4 ms·

EPA standards are a joke, designed primarily to avoid panic in the masses and allow the polluters to continue doing their thing. Go ahead, get your "just fine"

EPA standards are a joke, designed primarily to avoid panic in the masses and allow the polluters to continue doing their thing. Go ahead, get your "just fine" tap water tested by a lab, it only costs a couple hundred bucks to do a full array. Then, consider how misleading the "parts per million" metric is, considering Avogadro's number. Just because all this shit does not lead to immediate and perceptible illness doesn't mean that it is not putting a strain on our immune systems and causing DNA damage left and right. Each of those ppm requires an immune cell (or multiple) to bond with it, sacrificing itself, and transport it into the kidneys or liver, where it sits around also causing damage, and so on, until it is broken down into more hazardous substances, or finally leaves the body, if ever. If you are not frantically getting filters installed in all your loved ones' homes, I think are just not paying attention. And I'm not talking about Brita either.

creddit 8y ago
> Then, consider how misleading the "parts per million" metric is, considering Avogadro's number. What about Avogadro's number make a PPM metric (i.e. a ratio) misleading??? Because there are a lot of millions in Avogadro's number? How is that relevant to a ratio?
- forgotmypw 8y ago
  It is misleading because "parts per million" is perceived like a very small number by the average human, while in reality one part per million is a rather substantial amount of a substance in the water.
  - creddit 8y ago
    It's exactly 0.0001% of the water no matter how much water there is. Context of what the substance is and its mechanism of action would determine whether or not that "is a rather substantial amount".
- rayiner 8y ago
  It’s hand waving, and possibly orthorexia: https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eating-disorders/orthorexia-an-obsession-with-eating-pure https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eati.... Remember, the human immune system was designed to drink water out there in the world, which has animals pissing and shitting in it. Heavy metal pollution likewise occurs naturally. (Bangladesh, where I’m from, naturally has dangerously high levels of arsenic in the water.) Your immune system is designed to handle the “strain” of dealing with all that. We’re drinking the cleanest water humanity has ever drank (and have the highest life expectancies in human history).
  - radicaldreamer 8y ago
    Humans were only "designed" to live until they reproduce and the human lifespan was far, far shorter until the last few hundred years. Just because it's possible to live till 25 and drink arsenic laced water, it doesn't mean it's good to do so.
    - jimmy1 8y ago
      You have kidneys, a liver, and a lymphatic system that all work wonders against small invaders in small quantities, perfect for the situation described with the "PPM" metric. We all love buying into these "it's xyz killing me!" stories but whats most likely causing you to feel terrible or potentially killing you is your lack of (quality) sleep, excess of stress, poor diet or potentially a combination of all three. And if I may throw my two cents in, humans were "designed" to live right around somewhere in the 60-70 range. This has been true since we kept track of humans, at least.
    - stouset 8y ago
      The human lifespan was only “far, far shorter” because of infant mortality and childhood disease. The overwhelming increase in lifespan gains in this time frame have to do with infants making it to adulthood, not adults becoming elderly.
  - orf 8y ago
    What about pollutants that have only existed for the last 50 years?
jcranmer 8y ago
> Each of those ppm requires an immune cell (or multiple) to bond with it, sacrificing itself, and transport it into the kidneys or liver, where it sits around also causing damage, and so on, until it is broken down into more hazardous substances, or finally leaves the body, if ever. This is wrong on so many levels. First off, your body is topologically closer to a donut than a sphere: your digestive tract is outside of your body for the most part. To actually ingest a compound requires it to pass through an acid (and bacteriological) bath and then diffuse through your intestines to your blood. This process is actually quite dependent on what else is simultaneously in your food at the time (which is why we talk of vitamins being fat- and water-soluble), and there is a deal of selectivity in the process. Note that this is why radioactive isotopes of iodine are more dangerous for you than uranium: your body will happily pick up the iodine but the uranium will largely end up in your feces instead. As a second matter, immune cells attack living organisms and viruses, not organic and inorganic compounds. These compounds are generally delivered diffused in blood plasma (perhaps in coordination with proteins floating free in plasma), and transport is largely effected by the proteins on the cellular membrane. Naturally, there is an osmotic effect on the movement of constituents of blood plasma. I will also point out that the EPA does not regulate biological substances on a ppm basis. The regulate it on the basis of "did you find a sample of water with E. coli in it?", even if there was a single specimen in the sample.

