Comments (30)

1. Wow, sucks to be the people living in these areas. Ever see Hills Have Eyes?

   posted by Roadrunner on 7-4-2009 at 2:21 pm

2. Just think,If Cap and trade passes,, we will pay for cleaning up this mess…Not the countries who create it….Its so bad Pres. Clinton didnt pass it….

   posted by paul hansen on 8-15-2009 at 10:31 pm

3. paul,

   We created most of the mess in the first place by buying products that require this pollution to be produced. And we allow corporations headquartered in the US to use massively polluting manufacturing practices. We are clearly to blame, so it’s only fair if we pay to clean up.

   Although I’m not sure where you got the argument that we will be cleaning up other countries’ messes…we’ll just consume a little less, hopefully, because energy prices will be higher.

   posted by Boris on 8-21-2009 at 10:44 am

4. This is very disappointing information.
   I am so sadden to live in a world with so much greed and hate.
   All around us, people in positions make decisions that affect a whole nation.
   People that feel they have “entitlement” are never, never, never content.
   And yet they are the ones to pass judgements.
   NOT MY JOHNeY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   posted by Vicky on 8-21-2009 at 12:22 pm

5. So…Ukraine is a city now?!?

   posted by Rob on 8-21-2009 at 5:28 pm

6. Notice how lead is the predominant contaminant? But eco-people buy hybrids like the Prius and Insight and somehow feel like they’re doing their part for the environment. But projecting a green image is much more important than the facts…..

   posted by mike on 8-23-2009 at 12:54 pm

7. I thought they put Ukraine as a city too. But it’s really on the previous line: Chernobyl, Ukraine.

   posted by Xylo on 8-23-2009 at 2:40 pm

8. Chernobyl, Ukraine – read more than one line

   posted by RFH on 8-24-2009 at 2:50 am

9. Hey boris, what type of spoonfed crap have they been feeding you? First, joint efforts of both parties to screw us send the work overseas, and now a mostly democratic (socialistic) run country wants me, who buys only american, to pick up the tab for other countries? We can’t afford to stuff OSAMA wants to put out now, how the hell are we going to do this with other countries?

   posted by Mikahel on 8-24-2009 at 10:29 am

10. Why do people always bring this back to the evil US, give me a break. Russia and eastern block countries are the predominate polluters in this list and the US is not importing a whole lot from those countries so the premise that US consumption drives world pollution is flawed…maybe you should move abroad if you think we’re so evil here. If those countries (cities within) moved towards real democracy and capitalism and away from socialist corruption they would become cleaner just form the natural order of individuals striving for cleaner and healthier homes, neighborhoods, cities etc. Socialism breeds corruption and greed and thus pollution.

    posted by AdamChicago on 8-25-2009 at 12:27 pm

11. A rebutting comment to the comment that Prius and Insights are more image than fact with respect to reducing environmental damage.….. Agreed, hybrid cars are not perfect eco neutral systems, but they don’t use lead batteries for operating power. Furthermore when you consider that a typical auto uses 3 to 5 times its own weight in fuel during its lifetime, the fact that hybrids use so much less gasoline and burn it much more cleanly, they are a lower environmental impact solution than a conventional gasoline driven car.

    posted by Eric Doberstein on 8-28-2009 at 12:26 pm

12. The only ones to blame are the consumers who buy, use, and toss the crap that we “think” we “need” to survive.Is it really just a carbon footprint, or a tech advanced human footprint that we need to focus on.

    posted by s d carmiencke on 8-30-2009 at 8:38 am

13. acutally, it’s the city pripyat in the ukraine which housed the workers for the nearby chernobyl power plant. youtube has a pretty cool 6 part docu-drama about it.

    posted by Shawn Barry on 8-30-2009 at 6:19 pm

14. Mikahel,
    you must do without a lot of things, or alternatively have really expensive things. I doubt the CPU in your computer was made in America, and certain the memory was produced in Taiwan.
    The World Wide Web is Swiss by invention and the Internet was developed by the largest and most expensive branch of the US Government in a socialized attempt to keep us safe from Soviet missiles.
    Even Nixon wanted national health care for everyone.
    “Osama”, clever word play there. Keep up the enlightened discourse.

    posted by Smapdi on 9-3-2009 at 1:39 am

15. I love to read posts like this.
    It shows just how intelligent and/or ignorant American individuals are.
    With 305 M people and the highest purchasing power in the world yes the US directly or indirectly is to blame for a lot of the world pollution since the 2nd world war. Of course not far behind is the European community with 500 M people but it is made up of 27 different countries. Behind the pollution being created in a lot of the developing economies or 3rd world where regulation is loose, corrupt, or simply non-existing there is sure to be an American joint venture of one type or another.
    Now, I would like to see what some of you think or will say when places like India and China with even higher populations reach the consumerism of the USA, and all of sudden you find acid rain raining on your parade. Could you imagine the Amazon rainforest which produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and Brazil itself a growing contributor to world pollution was to bottle it up?

