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3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

bloomberg.com

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Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#31

Post by carapace »

*Stands on soapbox*

I've been kicking around an idea I've been tentatively calling "techno-conservatism". The tl;dr: "Like Amish, not Luddites." It's becoming more and more clear that each of our technologies has trade-offs, and the uncritical acceptance of those trade-offs has lead us to poison ourselves and the world in several fairly significant ways. This would seem to me to make a more considered and conservative relationship with our technology imperative.

There are movements like the "Slow Food" movement, and of course the Amish are famously conservative in their acceptance and use of modern technology.

The general idea is to start with a simple and ecologically harmonious low-tech (but sophisticated!) lifestyle and then add essential technology (in a kind of "progressive enhancement", eh?) to increase QoL (Quality of Life) without, y'know, poisoning anything.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#32

Post by w-j-w »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #24
elil17 wrote: post #9

After reading the series "A Chemical Hunger" by the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, I'm pretty convinced that chemical contamination is a global-warming level threat to humanity. The authors talk about the evidence that chemicals released into the environment by human activity (such as PFAS) are causing obesity, and they present compelling evidence that this is plausible. They are also working on research to confirm this…

When my mother moved in and we went on daily walks, she lost a pound a week for a year. Her entirely sedentary lifestyle (and that of most Americans I know) is a major factor for her obesity. Standing is now considered exercise it has gotten so bad. But people will blame anything instead of taking action, so…

No post body was provided.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#33

Post by pretendscholar »

londons_explore wrote: post #19
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean NO2 from diesel exhaust is provably reducing longevity i.e. killing people sooner, still no prison sentences happened for any of the heads in VW. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

I support no prison sentences for VW... The engineers were meeting the letter but not the spirit of the rules, just as so many other companies do. You probably have done the same when you did revision just before a geography test at school - you probably only learnt the syllabus rather than going to the library and learning everything in the geography section. The VW engineers made a car that had only 'revised' enoug…

Lol no it is not like studying for a test and doing well on it. It is like cheating on your med school exams and then taking that license and killing people through malpractice. What they did was highly illegal and unethical.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#34

Post by Cerium »

superkuh wrote: post #5

>PFOS—perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—is referred to as a forever chemical, because it accumulates in soil, rivers, and drinking water and is almost impossible to get rid of. She had about 300 micrograms of it per liter in her blood, more than 60 times the level recommended as safe today by the European Union. Almost impossible, but not impossible. It has been found that giving blood (and then throwing that blood away)…

I read this to mean "almost impossible to get rid of out of soil, rivers, and drinking water". Which to my understanding is true.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#35

Post by colechristensen »

elil17 wrote: post #9

After reading the series "A Chemical Hunger" by the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, I'm pretty convinced that chemical contamination is a global-warming level threat to humanity. The authors talk about the evidence that chemicals released into the environment by human activity (such as PFAS) are causing obesity, and they present compelling evidence that this is plausible. They are also working on research to confirm this…

There is a whole lot of mild panic going on.

Here’s the deal, you’re going to die. It’s going to happen for one reason or another, and if you eliminate one reason, there will be another one lined up not so long after.

If your purpose in life is to maximize the number of days you live, I guess you do you, but it doesn’t seem like a very high quality life to me.

We take risks, we accept them, there’s middle ground between ignoring risks and obsessing over them. The toll from worrying about things can be much worse than the things you’re trying to avoid.

You know what causes obesity? Availability of food. You didn’t evolve in an environment where calories are essentially free so your motivations and feedback behaviors aren’t tuned to make good decisions when it comes to food. Sure there are probably secondary effects from all sorts of things, but it comes down to food not being scarce like it evolved to expect.

