Re: Chemicals in Sweden guilty until proven innocent

From: Michael S. Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Dec 15 2000 - 09:15:16 MST


Damien Raphael Sullivan wrote:
>
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:54:42 +0100
> "Max M" <maxmcorp@worldonline.dk> wrote:
> > From: Damien Raphael Sullivan
> > >So we should dump everything at will into our little cage and see what
> > >happens?
> >
> > That's not exactly what I am arguing for is it? It is not what is happening
> > now either.
>
> How not? A company uses a new chemical, dumps it, and if and when sufficient
> evidence is found against it then it may be banned. But lots of new chemicals
> are produced, probably outpacing regulatory inspection.
>
> > >Proving that something is safe may be impossible. But at least looking at
> > >persistent stuff to see what it might do seems only intelligent. Look
> > >before you leap, yes?
> > Yes and we do that.
>
> Again, how so? Perhaps I'm ignorant of standard procedure; how do we look
> ahead?
>
> > Electricity isn't created out of thin air you know, soot particles from gas
> > and coal, radioactive waste, magnetic fields around High Voltage wires
>
> Soot particles don't accumulate in fish at 2000x environmental concentrations,
> as far as I know. Some radioactive waste does; radioactive dumping is banned.

Except radioactive dumping that is in fact coal ash. Coal plant fly ash,
if it were produced by a nuclear plant, would be considered nuclear
waste. Because it is a coal byproduct though, it is salable as concrete
filler, is dumped in the ocean, and mixed in the soil used in grading
backyards and playgrounds. Radioactive heavy metal particles from this
ash accumulate in fish and the fatty tissues of children, and are
generally responsible for much of the 'hot spot' phenomena with leukemia
and other malignacies.

>
> The usual scientific argument against the fear of transmission wire fields is
> that the radiation is too pathetic to plausibly have any effect; if statistics
> proved there was an effect, it'd be New Science. The plausibility of a
> persistent and accumulative chemical causing damage is way higher. In fact, I
> wonder how many chemicals meet Sweden's definition and are harmless?
>
> > Fertilizers certainly are accumulative and is killing the low waters around
> > here.
>
> I don't think they are accumulative. They get used as food. They don't
> poison things, they feed algae which swamp the area.

and breed creatures like pfisteria, which has killed numbers of people,
and permanently paralyzed many more.

>
> > slow development/low risk fast development/high risk
> > <------------------------------------------------------------------>
> > poor society wealthy society
>
> And now that we're wealthy we can afford to be more cautious. Especially as
> the greater wealth gives us more power to fuck up if the risk happens.
>
> > We have (very high) taxes on cars, gas, electricity, fertilizers, pesticides
> > and consumption in general. None of these "enviromental" taxes are used to
> > better the enviroment. But to further their own agena.
>
> Regulations can be abused. But in the US I think the EPA has done a good job
> of making things better. Not that we're likely to adopt the precautionary
> principle, especially with Bush in office.

Regulations are built to be abused. We have a nuclear waste problem
because the EPA, thanks to greens pressure, is opposed to constructing
any breeder nuclear plants which are perfectly capable of eliminating
nuclear waste. You don't see France with the same waste problems we have
here because they use breeder reactors. The EPA doesn't allow the
recycling of many forms of toxic waste because the regulations say that
toxic wastes are supposed to be put in 50 gallon drums and stored. The
EPA won't allow blast furnaces to be built to flash remediate pcb laden
soils due to accusations that they releast dioxins into the environment,
when they are actually proven to operate at too high a temperature to
allow dioxins to escape.

>
> > Fair point. The safer the better. Only problem is that the greens are
> > attacking the test fields and destroying the crops. They don't want safe
> > development, they want no development.
>
> Well, I hardly agree with experiment-breaking. That's evil. But not all
> people concerned with the environment are anti-science Greens. Some of them
> are scientists.

Who get their funding from greens, and who provide science reports that
are misread and misinterpreted by the greens to further their agenda.



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