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-3-2009 at 10:34 am

16. ours is a huge country – and large countries are white elephants –

    the most unfortunate thing about our country, speaking as an USAian who has lived abroad and defended my country even as I live here and in order to defend my country i critique it -[ please note, that for the intelligent who use that intelligence constructively, there is an enormous difference between criticism and complaining/moaning/whining/mewling,] is that most of us have never lived outside our own county, nor travelled far nor lived anywhere else, and so naturally they think they live in THE CENTER of the world. One term for this is ‘provincial ignorance’, another is ‘paranoid recluse’, another is ‘child abuse’, for bringing a child into a world of ignorance, hate, small-mindedness, fear of difference.

    small things, like using ss water-bottles and eschewing plastic sandwich bags are a very small good, but it is also a placebo and it is being mistaken for the cure – and mr and mrs Local don’t even know squat from what the problems are, but they are sure the loudest mouth speaks the biggest truth, as long as it agrees with all their own very strong superstitions – which is why some of them are so content to moan about their weight, but do nothing about it (Please pass the fried chicken backs and don’t skimp on the gravy)

    Calling anything they do not like ‘communist’ or socialist’ or ‘dogless’ (godless, you half-wit), basically they all feel they were born white and so why isn’t teh world at their beck and call.

    As it happens, no ‘race’ is immune from this conundrum, nor is any ‘class’ et c. Such behavior really demonstrates what a lack of education, or a poor education can do to/for a populace –

    so anyway, if it wasn’t so ridiculous, some of the comments one sees everywhere, it would be funny to see people make such stupid mistakes, over and over again,

    persons who have never learned to think for themselves, who accept information as absolute truth with no thinking or investigation of their own, using an OPEN mind, can make even the ‘greatest country on earth’ a place made desolate by ignorance, which leads to greed, avarice, our type of capitalism, blah blah blah

    These are the folks who have sucked like a vampire at the optimism and idealism that the whole struggle for our self-determination sought.

    Schools are the first answer – the people want better ones for their children, too much of the ‘powers that be’ only want clones to man their machines in order that the ownership class can own even more, and more, and more,

    to hell with the pacific, we are such a grand country, we’ll just dig our own ocean and install it somewhere in the midwest – maybe we’ll name it the Indian Ocean, for the people we pushed off the land so we could lay industrial and agricultural waste to it, as is our dog-given right (god-given, you half-wit)

    it’ll be the really poorly literate who complain about my grammar, not finding the ain’t’s and duh’s in their own vocabulary, which to each other make them highly understandable, the way you can tell when a dog barks (god, you half-wit) whether he wants to eat or bite you

    and i never really got to my point that the democracy which is the root of our potential to be a republic, is never ever going to function when the ignorant insist that their superstation should be everyone’s science, that belief trumps knowledge, that might equals right, that ends justify the means, all this can only lead to the mean becoming the end of a possibly useful experiment in other circumstances – that is, of a people governing themselves through their representatives

    it has been since about 2nd grade that i have really hated teh dummies who gravitate to the back of the class – and now, at 60, they are still here among us, multiplying, growing ever more belligerent and toxic, fatter and louder and more blonde,

    America, home of the corpulent and truculent –

    quel dommage

    posted by iolo on 9-4-2009 at 11:28 am

17. You noticed China is at the top of the pollution list and will remain so, because in 2012 the USA will be required to buy their CFL’s which are full of mercury. They love it, it produces more money for them. I hate it; I don’t want to accidently drop one and have mercury in my home, you can’t get rid of it. So, perhaps the USA will eventually go on the top 10 list.
    Why do we have to spend more money cleaning up the world? NAFTA pushed all our manufacturing out of this country. We can buy very little product that is made in America so, we are broke and jobless and the so deep in debt we will never see our way out of it. Another proposed program that STINKS.

