Should you go to prison if you pollute the environment?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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The Sticks, Northeast PA.
The EU voted to criminalized wanton environmental pollution. Supposedly, if your company dumps toxic waste into a river, you might get a fine. If you're like most large polluters, you sell off your assets, and declare bankruptcy, then leave it up to the State to bank roll the cost of recovery. Do you think you should do some time if you pollute with toxins and waste?
The EU voted to criminalize wanton environmental pollution.
AGREEMENT REACHED! EU to criminalise severe environmental harms "comparable to ecocide" — Stop Ecocide International.
 

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fuzzybuddy said:
The EU voted to criminalized wanton environmental pollution. Supposedly, if your company dumps toxic waste into a river, you might get a fine. If you're like most large polluters, you sell off your assets, and declare bankruptcy, then leave it up to the State to bank roll the cost of recovery. Do you think you should do some time if you pollute with toxins and waste?
The EU voted to criminalize wanton environmental pollution.
AGREEMENT REACHED! EU to criminalise severe environmental harms "comparable to ecocide" — Stop Ecocide International.
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It's all about scale. Personally I could pollute the environment. Shell have a far greater ability to do so.

It's about time polluters were held to account. Check out what goes on in India. Giving free reign to big industry isn't on.
 

do you pollute? well then, be prepared to suffer the conquences! somewhere, some how there's gotta be some accountability. 😭😭 now come on, everybody, pledge now to protect and preserve our planet...
 
I say yes. A hundred years ago or maybe even fifty years ago a case could be made for ignorance of consequences. Those days are well in the past, the majority of the world knows the consequences of pollution, from major corporations right down to the guy changing his oil in the garage.

Is prison appropriate? I say yes in severe cases or repeat offenders.
 
In the olden days, when you polluted or drained or tore down the environment, the government would come in, smack your hand and fine you. The fines were merely built into the cost of building.

Now, they tend to make you replace what you've torn down.

The husband of a former co-worker of mine went into the business of "wet-land reconstruction". When a contractor has illegally drained a wetland, often they are required to return it to its original condition. How? Well, since you just can't go to Home Depot and pick up a wetland, they have to turn to the reconstructors.

The reconstructor leases non-sensitive wetlands and grows the required aquatic plants in an approved manner, replanting and growing new ones constantly. Water is then pumped back into the drained wetland and the new aquatic plants that have been harvested from the growing ponds are put into the denuded areas. It costs the contractors lots and lots and lots of money to have this done (a whole lot more than they would have been formerly fined), thus providing a good incentive not to drain the wetlands in the first place.

Same thing with trees. When the contractors have illegally cut down mature trees, they can't be replaced with the same trees but they can be required to them with trees that are as mature as can be provided. Once again, we're talking a LOT of money to do this. No more piddly-a$$ fines. BIG money has to be spent.

Hooray!!!
 
fuzzybuddy said:
The EU voted to criminalized wanton environmental pollution. Supposedly, if your company dumps toxic waste into a river, you might get a fine. If you're like most large polluters, you sell off your assets, and declare bankruptcy, then leave it up to the State to bank roll the cost of recovery. Do you think you should do some time if you pollute with toxins and waste?
The EU voted to criminalize wanton environmental pollution.
AGREEMENT REACHED! EU to criminalise severe environmental harms "comparable to ecocide" — Stop Ecocide International.
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That's what has happened in Alberta, Canada. When oil wells are tapering off on production, the big companies 'bundled them', sold them off to smaller companies at bargain prices and those companies pumped a little more out of them and then abandoned them. Probably went bankrupt to protect themselves too. And now Canadian citizens are on the hook for cleaning them up and sealing the pipes, etc.

So far, there are about 300,000 abandoned oil/gas wells (each leaking methane into the atmosphere or toxins into the water table) and the estimated cost to clean them up is about $55 billion. So far, the federal government has committed $1.7 billion to the effort.

I'm sure that when those original owners got permission to drill, they must have signed to an agreement that they'd clean up their mess when they were done, but I suppose they get away with doing nothing, because they're no longer the owners. I don't think that's fair at all, and in the meantime, both the provincial and federal government are handing over $billions in subsidies every year.
 
