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Washington Bans Chemicals; Industry Freaks
Frosty Piss writes "The governor of Washington is scheduled to sign legislation today to ban flame retardants called PBDEs in furniture, televisions, and computers in the state. This is despite the more than $220,000 the chemical industry has spent since 2005 to defeat the legislation. At a time when the federal government is largely ineffectual in regulating long-used but potentially dangerous industrial chemicals, the Washington ban could be the beginning of the end for PBDEs across the nation. 'The industry that makes deca and PBDEs is freaking out because they lost so severely in Washington state and other states will follow,' said a spokeswoman for the Washington Toxics Coalition. 'It really is a message from Washington state and policymakers that we won't accept chemicals that build up in our bodies and our children.'"
Isn't that a HUGE issue? The chemical is CONCENTRATING itself in the food chain.
Either show that it decomposes into safe, naturally occurring chemicals or realize that it is time to look at banning it BEFORE it hits levels that are hazardous.
I like that the /. ad on this page was "It only takes a spark" (smokey the bear).
But yeah, if one child catches fire but it saves ten thousand from cancer, that's unfortunately a better decision over all. Note it's not like children are spontaneously combusting without PBDEs, it's just that the companies will happily use the cheapest fire-proofing despite the consequences.
More to the point, a parent can stop a child from playing with a fire a lot easier than they can stop a corporation from leaking toxins into the water supply. This is, oddly enough, how legislation is supposed to work.
A.
China, Europe and Japan have banned PBDE, plus California, I think Washington is going to be OK.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Lemme see here:
1. Have mature product with static revenues
2. Have legislature ban mature product
3. Feebly fight against ban so you can tell public you tried
4. Introduce new, more expensive product
5. Profit!!
...and they also want to require compact fluorescent bulbs which...contain mercury, another cumulative poison which doesn't break down.
Yes, folks, the same government nannies will have your neighbors throwing mercury into the trash. Never mind that it will get into the ground and your water supplies, costs more, is inferior light and sends money to the Chinese communists.
Never mind that the same thinking banned DDT which meant millions of Africans have died from malaria or that liberated prisoners from the Nazi death camps were bathed in DDT to kill the bugs living on them or that "Silent Spring" has been shown to be a work of fiction.
Never mind that banning asbestos created more danger because removing asbestos is more dangerous than using it properly, automobile brakes are nowhere near as capable, costs increased and, oh, yeah, the WTC would have stood longer because it was designed to survive airplane hits provided the guts were protected by asbestos so it would have stood a few more hours.
Nope, those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.
it's also concentrating naturally
yes, artificial sources can accelerate that concentrating above natural thresholds across which bad things start happening. so ban the chemicals, what do i care? i'm not contradicting the parent or the washington law. good law, i say
my point is simply that the issue is not so simpleminded: "industrial chemicals baaaaad"
no, plenty of natural chemicals rot your body, and plenty of artificial ones improve your health. i'm just sick of the simpleminded rhetoric that industrial chemical makers are out to give all of us cancer just to make a few bucks. that's hollywood, not reality. and reality is that, on the balance, industrial chemicals have improved our lives and our health. yes, that really is the truth
sorry if i'm not so simpleminded and propagandized as other people
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously, that's awesome that you live somewhere so fully green. But, as you pointed out-- 10% of your power is *still* dirty, and according to a quick google, residential lighting accounts for roughly 9% of total residential power consumption, which you will notice is a full percentage point lower than the amount of non-renewable power generation in your area. (even assuming that there is nothing but residential use, which is fairly certain to not be the case, skewing the figures even further in favor of switching) I've also given you the benefit of the doubt on your "renewable" power sources and assumed that none of them produce any emissions at all.
You would be hard-pressed to find *any* location in the United States where it doesn't make sense to switch to CF bulbs, even assuming nobody is recycling them, and every single bulb ends up in the landfill. It's a net power reduction, and a net pollutant reduction across the board.
Even with 90% zero-emission renewable power (something that is vanishingly rare in the US)-- the switch to CF bulbs is a gain without even recycling them.
And as a final note: which do you think is easier to collect and recycle? Mercury in bulbs, or mercury nicely mixed into our atmosphere?
Well, coal plants present a smaller number of points of emission, at any rate, so rather than having to encourage/mandate behavior of 300 million, you only have to control the behavior of a few thousand coal plants.
(Though the challenge of reckoning with the political influence of coal plant owners might be an issue.)
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