That's sort of astonishing. I don't know what to be more bewildered about, Exxon taking responsibility before anyone knew whose fault it was, the fact that people managed to blithely build a neighborhood on top of it, or just the sheer creep factor itself.
""Exxon taking responsibility before anyone knew whose fault it was..."
I know, that is a bit strange. I mean, it looks like Standard Oil was involved with a large part of it, but yeah, certainly not all. I'm sure it was for PR reasons: even though Exxon would probably have a legitimate argument that they should not be responsible for all of the cleanup, I'm sure they were thinking that it would be better to get on board with those efforts before the media got ahold of it and made it out that Exxon/Mobil/Standard had caused the whole damned mess - you know how that narrative is far more attractive to media and the People who (rightly) mistrust large corporations.
"...the fact that people managed to blithely build a neighborhood on top of it..."
Well, unless I missed something in the article, I'm pretty sure the neighborhood existed before this problem became large enough for people to notice. And IIRC, the State and the oil company were telling people for quite some time that there's nothing to worry about due to the "impermeable"
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I think Radiohead are the modern Philip K. Dick - telling futuristic stories that scare people away from modernization. Technophobes. I love 'em though.
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I know, that is a bit strange. I mean, it looks like Standard Oil was involved with a large part of it, but yeah, certainly not all. I'm sure it was for PR reasons: even though Exxon would probably have a legitimate argument that they should not be responsible for all of the cleanup, I'm sure they were thinking that it would be better to get on board with those efforts before the media got ahold of it and made it out that Exxon/Mobil/Standard had caused the whole damned mess - you know how that narrative is far more attractive to media and the People who (rightly) mistrust large corporations.
"...the fact that people managed to blithely build a neighborhood on top of it..."
Well, unless I missed something in the article, I'm pretty sure the neighborhood existed before this problem became large enough for people to notice. And IIRC, the State and the oil company were telling people for quite some time that there's nothing to worry about due to the "impermeable" ( ... )
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