6 ms·

It's true but incomplete. For example: DDT - May not have been anywhere near as bad as first thought, and replaced in part by these compounds, which themselves

by entee 8y ago

It's true but incomplete. For example: DDT - May not have been anywhere near as bad as first thought, and replaced in part by these compounds, which themselves are being banned now. Also there's some argument that extensive use of DDT was key to ridding the US of malaria, we banned it worldwide, taking out one of the weapons in mosquito control. One could make an argument that banning DDT has killed people b/c increased incidence of malaria. It's hotly debated, but it's not a bonkers view, and most of those deaths would be in the 3rd world. Cadmium Paints - Yes and no, artists still say it's not the same, and the replacements in industrial scale aren't always as good on a variety of fronts (https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-dollar-red/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-do...). Also not sure they're as affordable. CFCs (then some HCFCS) - Good thing to ban without a doubt, but replacements are more expensive. The ACs made with the new gasses are more expensive, which has a real human cost: (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/business/23cool.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/business/23cool.html) I'm not making an argument for or against this particular ban or any of the bans above. I am making an argument that these bans are not without costs, and will almost certainly come with trade-offs. Some of those trade-offs will be overcome, others are much harder, and the short run will likely have some pain in the form of higher prices. Lets say for example we got rid of all pesticides/herbicides. Could we generate enough food to feed the world? How much more expensive would staples like rice and wheat become? How much more expensive would high-nutrition fruits and veggies become? It's possible that someday get over it, but it's not good to minimize the practical drawbacks. I think we've gotten to a point as a society where _any_ risk of something bad is too much risk, so we ban anything that presents risk. But we're left with things where either the risk is unknown, or that are bad in other ways. The average popular discussion of environmental/health risks often neglects to ask, "what might be an acceptable risk", I think sometimes the risk is worth it.

ajkjk 8y ago
What's the source on DDT not being as bad as first thought? You can't just mention that in passing as an argument if it's not true. (And I don't mean just to humans; that's only a small part of why it was banned.)
- entee 8y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-needs-now-is-ddt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-n... https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rachel-carson-cost-million... From the second article: However, studies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have since shown that DDT didn’t cause the human diseases Carson had claimed. Indeed, the only type of cancer that had increased in the United States during the DDT era was lung cancer, which was caused by cigarette smoking. DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented—far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place. There is some recent evidence of connection to breast cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524999/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524999/ And the WHO has a few concerns: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cancer-insecticides/who-agency-says-insecticides-lindane-and-ddt-linked-to-cancer-idUSKBN0P30UG20150623 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cancer-insecticide... CDC Has a balanced view (though article is old): https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/clusters/fallon/ddtfaq.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/clusters/fallon/ddtfaq.htm That said the studies in question ask about very high usage, it's likely that more controlled sprays would be less damaging. That's the point I'm making, using chemicals responsibly can mitigate overall risk while maintaining their benefits. You don't have spray it in buckets everywhere (the procedure during the study period above) to do a good job of mosquito control. Plus you may save far more lives due to less malaria. EDIT: In re. non-humans, I'm less familiar with that, but I'm an unabashed species-ist, I care that more humans live. If that has some environmental harm, then lets mitigate or try to reduce harm, but humans come first.
  - adamsea 8y ago
    That does not make sense about the species-ist part because damage or loss to one particular species has all sorts of context-specific ripple effects to everything else. One would need to assess what if any damage the decrease or extinction of a particular species would cause to the ecology as a whole and the other life forms in it, humans included.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    "DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented—far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place." Thats missleading, because we don't really use pesticices against mosquitos anymore. Main "pesticide" today is a living bacteria which targets Mosquitos directly and apparently with not much side-effects to the nature besides reducing mosquitos and totally non-toxic to mammals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis
coryrc 8y ago
The real problem with the replacement refrigerants is their reduced efficiency, leading to more energy use. Though we should just use propane since it doesn't harm ozone, has lower GWP, costs less, and has much higher efficiency.
- userbinator 8y ago
  Though we should just use propane since it doesn't harm ozone, has lower GWP, costs less, and has much higher efficiency. ...and is also explosively flammable. Remember that CFCs replaced early refrigerants which were flammable and/or toxic. This memorable incident may be attributed to using a flammable refrigerant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire Personally, I'm against an absolutist ban on CFCs, since it was mainly their mass release into the atmosphere that caused problems, and they had great advantages in closed-system uses. This may surprise a lot of HN readers, but I have the same belief about PCBs[1] and chrysotile (white asbestos)[2] --- "the dose makes the poison". Literally everything is harmful to something in some way, so the right thing to do is to manage use such that we can maximise the benefit:risk ratio, instead of the frenzied "ban everything" attitude that seems far too pervasive today. [1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-environment-health-news-science-science-everywhere-toxicity/pcbs-are-not-toxic-time-bombs https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-envi... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/
  - sitkack 8y ago
    We don't live in world where industry can control itself properly for this be put into practice.
- petre 8y ago
  That was fixed with driver/drive combinations that replaced electric motors coupled with on/off thermostat switches. Anyway, I still wonder why ammonia fell into disuse as a refrigerent.
  - 8y ago
rhacker 8y ago
Simple answer is yes we just become vegetarians and cattle land becomes crop land.
_o_ 8y ago
Stop taking about DDT. I had my own expirience when I went to Madagascar. Took with me ddt based insecticide (whatever it takes to avoid malaria) and got rashes all over my hands due to it.
detaro 8y ago
Isn't there an explicit exception in the DDT ban for anti-malaria applications?
dbuder 8y ago
Lead Based Solder is also a problem, all because some British politician was worried out of their mind because children might chew on circuit boards. It leads to product failures, rework difficulties and using probably worse materials (smd solder paste chinese manufacturers use is a devil's concoction, but no lead, so all good!).

