3 ms·

PFAS and microplastics in general is a good candidate for the acute environmental toxicity sin of our generation. Will / when will we correct?

OutOfHere 1y ago
There will be no correction. There will only be collapse and perhaps partial mitigation. Correction implies a brain, and if we collectively had one, we wouldn't have been polluting with these toxins in the first place. Moreover, correction alone is not sufficient -- it doesn't remove the PFAS which is already in the ecosystem. It will take over ten thousand years of UV light to naturally break it apart.
- eulgro 1y ago
  How is the chemical industry supposed to make a profit if they have to do 50 years studies on people and the environment when they manufacture a new compound? Think about the shareholders.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    It was already clearly known at the time that PFAS was originally engineered that it's harmful and that it accumulates in the environment. This data was just willfully chosen to be ignored in the name of profits.
    - collingreen 1y ago
      Plus all the slight variants made to avoid legislation and to spread the stats of the contamination problem around. The PFAS story is a pretty nasty one.
      - eulgro 1y ago
        Luckily they have thousands of variations available for PFAS, so we'll only have to wait a few thousand years before they regulate them all, assuming it takes about 20 years for them to realize the new variation is exactly like the previous one.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        All organofluorines can be regulated together.
- integricho 1y ago
  We had a good run, now it is time to scratch this evolutionary iteration as well and start from a clean slate again. There were mass extinction events before also and life restarted in a new form. It is time now for the same to happen, we are not capable of learning and behaving. While we might have advanced further than any species on Earth before, we are an evolutionary failure nevertheless. And what do you do with bad code? You rewrite it.
  - phito 1y ago
    I would say most people are capable of learning and behaving. But our system is riddled with cancerous tumors that are trying to accumulate all resources to the detriment of the rest of the system.
    - aydyn 1y ago
      Its easy to want to blame a few villians, but the problem is the collective consumption habits and preferences of us all.
      - koiueo 1y ago
        > collective consumption habits and preferences of us all ... in the first-world bubble
        aydyn 1y ago
        Not at all, its more like human nature. For example, illegal logging in Brazil: it isn't mega corporations with evil billionaires at the helm, its small every day people who just want to make a better life for themselves. There's a hypothetical from an Oxford debate that I am struggling to find that was something like this: If you are poor family and starving and for every day you could press a button and giant plume of CO2 would get released, but your child would not starve, would not get disease and would lead a fulfilled life, would you press that button? Every parent would smash that button until their hand bled. In the first world bubble, we have this button (more or less) but every person on earth would want this button too.
Nursie 1y ago
Look at what happened with PCBs… in much of the world, nothing. I was pretty shocked to discover quite recently that in the UK you are advised to eat two portions of oily fish per week, for your health. But no more because of the levels of PCBs in the fish. The UK isn’t the only place with this problem and (for instance) the Bay Area is pretty contaminated as well. And PCBs were banned in the late 1970s/early 80s.

OutOfHere 1y ago

There will be no correction. There will only be collapse and perhaps partial mitigation. Correction implies a brain, and if we collectively had one, we wouldn't have been polluting with these toxins in the first place. Moreover, correction alone is not sufficient -- it doesn't remove the PFAS which is already in the ecosystem. It will take over ten thousand years of UV light to naturally break it apart.

eulgro 1y ago
How is the chemical industry supposed to make a profit if they have to do 50 years studies on people and the environment when they manufacture a new compound? Think about the shareholders.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  It was already clearly known at the time that PFAS was originally engineered that it's harmful and that it accumulates in the environment. This data was just willfully chosen to be ignored in the name of profits.
  - collingreen 1y ago
    Plus all the slight variants made to avoid legislation and to spread the stats of the contamination problem around. The PFAS story is a pretty nasty one.
    - eulgro 1y ago
      Luckily they have thousands of variations available for PFAS, so we'll only have to wait a few thousand years before they regulate them all, assuming it takes about 20 years for them to realize the new variation is exactly like the previous one.
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        All organofluorines can be regulated together.
integricho 1y ago
We had a good run, now it is time to scratch this evolutionary iteration as well and start from a clean slate again. There were mass extinction events before also and life restarted in a new form. It is time now for the same to happen, we are not capable of learning and behaving. While we might have advanced further than any species on Earth before, we are an evolutionary failure nevertheless. And what do you do with bad code? You rewrite it.
- phito 1y ago
  I would say most people are capable of learning and behaving. But our system is riddled with cancerous tumors that are trying to accumulate all resources to the detriment of the rest of the system.
  - aydyn 1y ago
    Its easy to want to blame a few villians, but the problem is the collective consumption habits and preferences of us all.
    - koiueo 1y ago
      > collective consumption habits and preferences of us all ... in the first-world bubble
      - aydyn 1y ago
        Not at all, its more like human nature. For example, illegal logging in Brazil: it isn't mega corporations with evil billionaires at the helm, its small every day people who just want to make a better life for themselves. There's a hypothetical from an Oxford debate that I am struggling to find that was something like this: If you are poor family and starving and for every day you could press a button and giant plume of CO2 would get released, but your child would not starve, would not get disease and would lead a fulfilled life, would you press that button? Every parent would smash that button until their hand bled. In the first world bubble, we have this button (more or less) but every person on earth would want this button too.

Nursie 1y ago

Look at what happened with PCBs… in much of the world, nothing. I was pretty shocked to discover quite recently that in the UK you are advised to eat two portions of oily fish per week, for your health. But no more because of the levels of PCBs in the fish. The UK isn’t the only place with this problem and (for instance) the Bay Area is pretty contaminated as well. And PCBs were banned in the late 1970s/early 80s.