    We are already paying for the WORLD to get abortions. And now proposing one billion for the Gaza strip.

    I’m wondering just what the government is doing and whose side they are on???

    posted by Jean84 on 9-4-2009 at 3:31 pm

18. Hi Iolo is this what you are talking about (Jean84)?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
    Follow the link and learn.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-4-2009 at 7:49 pm

19. Hey hey

    Lets go back to the stone ages.
    There are pros and cons to everything.
    You want that computer to voice your opinion????
    You think there was no environmental impact in the manufacturing of that device????
    Before you start (or continue) to support the radicals in changing things overnight look around your own backyard and see how much of the things you use everyday you could live without.
    Right now the estimates are $80,000 for each US citizen (nothing for the illegal immagrates) for the debt to “FIX” a couple of the problems.
    We Do Need changes – but look around – What are YOU WILLING to give up????
    I have already lost my job and any decent resemblence of life……
    Hey Buy a hybrid (research the environmental impact of the mining for the battery materials) Stop using Plastic. Way too late for that….
    Stop using oil. Plastics etc. Do I need to comment??? Food – ready to grow your own????
    Are you ready to give up (LOSE) your job.
    Are you ready to watch WAl-MART disappear? Yes? Look at the big picture…..
    Yes I agree we need some changes — but think first.
    What happens when you open your mouth before you think?? Not always a good thing is it??

    posted by the realist on 9-8-2009 at 8:39 am

20. Hey realist follow your own advice.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-8-2009 at 7:39 pm

21. Well said iolo.
    History repeats itself. People adapt & change, if not they perish. Governments never stay the same. Our children inherit our mistakes & successes as we did our parents’. Life goes on and we all die from something. It used to be from plagues, famine, or natural disasters. Now we live a few decades longer and become quite squeamish at our mortality. Let’s give sacrifices to…whatever. god? charities? We over-think yet still rely on religion as a final answer? How primitive of us all.

    posted by Kate on 9-12-2009 at 6:08 pm

22. For all the illogical hatred focused against the United States and our free market economy – often by liberal Americans – plase note that none of these cities are actually in the United States.

    And don’t even try to lay this at the doorstep of American corporations investing abroad. Nearly all of these cities are in China, former Soviet nations, or India. Those have historically been SOCIALIST countries not open to investment by American corporations.

    Could it possibly be that regulated free-market, capitalist economies provide a level of wealth, development, and sophistication that promotes the formation of a middle class and fosters the will and technological capacity to better care for the environment?
    (that is a rhetorical question, the answer is obvious)

    posted by Don on 9-13-2009 at 12:46 pm

23. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
    It seems that I’m quite naive about this subject. I submit the following for consideration obviously this debate has been around for a while.
    Now some are going to dwell on certain aspects of the presentation like the question whether “does God exist or not” or “conspiracy theories fact or fiction” and automatically dismiss it. But I invite you to start simple.
    1st – View it and listen to everything, play it back, make notes but don’t watch it as if it’s just a sitcom or soap opera.
    2nd – After start researching and read opinions about it pros and cons.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist,_the_Movie
    The point here is just too at least consider the simple ideas. Some examples could be:
    - Is war really necessary or counterproductive to humanity?
    - Is the monetary system at the heart of all misery?
    Now you should find yourself actually doing the thinking and the research, not just accepting blindly what you are told is the truth. That’s called forming an opinion and that’s real democracy. Of course there are many for who “thinking and researching” is too difficult or it hurts them so state your situation and don’t just babble on endlessly. Leave it for those who genuinely seek to find the answers.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-15-2009 at 2:08 pm

24. Gee Algore, why don’t you go overseas and rant and rave to all these European and Asian countries that are doing all the polluting. Be honest, the great old US of A is the cleanest country of its size on the earth. You may find some small enclave that is clean and pretty, but when you go to the major populations of the world outside the US, they are dirty, scanky, and smelly. Leave us alone, AL. ps. your film strip winning an award was a slap in the face to all the true Nobel winners who have gone before you. A real man(debatable in this case) would have refused it.

    posted by Positive attitude on 9-16-2009 at 2:08 am

25. Response to Positive attitude
    Please note, that for the intelligent who use that intelligence constructively, there is an enormous difference between criticism and complaining/moaning/whining/mewling,] is that most of us have never lived outside our own county, nor travelled far nor lived anywhere else, and so naturally they think they live in THE CENTER of the world. One term for this is ‘provincial ignorance’; another is ‘paranoid recluse’. Case in point iolo.

    posted by Guroplanet on 9-16-2009 at 2:28 pm

26. Speaking of history repeating itself, this is starting to look like Red Scare 2.0 to me. How long before you start turning in your “socialist” neighbors?

