PX explosion How can science be defeated by distrust?

China Paint network
: PX is in trouble again.
, at about 18:56 on April 6, an oil spill and a fire occurred at Tenglong aromatic xylene plant in Gure, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. Residents witnessed two explosions at the PX plant and mushroom clouds that broke out at the scene, the Beijing News reported.
April 6th, an explosion occurred at the Gulei PX project in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province
since the 2007 incident against the PX project in Xiamen, there have been seven mass incidents caused by the PX project in eight years, and although experts and local governments have repeatedly pledged to comply with environmental protection and safe production regulations, more and more people are aware of the low-toxic properties of PX.
but it's not as good as an explosion.
No matter how much science governments and experts say about PX, the living reality of explosion tells everyone that the danger is not PX, but the people and mechanisms that control PX, that science is reliable, that people are unreliable, and that they can only choose to oppose it.
PX is this?
crude oil was extracted, it became mainly three types of products: gasoline, kerosene, diesel, ethylene, and aromatics.
PX is an aromatic class.
PX is an English acronym for para-xylene and is a colorless, transparent, aromatic liquid, according to the Beijing Science and Technology Association's public-interest science website, the five-line spectrum.
PX's biggest use is to produce PTA (polyester), whether it's capsules, plastic bottles, decoration
paint
, polyethylene preservation boxes in refrigerators, or the popular polyester chiffon clothing in stores, all of which contain PX.
PX's most important downstream product PET (polyester resin), is increasingly replacing aluminum, glass, ceramics, paper and other materials, become an indispensable important chemical raw materials.
is PX toxic? The issue also sparked a battle in 2014 between Tsinghua chemical students and Baidu Encyclouser, successfully defending PX's low-toxic properties.
, PX is classified only as a third category of carcinogens, i.e. substances that lack evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, in the same category as coffee and pickles, according to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
but PX volatile, flammable, has a certain toxicity, belongs to the low toxic category.
experts and the government say about the seven mass incidents in the past eight years?
2007 Xiamen people opposed the construction of the PX project
in 2007 Xiamen plans to build an annual output of 800,000 tons of PX plant in Haitang District, triggering the first round of the PX storm in China.
, according to Sanlian Life Weekly, the Xiamen government at the time saw the situation is not right, immediately responded.
Xiamen Environmental Protection Bureau and the general manager of Tenglong aromatics responsible for the PX project have published articles in Xiamen Daily and Xiamen Evening News, answering environmental questions about the PX project, and pointing out the low toxicity of PX.
June 1-2, 2007, some Xiamen residents expressed their opposition in front of the Xiamen Municipal Government in the form of a "walk".
, Xiamen Science and Technology Association also printed tens of thousands of copies of the brochure "PX know how much" to the public. In the end, public opinion overstayed the leadership decision, and the Fujian provincial government finally decided to let the PX project settle in the Gulei Port Development Zone in Lupu, Zhangzhou.
, there were two oppositions to the PX project in Chengdu in May 2008 and May 2013, according to The Associated Press. Residents wore masks to "walk" through the city to protest chengdu's px project.
's Fujia Dahua PX project in Dalian began production as early as June 2009. On August 8, 2011, due to the impact of strong tropical storm Plum, the waves broke the breakwater under construction in Fujiahua, and the sea poured into the factory, Dalian residents gathered in the People's Square to demand the relocation of the PX project.
, the Dalian municipal government ordered the chemical plant to be moved out of Dalian.
According to the Democracy and Legal Times, before the dam failure occurred, Dalian Environmental Protection Bureau in Fujia Dahua at the beginning of production also vowed to use a variety of high-tech systems, in strict accordance with the norms of design and construction, in the drainage system set up a three-level prevention and control system . . .
In October 2012, some villagers in Ningbo Township, Zhejiang Province, gradually evolved into a large-scale road closure protest due to the collective petition of the Zhenhai Refinery Integration Project, and finally the Ningbo Municipal Government committed itself not to build the PX project and stopped promoting the whole refining integration project.
May 2013, many citizens took to the streets of Kunming wearing masks to protest against a 10 million-ton oil refining project at the grass-paved industrial park in Anning, Yunnan province.
March 30, 2014, a large number of people protested and demonstrated against the PX project in front of the Municipal Committee Building in Maoming, Guangdong Province. On April 1, about 300 people marched in solidarity with Maoming's anti-PX near the Zhongshan Memorial Hall in Guangzhou.
the problem that science literacy can't solve?
Qin Dahe, vice chairman of the Chinese Association of Science and Technology, chairman of the expert committee of the National Committee for Disaster Reduction and a member of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology, proposed at the third meeting of the 12th CPPCC National Committee that because of the public's firm belief in "PX highly toxic" and other reasons, a number of large-scale mass incidents have been caused in a row, and the embarrassing situation of "stopping at once" has caused great losses to the country, China News reported. Behind these phenomena, the real problem reflected is that the scientific quality of our citizens needs to be improved.
, the public's distrust of the PX project can really be solved by improving the quality of science?
As local governments and chemical experts who intend to build PX projects within their jurisdictions say, PX is indeed a low-toxic compound, and PX and coffee and pickles are the same level of safety if all operations and monitoring systems are carried out in strict accordance with safety regulations.
, as Zhang Hanji said of Maoming PX, "People often don't believe in PX, they don't believe in China's PX."
Dalian Environmental Protection Bureau has also made a public statement on the safety of the PX project to reassure the public, can break the embankment incident, less than 100 meters away from the embankment stands more than a dozen PX tanks, once tilted, it is very likely to cause the leakage of chemical raw materials, and south across 20 kilometers of the sea, gas can be directly spread to Dalian City.
as early as 2013, the environmental impact report of the PX project, which moved from Xiamen to Gulei, Zhangzhou, was also reviewed by experts, but a month after production, the Gure PX in Zhangzhou was still involved in an explosion.
the Guru PX bombing made Xiamen people feel that they had made the right choice, they chose not to trust the government's decision to avoid a disaster.
explosion, so shattered science, science is still worth believing, but people are more convinced that scientific operation in the hands of different people will have different results, rebuild trust, this is not science can solve the problem.