creddit 8y ago

> Then, consider how misleading the "parts per million" metric is, considering Avogadro's number. What about Avogadro's number make a PPM metric (i.e. a ratio) misleading??? Because there are a lot of millions in Avogadro's number? How is that relevant to a ratio?

forgotmypw 8y ago
It is misleading because "parts per million" is perceived like a very small number by the average human, while in reality one part per million is a rather substantial amount of a substance in the water.
- creddit 8y ago
  It's exactly 0.0001% of the water no matter how much water there is. Context of what the substance is and its mechanism of action would determine whether or not that "is a rather substantial amount".
rayiner 8y ago
It’s hand waving, and possibly orthorexia: https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eating-disorders/orthorexia-an-obsession-with-eating-pure https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eati.... Remember, the human immune system was designed to drink water out there in the world, which has animals pissing and shitting in it. Heavy metal pollution likewise occurs naturally. (Bangladesh, where I’m from, naturally has dangerously high levels of arsenic in the water.) Your immune system is designed to handle the “strain” of dealing with all that. We’re drinking the cleanest water humanity has ever drank (and have the highest life expectancies in human history).
- radicaldreamer 8y ago
  Humans were only "designed" to live until they reproduce and the human lifespan was far, far shorter until the last few hundred years. Just because it's possible to live till 25 and drink arsenic laced water, it doesn't mean it's good to do so.
  - jimmy1 8y ago
    You have kidneys, a liver, and a lymphatic system that all work wonders against small invaders in small quantities, perfect for the situation described with the "PPM" metric. We all love buying into these "it's xyz killing me!" stories but whats most likely causing you to feel terrible or potentially killing you is your lack of (quality) sleep, excess of stress, poor diet or potentially a combination of all three. And if I may throw my two cents in, humans were "designed" to live right around somewhere in the 60-70 range. This has been true since we kept track of humans, at least.
  - stouset 8y ago
    The human lifespan was only “far, far shorter” because of infant mortality and childhood disease. The overwhelming increase in lifespan gains in this time frame have to do with infants making it to adulthood, not adults becoming elderly.
- orf 8y ago
  What about pollutants that have only existed for the last 50 years?

jcranmer 8y ago

> Each of those ppm requires an immune cell (or multiple) to bond with it, sacrificing itself, and transport it into the kidneys or liver, where it sits around also causing damage, and so on, until it is broken down into more hazardous substances, or finally leaves the body, if ever. This is wrong on so many levels. First off, your body is topologically closer to a donut than a sphere: your digestive tract is outside of your body for the most part. To actually ingest a compound requires it to pass through an acid (and bacteriological) bath and then diffuse through your intestines to your blood. This process is actually quite dependent on what else is simultaneously in your food at the time (which is why we talk of vitamins being fat- and water-soluble), and there is a deal of selectivity in the process. Note that this is why radioactive isotopes of iodine are more dangerous for you than uranium: your body will happily pick up the iodine but the uranium will largely end up in your feces instead. As a second matter, immune cells attack living organisms and viruses, not organic and inorganic compounds. These compounds are generally delivered diffused in blood plasma (perhaps in coordination with proteins floating free in plasma), and transport is largely effected by the proteins on the cellular membrane. Naturally, there is an osmotic effect on the movement of constituents of blood plasma. I will also point out that the EPA does not regulate biological substances on a ppm basis. The regulate it on the basis of "did you find a sample of water with E. coli in it?", even if there was a single specimen in the sample.