Paying attention to environmental risks makes sense, but only to a certain extent. You’re probably still going to live a long life, and the secret to a good one probably isn’t going to be found in avoiding the next scary chemical of the day.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#36

Post by cromka »

colechristensen wrote: post #35
elil17 wrote: post #9

After reading the series "A Chemical Hunger" by the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, I'm pretty convinced that chemical contamination is a global-warming level threat to humanity. The authors talk about the evidence that chemicals released into the environment by human activity (such as PFAS) are causing obesity, and they present compelling evidence that this is plausible. They are also working on research to confirm this…

There is a whole lot of mild panic going on. Here’s the deal, you’re going to die. It’s going to happen for one reason or another, and if you eliminate one reason, there will be another one lined up not so long after. If your purpose in life is to maximize the number of days you live, I guess you do you, but it doesn’t seem like a very high quality life to me. We take risks, we accept them, there’s middle ground betw…

> Here’s the deal, you’re going to die. It’s going to happen for one reason or another, and if you eliminate one reason, there will be another one lined up not so long after.

This comes off as a very ignorant take. The problem is not "if" we're going to die and "how", but "how soon" and with "how much suffering", along with "how much effort/money does it increasingly require to stay healthy".

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#37

Post by colechristensen »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #10
superkuh wrote: post #5

>PFOS—perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—is referred to as a forever chemical, because it accumulates in soil, rivers, and drinking water and is almost impossible to get rid of. She had about 300 micrograms of it per liter in her blood, more than 60 times the level recommended as safe today by the European Union. Almost impossible, but not impossible. It has been found that giving blood (and then throwing that blood away)…

Are you recommending bloodletting as a cure for some of the nastiest pollution ever created by humans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting

Yes, I would recommend bloodletting.

There are a collection of things which are difficult for your body to eliminate, regularly extracting blood is a mechanism for getting rid of some of them.

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#38

Post by [deleted] »

londons_explore wrote: post #19
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean NO2 from diesel exhaust is provably reducing longevity i.e. killing people sooner, still no prison sentences happened for any of the heads in VW. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

I support no prison sentences for VW... The engineers were meeting the letter but not the spirit of the rules, just as so many other companies do. You probably have done the same when you did revision just before a geography test at school - you probably only learnt the syllabus rather than going to the library and learning everything in the geography section. The VW engineers made a car that had only 'revised' enoug…

[deleted]

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#39

Post by dmos62 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #22

It would be an interesting future historical study to see what caused more harm: -Manufacturing the best firefighting chemistry (e.g. military purchases for missile warehouses, resorts, apartments, etc.) -Using the chemistry to actually fight fires It might be a case where sometimes second best should have been the way to go, but it’s hard to know beforehand I imagine, especially in safety scenarios where people are…

Here's an instance of the phenomenon.

> In fact, in the case of the V-2, more than twice as many Allied prisoners died outfitting the factory and producing it than did Allied civilians and soldiers hit by it in rocket attacks.

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/wonder-weapons-...

Re: 3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe

#40

Post by dylan604 »

colechristensen wrote: post #35
elil17 wrote: post #9

After reading the series "A Chemical Hunger" by the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, I'm pretty convinced that chemical contamination is a global-warming level threat to humanity. The authors talk about the evidence that chemicals released into the environment by human activity (such as PFAS) are causing obesity, and they present compelling evidence that this is plausible. They are also working on research to confirm this…

There is a whole lot of mild panic going on. Here’s the deal, you’re going to die. It’s going to happen for one reason or another, and if you eliminate one reason, there will be another one lined up not so long after. If your purpose in life is to maximize the number of days you live, I guess you do you, but it doesn’t seem like a very high quality life to me. We take risks, we accept them, there’s middle ground betw…

>Here’s the deal, you’re going to die.

The level of arrogance or just compelete lack of understanding is mind boggling here.

If I get cancer and that cancer kills me, that cancer will not kill anyone else.

If I die because of some man-made chemical, the source that I got that chemical from is still there and will affect others as well.

Not all sources of death are the same. Some are much more nasty. Man-made things like PFAS chemicals have been known to be nasty for a long time by their makers. Those makers have chosen to hide it. Any attempt at "we're all going to die" in order to lessen the guilt of these companies is just shameful on all who spread it, and you should be ashamed.

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