4 ms·
> Maybe people who have more than, say, 20 million dollars should be personally liable. This seems like a very conservative middle ground, because, as you say,
by tomxor 3y ago
> Maybe people who have more than, say, 20 million dollars should be personally liable. This seems like a very conservative middle ground, because, as you say, these people have sometimes knowingly made decisions they knew would result in deaths. Taking away only some of their money is the least of punishments, and they would still be left rich and very comfortable.
Monetary punishment is not enough, and in fact I would say any kind of punishment is not useful enough. We need to switch our thinking to focus on preventative measures.
In this case all of the money ever made from PFAS will never be enough to clean up the pollution or care for all of the human health side effects. You could make all of the employees and execs very uncomfortable, claw back every single penny ever made and it still wont be enough by a long shot. In some cases It's easy to do a huge amount of damage for (relatively) far less personal gain.
Some of the world's regulatory systems already at least attempt to work from a preventative perspective such as drug approval processes for humans. As more of society wises up to the fact that the environment is an extension of us, it shouldn't be that hard to convince people to take preventative strategies towards caring for it.
- rapjr9 3y agoI agree, and prevention can't be a one time thing. In the 1930's if you were against using coal to produce electricity you would have been labeled crazy. Seems like what is needed is constant re-assessment to determine if new harms have been noted, along with ongoing research and testing to look for toxins, environmental effects, etc. As you state, preventive strategies. For example, ConsumerLab.com is testing herbal supplements, not just once, but regularly for lead, potentcy and more. This is something that should have already been ongoing for decades, not just started as a business in the last few years. Another example is national security as it relates to imported products. If we're not testing imported foods and other products (kids toys) reliably for lead and other poisons then a hostile country could poison your population before you know about it. Impaired people = impaired soldiers. Managing this in a cost effective way is difficult, but it seems possible.
- tomxor 3y agoReassessment is needed for sure. To classify the other strategies you are describing I think I would call them "increased focus", which would be a positive move for sure. But the draw back of this approach is it's more of the same, it's reactive, it has to chase industry, and it's effectiveness is dependent on available resources not being outpaced by industry (unlikely). An alternative regulatory system that doesn't need to chase industry would require industry to come to them by law when for example they want to release a new class of chemical into the environment. For all of it's flaws, I'm basically talking about something like the FDA, but hopefully less corrupt.