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The EPA's Bold New Idea Has Massive Implications For Public Health (motherjones.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of radiation, carcinogens, and other toxic chemicals has been based on the cautious scientific reasoning that considers even slight exposure to toxins potentially risky to public health. From that premise, the EPA has assessed a wide range of pollution, including lung-clogging particulate matter, Superfund cleanup, water treatment, radiation exposure, and risk assessments for carcinogens like benzene.
That time-honored approach may be changing because of easy-to-overlook phrasing within a paragraph buried in the proposed "Strengthening Transparency In Regulatory Science Rule," a regulation that will bar the EPA from considering a wide range of scientific studies in its rule-making. With a few sentences buried in the seven-page Federal Register text, the EPA is opening the door to a new scientific approach that -- in a worst-case scenario -- could further relax regulations because of the assumption that a little pollution is actually beneficial.
Some scientists have considered the implications of this paragraph and described a whole array of potential problems to Mother Jones. Because the paragraph is written in incredibly vague language, most scientists were unable to explain which pollutants or regulations were the prime targets.
That time-honored approach may be changing because of easy-to-overlook phrasing within a paragraph buried in the proposed "Strengthening Transparency In Regulatory Science Rule," a regulation that will bar the EPA from considering a wide range of scientific studies in its rule-making. With a few sentences buried in the seven-page Federal Register text, the EPA is opening the door to a new scientific approach that -- in a worst-case scenario -- could further relax regulations because of the assumption that a little pollution is actually beneficial.
Some scientists have considered the implications of this paragraph and described a whole array of potential problems to Mother Jones. Because the paragraph is written in incredibly vague language, most scientists were unable to explain which pollutants or regulations were the prime targets.
It's true or it's false. Neither option is liberal.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
what is with the militant liberal bias on this site?
Reality only seems to have a liberal bias because of how off the rails conservatives have gotten over the past couple decades. I voted for Bush Jr. twice, but being a "conservative" in today's political climate is a sign of either severe indoctrination or a severe lack of critical reasoning skills. Or perhaps treating abortion or gun control as a voting litmus test, but I would consider those to being a single issue voter and not actually conservative (and in many cases another example of a lack of education).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
have always been at war with Eastasia.
Public health, schmublic health. There's MONEY to be made!
Who the fuck cares if we make the planet unable to support human life! I'll be dead, having made MORE MONEY!
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
from the ./ summary:
"For years, the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of radiation, carcinogens, and other toxic chemicals has been based on the cautious scientific reasoning that considers even slight exposure to toxins potentially risky to public health."
That is the fundamental error underlying all environmental regulatory policy in the U.S. Every nutrient essential for human life has some dose at which it becomes toxic. Water and table salt are two common examples. Whether a substance is harmful or beneficial to life depends on both the substance and the quantity. If the EPA were serious about that policy, then it would demand that the oceans be ejected into space to clean up the environment of deadly salt and water toxins.
It says "cautious scientific reasoning." There are two problems with that description. First, it is value judgment which violates presumed editorial neutrality of straight news. Second, it is the wrong value judgment. "idiotic non-scientific assumptions" would be an accurate description.
The consequence of a completely unworkable policy is regulatory confusion and rule by bureaucratic fiat.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
As a resident of the 'real world', I find that a statistically significant number of people (>75%) who profess the same views as you, rely on fox news as their primary source for information.
just sayin...
Hormesis -- a positive health impact from low exposures to an environmental stressor like radiation or pollution -- is a real thing. You can demonstrate that in lab animals.
The thing is, humans aren't lab animals. You can't control their total exposure to the stressor. Scientific support for radiation hormesis in humans is (for obvious reasons) anecdotal, and by definition isn't controlled. The same exposure that had a small beneficial effect in one population might not have happened had that population been living on a radon spur.
Where there is a possibility of a hormetic effect at low levels of exposure and a certainty of a negative effect at high levels of exposure, you have to limit human exposure from any single source. That doesn't take a genius to understand, but that level of reasoning appears to be light years beyond the current political discussion, in which radiation is either good or evil and must be treated accordingly.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Also compare reality versus fantasy. Ie, there are MANY on the conservative side who believe the Bible is the literal world of God, not just divinely inspired. These people claim to now exactly how the world will end, and because of this they firmly believe that climate change is not an issue.
Another factor about "reality" is what you take as your base assumptions. Such as is it more important to make money (or create jobs) or to protect safety of others. These days, liberals these days tend to assume that safety is more improtant while conservatives tend to assume economic activity is more important. Different base assumptions and therefore different conclusions arise from the same facts.
Of course, there are those who want to have both better economics while having public safety who then attack the data as being false so that they don't have any internal conflicts; ie, they redefine reality. This happens on both sides of the issue, they may either attack the data showing something is unsafe or they may attack the data showing potential economic advantages.
Here's an explanation of what's going on... same method used by tobacco industry.
https://thinkprogress.org/sena...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Just a reminder to you younger Slashdotters, that there was a time, before there was an EPA, where several of the Great Lakes had all their fish dying, there were rivers in Ohio that would burst into flames and several American cities where the smog was so bad that the air was a yellowish-green even on a cloudless day. And not just cities like LA and Cleveland, Pittsburgh, but also Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas and many others.
A Republican president created the EPA in 1970, and within a decade and a half, you could find Lake Trout and Salmon in the Great Lakes again, there are even fish in the Cuyahoga, and people could actually breathe in cities without coughing up brown phlegm again. Corporations adjusted to the new regulations and the '80s and '90s saw a booming US economy with widespread improvement across all economic strata.