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Mr. Ed said:
Should you go to prison for smoking tobacco because of air pollution?
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People who smoke didn't sign contracts where they made promises not to pollute and to clean up after themselves. Oil company execs do sign contracts like that. Nations of laws have a responsibility to uphold those laws, those contracts......but the companies involved, those execs have lawyers who find the loopholes. The point where the law is ambiguous and unclear.
 
the reality is many of the clean up or offset terms these companies get are often not checked on or finished most government loves to says these folks were fined x amount of dollars and must do this or that for MOST public they seem fine with that narrative but check on progress at 6 month or year intervals they may see how the " punishment" was really carried out. example below

MSN

The nation’s largest public EV charging network was created by court order. In 2016, the year after Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” emissions scandal came to light, the German carmaker agreed to make amends by spending $2 billion building electric car chargers and encouraging electric vehicle adoption. The goal was to compensate society for the air pollution created by Volkswagen’s faulty engines — and to pepper the nation with EV chargers.
In the years since, the company that arose from that settlement — Electrify America — has built thousands of charging ports across the country, from the visitor center of the Grand Canyon to Newark.

But advocates say many of those chargers, which are intended to help shift the nation to electric cars, don’t work. Those nonfunctioning chargers, they argue, are slowing the transition to electric cars — and violating the original purpose of the settlement agreement Volkswagen reached with the government.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Fined the first 2 times
3rd time you should do time
Not sure if the jails could accommodate that though
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That would be a good idea, but the province I live in is Canada's top oil producer and our Premier is those executives best friend so she'd never let it happen if she had any say. It would have to be federal charges.
 
Jeni said:
the reality is many of the clean up or offset terms these companies get are often not checked on or finished most government loves to says these folks were fined x amount of dollars and must do this or that for MOST public they seem fine with that narrative but check on progress at 6 month or year intervals they may see how the " punishment" was really carried out. example below

MSN

The nation’s largest public EV charging network was created by court order. In 2016, the year after Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” emissions scandal came to light, the German carmaker agreed to make amends by spending $2 billion building electric car chargers and encouraging electric vehicle adoption. The goal was to compensate society for the air pollution created by Volkswagen’s faulty engines — and to pepper the nation with EV chargers.
In the years since, the company that arose from that settlement — Electrify America — has built thousands of charging ports across the country, from the visitor center of the Grand Canyon to Newark.

But advocates say many of those chargers, which are intended to help shift the nation to electric cars, don’t work. Those nonfunctioning chargers, they argue, are slowing the transition to electric cars — and violating the original purpose of the settlement agreement Volkswagen reached with the government.
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We have an EV and our first trip from Alberta to Vancouver, obviously we had to stop a bunch of times and we never had any problems once we figured out how to find the chargers and use them. Bit of a learning curve. And if you're having problems getting it started, there's a number to call on the machines and the support people are magnificent.

And most people are charging at home, so....

Our car is one of the less expensive models, so it charges slower and it actually forced us or should I say, gave us the opportunity to go for a walk around the little towns we were charging in. We took the dog for a walk, and discovered little neat shops and coffee places, instead of just zooming off after filling up with gas like we'd always done before. So it's not all bad.
 
Debrah N. said:
That would be a good idea, but the province I live in is Canada's top oil producer and our Premier is those executives best friend so she'd never let it happen if she had any say. It would have to be federal charges.
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I live in Canada also. A beautiful clean country that needs someone elected who actually has personal integrity and care for our country. Our country isn’t anyone’s personal garbage can. People should have more respect for others around them and their own environment. Who wants to live in filth.
 
Fines don't work.

We have a problem in the UK with water companies dumping raw sewage into our rivers. Why don't we fine them? We do. But, turns out it's financially better for the companies to pay the fine than fix the problem for good. Fining multi-billion dollar companies is a waste of time. Even if you hit them with a huge fine, they just increase the cost of their product to the consumer and make us pay for it........
 
Debrah N. said:
We have an EV and our first trip from Alberta to Vancouver, obviously we had to stop a bunch of times and we never had any problems once we figured out how to find the chargers and use them. Bit of a learning curve. And if you're having problems getting it started, there's a number to call on the machines and the support people are magnificent.

And most people are charging at home, so....

Our car is one of the less expensive models, so it charges slower and it actually forced us or should I say, gave us the opportunity to go for a walk around the little towns we were charging in. We took the dog for a walk, and discovered little neat shops and coffee places, instead of just zooming off after filling up with gas like we'd always done before. So it's not all bad.
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I am glad it is working for you... here in states it is a crap shoot if you find a charger it is still working... many are vandalized or just not working correctly.
My point in post was not anti electric cars but simply a Solution ...............worked out with a polluter does not always work out but many people read the original settlement and think great this will be done ... but often does not live up to the original promise/ agreement of the settlement. FOLLOWUP is key
 
Seems everyone is going to jail for something these days. There's gotta be other solutions like education!

No I don't think people should go to jail for polluting among a host of other things.
 
Ruthanne said:
Seems everyone is going to jail for something these days. There's gotta be other solutions like education!

No I don't think people should go to jail for polluting among a host of other things.
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So what? Fines?
 

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