Lac Mégantic, Québec. It overturned, spilling oil which ignited and creating a general conflagration which obliterated the town center. Even if you don't speak French, the following 10 minute youtube video is worth watching for the emotional adrenaline and the visual effect. It even catches a bit of the mesmerizing, hypnotic quality of great fires which draw onlookers like a magnet with their surrealistic kinetics and infinite gradations of color and texture.

            This then, dear reader, is the high price we pay for non-sustainable development (or "pseudo-development" as I prefer to put it). We desperately need to develop new, cleaner sources of energy! And sooner, rather than later. Ironically these "new" sources are not lacking: all that is lacking is political will. Today, one can only ask: how many more holocausts like this will it take.. (And as a friend worries: and when the masses finally do wake up, might it not be too late to do anything.. ouch!)

http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2013/07/09/lac-megantic--de-nouvelles-images-terrifiantes#.UdxmC8w_UdA.facebook

             As of this writing, 50 persons are missing and presumed dead. Thirty five bodies, charred beyond recognition, have been recovered, more than a week later. Few have been identified. Much of the town center (population 6000) has been effaced. Landmarks, including historic architecture and the town library, are gone - forever (a replacement is not the original..) The town library was a regional archival center. All that local history lost..

             Some people, of course, don't want pipelines - "not in my backyard!" Yet, statistically speaking, rail transport is even more risky and about three times more expensive. The alternative - "the road not chosen" - is to reduce our consumption of oil with alternative energy sources which have less environmental - and human - impact.           

            The rail company behind this accident, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic, looks like a vulture, buying up failing regional rails. Their reputation is terrible. There have been many complaints of breakages, leaks, spills, noise and indifference to public complaints from residents of Lac Mégantic and environs long before this catastrophe. The complaints fell on deaf ears. The bottom line appears to be all that counts, either for corporations in the current deregulated market economy or for the spineless governments that service them. According to some accounts I heard, even the very rail line itself is falling apart in places. Another problem was the fact that heavy trains with dangerous cargoes were passing within about 30 feet or so of residences. This is insane..
  

              As one might expect, it's a "complicated" story with multiple finger pointing starting already.

              The train - with one driver only - stopped at a town, several miles distant. The driver should have set both air brakes and manual brakes. One locomotive (of 5) was left running to keep pressure up in the air brakes. The driver checked into a hotel for the night. All this was "standard practice".

             During the night, for unknown reasons, a fire started on the front of the train. What followed is contested by different parties. A volunteer fire fighter team put out the fire (which involved turning off the running locomotive, possibly decoupling it from the train and various other manipulations). Before the firefighters left they encountered representatives of the rail company who insured them that all was in order.

             Then, once again for unknown reasons, in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 6th, the driverless train rolled down the slope it was parked on. 

              Why was it parked on a slope in the first place?

              Why, given that train was carrying hazardous material, was it "standard practice" to leave it unattended with one locomotive running all night?.

               At any rate, the rogue train gathered speed over a distance of several miles and rolled into the center of Lac Mégantic at a frightful rate (some say over 60 mph making buildings shake and awakening sleepers). It derailed in the town center, oil was spilled and ignited somehow. The rest is history.

              People seem very angry over this one because of the traditional arrogance and indifference of the rail company to complaints and safety issues.

              Of course, regardless of where the blame lies, 50 people are dead and numerous families and businesses have been devastated. Economic costs will be astronomic as the town center was blown away. No one has a handle on the ecological damage yet but it promises to be severe, perhaps irreparable in places. Oil and toxic combustion products are said to have saturated the soil to a depth of eight feet, for example. Local aquatic ecosystems - lake and river - are affected, but to what degree no one knows. Tourism is down, with numerous cancellations throughout the region. The longterm knock on effects will last for perhaps a decade, amplifying the costs of the initial accident several fold. And these are only the monetary costs. Add to that the "cost" of bereavement, stress related medical costs, post traumatic syndrome.. 

              An event like the Lac Mégantic conflagration can be approached from a number of viewpoints and perspectives. Beyond the heartrending human tragedies it is easy to see the accident as the more or less inevitable result of an eternal conflict of values. One the one hand, there are the values of profit and individual "autonomy" and, on the other, the "Common Good" and a felt obligation to pass on to our children a planet in as good shape as the one we inherited from our parents. Only in our time - due to the intensity of modern technology, ideological shifts and the pressure of overpopulation - has this eternal conflict reached truly apocalyptic dimensions.

               What is actually shaping the balance of forces between "individual freedom" and the "Common Good" are ideological considerations. Despite conventional denials, North America is actually under an ideological regime as rigid as that of the former Soviet Union but vastly more sophisticated. So sophisticated, says critic Yuri Orlov, that we don't even know someone is pulling our strings. Soviet propaganda was ridiculed by the people, behind closed doors. Our propaganda system, which trains us to mindlessly consume things we don't really need, actually gives us the appearance of delivering what is promised. Only recently have people have people begun to challenge received neoconservative, Market Forces, ideology: the Occupy Movements could be read as a recent symptom of simmering discontent.

               On the whole, though, most people probably still believe in the (North) American Dream: that a "little man" though his own efforts, if he is made of the Right Stuff, can make it big or, at least, "move up in society" so that his children will live better. This dream has, of course, been an illusion for decades as high quality North American jobs were shipped overseas to third world sweatshops - to the disadvantage of workers in both the first and third world. It's the old "divide and conquer" strategy, obviously..

               We have lost the wisdom of the framers of the American Constitution. They believed in "separation powers" so as to avoid the abuse of power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

                Today, deregulated industries like the railways, decide how they will implement government guidelines. True, some money is saved upstream in the form of bureaucratic cuts. But the last few decades have also increasingly shown us that pennies saved by cutting public services cab turn into dollars of accumulating costs downstream. We have become in the wisdom of our grandmothers: penny wise and pound foolish. Our ideology cost us more than it saves us. It is only in the case of apocalypses like that of Lac Mégantic, that we are confronted with truly stupefying actuarial statistics: how much, exactly, is a human life worth..