We are being ratfucked by our own government. If your big issue is "feminists are taking my jobs!" and supporting this administration in order to "own the libs and SJWs", you are what is known as a useful idiot, and you are hurting yourself.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He is conservative in the sense that he does exactly what his corporate masters tell him to do, even lie if it gets him into a position where he can provide greater satisfaction to said masters
Pretty much kavanughs all the way down
Reality only seems to have a liberal bias because of how off the rails conservatives have gotten over the past couple decades.
How have conservatives gone off the rails, exactly? Because from where I'm sitting, it's the liberals that have gone completely off the rails, out-right attacking their own country while holding mutually exclusive views as being some sort of sacrosanct universal truth.
It's liberals that are obstructing everything the democratically elected President is doing. Liberals that are inventing reasons and false accusations to derail the President's Supreme Court pick. Liberals that are demanding that we both treat men and women as exact equals in every way while at the same time demand we give special treatment to women to make up for the ways they differ from men. Liberals that have declared that "sex" and "gender" are somehow different things describing the same thing. Liberals that are rewriting the rules so that what used to be considered small talk is now a "microaggression." Liberals who are declaring that the rule of law does not apply to men when accused by women. Liberals who declare that if you are a white male, you have no place in modern society. Liberals who have told everyone that they cannot succeed through hard work, and that if they do anyway, it's thanks to the government letting them. And it's liberals that are attacking new requirements that requires the EPA to use real, repeatable science and not just any P-hacked study.
I don't know what world you live in, but from what I can tell, it's not conservatives who have completely gone off the deep end - it's the left.
You understand that it was the conservatives that held open the Supreme court for 10 months when Obama was President right? You are complaining because Democrats are finally playing dirty like Republicans have been for at least a decade. Republicans have had a win at all costs mentality going back at least 20 years.
You know what happens when a Democrat is accused of sexual misconduct? They quit because the party pressures them into it. Al Franken was accused of much less as well. Roy Moore was poised to win but residents came to their senses to vote a Democrat instead of a pedophile. Kavanaugh has enough black marks against him that any other President in history would have withdrawn the appointment and found someone less controversial.
How are women being granted special treatment? What proposal are you referring to? My guess is that there is none and you're just repeating the same BS the Fox or Alex Jones spew all the time.
It is quite rich that you say liberals are declaring "that the rule of law does not apply to men when accused by women. " Mostly what they do is shout derogatory remarks at the women until the accusers shut up. Deny deny deny, that is Trump's single strategy when it comes to controversy.
Good luck finding liberals that thing the white male has no place in society, again, you're just repeating the same Alex Jones BS.
I'll give you a little test. Who are the most well known "liberals?" Here's a hint, Bill Maher is a white dude, hint, Bernie Sanders is an old white dude, John Oliver, Steven Colbert, John Stewart, the list goes on. You're way off base and I welcome you to come back to planet Earth because you clearly are living someplace else.
Now let's attack your most basic principle. I know of no one and you know of no one that is completely conservative or completely liberal. There are things I think should be changed and things you think should be changed. (Those are liberal ideas.) There are things I think are going well and thing you think are going well. (Those are conservative ideas. )
Dumping social security in favor of 401ks or other private investment options is not a conservative idea. It is a stupid idea but that is a different discussion. You might want abortion to be banned and return us to the time where women were doing to the tune of 100,000 a year. That is more conservative because you're returning to how it was before Roe V Wade.
It scares me the lack of history perspective from the Republicans right. Most things are the way they are today for a reason. If you're going to tear it apart you better be prepared to deal with the shitstorm that it was holding back. The EPA needed teeth to actually stop our lakes and rivers from burning. Now we're defanging them and hoping what? That a Democrat will come into power so you can blame them for the problem and then watch as they start cleaning it back up.
People like to laugh a Democrats screaming tax and spend. Republicans just spend. The more they can borrow the better. Remember when there was a conservative principle that said not to carry debt? Now we have a President who calls himself the King of Debt. Democrats at least try to balance the budget. It only happened when Clinton was in office because Republicans wouldn't let him spend any money on anything. Guess who got the blame for all the base closures though? Many Vets today hate Clinton for what happened to the military even though it was Republicans that forced the budget issues leading to their problems.
You understand that it was the conservatives that held open the Supreme court for 10 months when Obama was President right?
I remember a lame duck President hoping he'd get his nominee through the process before he left office. I do not remember that nominee facing ginned-up accusations of sexual misconduct and "drinking problems" from 36 years prior to his nomination, while he was still in high school, nor do I recall a demand for unending FBI investigations into his alleged misbehavior from 36 years ago. "Just another 20 people you should interview, what's another 20 people?" That's an actual question from an actual (I assume) news reporter at the Senate press conference this morning.
Maybe it happened and the news media of the time just ignored it?
You know what happens when a Democrat is accused of sexual misconduct? They quit because the party pressures them into it. Al Franken
You're presenting this like it is a positive quality. If Al Franken did nothing, then his party pressuring him to resign is a Bad Thing. It's pandering to baseless accusation and innuendo. It's virtue signaling. "Look at how virtuous all us Democrats are, we forced Franken to resign at the first hint of trouble." Like I said, that's not a good thing.
Kavanaugh has enough black marks against him
Unsubstantiated and unproved "black marks", to the extent that people who the accuser claimed were there and observing the activity deny being there at all. Accusations are accusations, not proof. Unfortunately for Franken, there were pictures.
Now we're defanging them and hoping what?
There is nothing in the proposed regulation that defangs the EPA. Hyperbole much? Apparently not, you're terrible at it.
Obama's nominee was put forth OVER HALF A YEAR BEFORE THE DAMN ELECTION. There was no 'lame duck' about it. It was the same old 'no we're assshats only out for ourselves, fuck everyone else we won't even attempt to compromise' from the extreme right wing fucktards (i.e. 'Republicans').