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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#91

Post by techslave »

chongli wrote: post #75
Frost1x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. What we did not expect, and perhaps are now beginning to, is that human…

> Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates.

That’s irrelevant isn’t it? You elect based on your own self-interest and expect your candidate to follow theirs. There isn’t a single “what’s best for society” anyway so the pull between competing ideas means the most popular ones win. With a tempering effect from the courts.

What we did not expect was political parties. These are in effect conjoining at least the legislative and executive branches.

Also the electoral college ruined things. Not for the trivial reason you may think but by eliminating runoff elections.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#92

Post by skummetmaelk »

Frost1x wrote: post #57
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

Democracy can only work when the voters are interested in making life better for _everyone_ and not just themselves.

The "fuck you, got mine" mentality that has developed is what will cause democracy to fail.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#93

Post by jtdev »

zachware wrote: post #87

Not to ignore the democracy problem but solely on the localized health issue, if you can afford a Berkey Water Filter, get one.

I looked on the Berkey website but couldn't find specifics about the mechanism that these filters use; is it simply reverse osmosis?

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#94

Post by quotemstr »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #45
userbinator wrote: post #12

Have any effects of this been noticed? It feels like a lot of these things are "yet another thing that might shorten your life a little bit", although the total risk may be very small.

From the article: > The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some have been linked to cancers, liver damage, low birth weight and other health problems.

"linked to" is a weasel phrase. It means nothing. How big is the effect size? How robust is the evidence? What's the dose-response curve?

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#95

Post by pfdietz »

These materials are used as coatings on "compostable" food packaging. I've seen this packaging being used as a replacement for plastic packaging at "green" grocery stores.

Of course, the coating does not decompose upon composting, it just sits there in the compost.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#96

Post by toasterlovin »

samatman wrote: post #90
anoplus wrote: post #28

I would be interested to know what is the current trust level of the residents on the gov and EPA in the different states. Not far from my living area a new gas rig started operating where the gov, contractor company and EPA (EPA of my country that is) argue the chemical emissions doesn't pose health risks (same for sea water pollution risk), while self-funded environmental organizations argue otherwise and show inco…

Air-quality safety (among other things) is assured by the EPA, and it's done a lot to undermine that trust in the last couple of decades. Electronics safety is assured by UL, a private company. To date, they've maintained the public's trust in their services. If Consumer Reports publishes an exposé of UL taking kickbacks to certify substandard equipment, I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a compet…

> I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a competitor.

UL’s main competitor is ETL. I can tell you that you very much should prefer products tested by UL. I work for a company that makes wire and it’s widely know inside our industry that ETL does nothing to ensure that products being sold with their mark are products they actually tested. There are lots of issues with UL’s enforcement of their mark, but ETL just doesn’t care at all.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#97

Post by epistasis »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #58
mdemare wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing GDP does not imply increasing consumption, and increasing consumption does not imply increasing pollution.

Can you provide any examples to support your statement? I don’t see how the production of materials and transportation of the materials and people could not increase pollution, given the current infrastructure which requires use of fossil fuels, and which will not change in the short term.

You're forgetting the #1 cheapest and most effective way to reduce our environmental impact: efficiency of energy use and efficiency of resource use.

In the case of GDP, energy and resources are both costs that businesses try to minimize in order to provide end products and services, which is what the GDP measures.

Therefore, the carbon intensity of a dollar of GDP is expected to decrease in time, as people discover more ways to save money and compete better, in order to increase profits. They probably aren't thinking about decreasing the amount of CO2 emitted, especially when they are making business decisions. But since CO2 indirectly has a cost, the amount of CO2 emitted per dollar GDP has been decreasing drastically:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD

If we were to directly price in the costs of CO2 via a tax, the fall would be far faster. And as we come up with tech that doesn't emit, and is cheaper than fossil fuel extraction, we will stop using these damaging resources completely.

There has historically been great resistance from the right to the power of energy efficiency, because of their ties to high fossil fuel consumption, and their attachment to GDP rising at all costs to fuel gains for those at the top of the capitalistic hierarchy. However, this was a miscounted belief.

Lately, this misunderstanding has been picked up by the extreme left, who had assumed that global collapse was their time to finally overturn market-based systems, but now fear that we will try to address the coming disasters of climate change without overhauling market based systems, so now after the yellow jackets gave it to Macron over carbon taxes, a fundamentally market based system, the left has now decided that the enemy (rural conservatives) of their true enemy (neoliberals in urban centers), they can pick up the mantle.

But it's important to fully recognize where these narratives come from and what motivation is driving those who push narratives, and return to the data for our ultimate analysis.

Stopping pollution does not mean destroying GDP. It means eliminating the parts of the GDP that cause the pollution, but other activity will quickly replace the other.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#99

Post by cbayram »

corey_moncure wrote: post #77
_qwfv wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much the end state for Neoliberalism (which has been the prevailing mode for both parties). There's such an emphasis on protecting business and capital, and almost none on protecting the people.

In your view, what happens to the people when business and capital fail?

Temporary ripples, but mainly not much. What happens? Opportunities for people and local geographies, innovation. Words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb ring in my head. Failure is healthy to the overall health of a system. When you hide risk and prop up failure, it blows up spectacularly. Never has there been so many bureaucrats benefiting from the benefit of the true harbingers of innovation.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#100

Post by pdkl95 »

corey_moncure wrote: post #77
_qwfv wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much the end state for Neoliberalism (which has been the prevailing mode for both parties). There's such an emphasis on protecting business and capital, and almost none on protecting the people.

In your view, what happens to the people when business and capital fail?

They turn to populist leaders for help. Usually this means some variation of either socialism or fascism.
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