by entee 8y ago

ajkjk 8y ago

What's the source on DDT not being as bad as first thought? You can't just mention that in passing as an argument if it's not true. (And I don't mean just to humans; that's only a small part of why it was banned.)

entee 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-needs-now-is-ddt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-n... https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rachel-carson-cost-million... From the second article: However, studies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have since shown that DDT didn’t cause the human diseases Carson had claimed. Indeed, the only type of cancer that had increased in the United States during the DDT era was lung cancer, which was caused by cigarette smoking. DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented—far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place. There is some recent evidence of connection to breast cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524999/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524999/ And the WHO has a few concerns: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cancer-insecticides/who-agency-says-insecticides-lindane-and-ddt-linked-to-cancer-idUSKBN0P30UG20150623 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cancer-insecticide... CDC Has a balanced view (though article is old): https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/clusters/fallon/ddtfaq.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/clusters/fallon/ddtfaq.htm That said the studies in question ask about very high usage, it's likely that more controlled sprays would be less damaging. That's the point I'm making, using chemicals responsibly can mitigate overall risk while maintaining their benefits. You don't have spray it in buckets everywhere (the procedure during the study period above) to do a good job of mosquito control. Plus you may save far more lives due to less malaria. EDIT: In re. non-humans, I'm less familiar with that, but I'm an unabashed species-ist, I care that more humans live. If that has some environmental harm, then lets mitigate or try to reduce harm, but humans come first.
- adamsea 8y ago
  That does not make sense about the species-ist part because damage or loss to one particular species has all sorts of context-specific ripple effects to everything else. One would need to assess what if any damage the decrease or extinction of a particular species would cause to the ecology as a whole and the other life forms in it, humans included.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  "DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented—far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place." Thats missleading, because we don't really use pesticices against mosquitos anymore. Main "pesticide" today is a living bacteria which targets Mosquitos directly and apparently with not much side-effects to the nature besides reducing mosquitos and totally non-toxic to mammals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis

coryrc 8y ago

The real problem with the replacement refrigerants is their reduced efficiency, leading to more energy use. Though we should just use propane since it doesn't harm ozone, has lower GWP, costs less, and has much higher efficiency.

userbinator 8y ago
Though we should just use propane since it doesn't harm ozone, has lower GWP, costs less, and has much higher efficiency. ...and is also explosively flammable. Remember that CFCs replaced early refrigerants which were flammable and/or toxic. This memorable incident may be attributed to using a flammable refrigerant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire Personally, I'm against an absolutist ban on CFCs, since it was mainly their mass release into the atmosphere that caused problems, and they had great advantages in closed-system uses. This may surprise a lot of HN readers, but I have the same belief about PCBs[1] and chrysotile (white asbestos)[2] --- "the dose makes the poison". Literally everything is harmful to something in some way, so the right thing to do is to manage use such that we can maximise the benefit:risk ratio, instead of the frenzied "ban everything" attitude that seems far too pervasive today. [1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-environment-health-news-science-science-everywhere-toxicity/pcbs-are-not-toxic-time-bombs https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-envi... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/
- sitkack 8y ago
  We don't live in world where industry can control itself properly for this be put into practice.
petre 8y ago
That was fixed with driver/drive combinations that replaced electric motors coupled with on/off thermostat switches. Anyway, I still wonder why ammonia fell into disuse as a refrigerent.
- 8y ago

rhacker 8y ago

Simple answer is yes we just become vegetarians and cattle land becomes crop land.

_o_ 8y ago

Stop taking about DDT. I had my own expirience when I went to Madagascar. Took with me ddt based insecticide (whatever it takes to avoid malaria) and got rashes all over my hands due to it.

detaro 8y ago

Isn't there an explicit exception in the DDT ban for anti-malaria applications?

dbuder 8y ago

Lead Based Solder is also a problem, all because some British politician was worried out of their mind because children might chew on circuit boards. It leads to product failures, rework difficulties and using probably worse materials (smd solder paste chinese manufacturers use is a devil's concoction, but no lead, so all good!).