    Too many morons who have no clue about what socialism is all about…but they’re sure quick to use it as a synonym for social ills and regurgitate their tired Fox News babble…meh.

    posted by joe dude on 9-21-2009 at 7:41 pm

27. I might agree with you about all of us helping to clean these messes up, BUT, how many countries add cahs to our superfund cleanup or help to clean up messes in the USA.
    It always seems we are the one’s at fault no matter what.
    Screw that, take care of your own country, unless we nuke it, but that is another list!

    posted by LTZ on 10-7-2009 at 2:54 pm

28. Who said the U.S. was going to pay to clean up other country’s messes? We already pay our fair share of the cost of polluting them.
    Hey realist, I’d love to start making some of the changes you suggest, but people like you always stand in the way. (Keep it up and we will go back to the stone ages, or at least your great grandchildren will. But they’ll just have to suck it up themselves right?)
    I always try to buy local, but why can’t the U.S. produce a car that can go a year or two without breaking down, or one that beats my (at least assembled in America) Toyota Corolla’s 38mpg? I thought we could do anything???
    I’m out of work also because of the economy, but I guess that’s the cost of a couple of lousy wars. One screwed up in the first years, and one we were lied into. Did we really think they wouldn’t cost anything??? I sure would’ve liked to have spent that money here in the U.S. for say, alternative energy development. Both parties are to blame. Although, it really falls at the feet of those in power at the time…
    Please let Wal-Mart disappear, I don’t shop there. It won’t bother me, besides everything they stock is cheap crap that never lasts. Oh, and they censor books, music, and movies. When you can only buy from Wal-Mart, and there are no longer other options, then you’ll see just how much they really love and care about you.
    A good portion of every U.S. Dollar you spend at Sprawl-Mart goes right in the Socialist Bank of China. Cha-ching! They import much more than half their merchandise from China. Keep shopping there patriots.

    Hey Jean84, you’ve probably had fluorescent bulbs in your kitchen or bathroom for years. Say, maybe you’ve already dropped too many.

    Hey Don, India’s socialist? Since when?

    Hey Adam Chicago, Democracy and capitalism don’t go hand in hand. Look back at the history of this country in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, then you’ll see the kind of greed and corruption rampant, unchecked capitalism breeds. I think we wrongly see everything in black or white, when actually a hybrid, if I may, of the two is the way to go. All of one or all of the other is a bad deal for the average Joe. There has to be a happy medium. Please enlighten me as to how we are so socialist now? I’m listening? Is the government requiring you to buy a car from G.M.? Are seniors required by the government to use Medicare? I’m listening…

    Oh, and finally, I can name a country as big as the U.S. that is cleaner. It’s called Canada. But NAFTA is already changing that. Thar she blows!!! Oil!!!

    posted by digibot on 10-8-2009 at 2:05 pm

29. IS IT A CRIME IN AMERICA TO EXPRESS AN OPINION? They forgot how filthy Chicago is. The whole city is disgustingly smelly and the Chicago pollution causes OZONE ACTION alerts up and down the Lake Michigan coasts during hot summer weather, Chicago pollution as far as 200 miles from Chicago!! The kids eat and breathe their Chicago pollution: 85% of inner city kids in the City of Chicago drop out of High School even though the school system gets 27% more money per student than the national average. The entire Chicago area ought to be leveled and the land returned back to nature.

    posted by Barfup Obama on 10-9-2009 at 12:11 pm

30. blog, blog, blog, blog, blog! I really get a laugh when I read these things because 98.6 of them are so normal. 1.4 have something really interesting to share, without the need to mock others, and make themselves feel good at the belittling of others. I have found that there is always someone who is a bit more informed, or a bit more experienced, a bit more… than I. Very little is truly objective; therefore, the rest must be subjective, and as such, it comes down to one’s opinion, which we all have, and we all know what they are like, don’t we?

    posted by modest mensa on 10-21-2009 at 5:04 pm

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