If there was a magical way of convincing every single person in the U.S. to stop buying X, what would we have to stop buying to stop this pollution?
edit: one example, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...
Chemical stability isn't necessarily a good thing. Another chemical, Perfluorooctanoic (C8), is used in the manufacture of Teflon and is extremely stable, so much so that it's found in the bloodstream of 98% of Americans. Unfortunately C8 bio-accumulates and is in fact very harmful.
Also, one of the applications of Teflon is cookware and when heated Teflon undergoes thermolysis and forms toxic compounds. So stability is great until it's not.
Speaking of how shitty DuPont is... 3M was DuPont's sole supplier of C8 and stopped manufacturing it amid rising concerns from the EPA, so DuPont started manufacturing it on their own.
and that still won't do anything about commercial or industrial uses of those chemicals that contaminate your water supply/etc. Like firefighting foam, for example. The Air Force is going to keep using it regardless of what you do personally, despite them having less toxic alternatives available.
simply banning it directly wouldn't help, companies will just move on to the next thing, legally it will be presumed to be safe until there is science to prove that it's not, and we will need another 75 years of epidemiological studies to build that proof. Rinse and repeat forever.
The long term answer is that we need to reverse the legal model and have companies prove that any chemical they intend to introduce is safe, rather than the public having to (first learn what proprietary chemicals are being used, as this is not legally required to be disclosed, and then) prove that it's dangerous, but that won't happen under any conservative or liberal governments in the US, it will take a leftist government pushing heavy environmental regulations before there's any chance of phasing this sort of thing out. Until then, it's on to the next poison.
>The chemicals were used in products like Teflon and Scotchguard and in firefighting foam. Some are used in a variety of other products and industrial processes, and their replacements also pose risks.
Perhaps "capitalism" is a lazy proxy for this but I think it's more lazy to downvote you than engage with the discussion
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.
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.
How can that be cheaper and more effective than reducing consumption?
>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.
I don't think this is politically feasible in the timeframe necessary. The hundreds of millions up and coming in China/India/Brazil/Nigeria/etc want a piece of that nice Western life with a home and car and vacations.
The only realistic solution in a short enough timeframe is to try to educate everyone to consume less. Consume less space (more dense living), consume less fuel (enabled by dense living as public transport is now feasible), consume less products (vastly fewer cheap plastic toys and whatnot), etc.
Efficiency is just that, consuming less. One can also consume less end services, too. But if you're saying that a carbon tax is infeasible, then far more in feasible is just taking away with no replacement.
I am 100% in agreement with your plans to educate people to consume less, and have gotten active in local politics to try to effect the changes you suggest. These are exactly the types of things that we need to be doing! I don't think they will decrease GDP, and will likely increase it, as well as increase the quality of life of those who choose to live closer to more people with more transit and amenities nearby. Walking to a small grocery store that takes up 1/8th or less of a super market, and doing that daily or every other day to get the freshest food, is something that will make tons of people far more happy and likely reduce food waste, etc. but I think this will likely increase GDP.
Locally, the biggest pushback is from those who oppose allowing dense walkable neighborhoods. They tend to oppose "growth," be it economic, or population, or incomes, or basically any change from their car-centric lives, and walkable neighborhoods and the construction that comes with buildings taller than 2 stories are the prime culprit, or so they say. They control the local Sierra Club chapter, even. So we get to hear about the "dangers" of 5G tech rather than concrete proposals to stop climate change through local political change. Sigh.
Hopefully we see the externalities of energy usage priced in via a carbon tax or similar, but at the same time, unless we can alter the lifestyle of many to allow for far more density, I don't believe it will be enough.
I agree disposable consumerism is a problem —but that’s not the cause of this. Even historically socialist countries have issues (maybe even more issues) with industrial pollution. Adding “Capitalism” is a distraction from the problem.
The issue is learning from mistakes and taking proper corrective action according to risks.
Assuming the modified ecosystem is worse for basic needs such as water, temperature, and air quality, the only solution in the short term is to reduce consumption. Which is antithetical to every assumption made by every government and their financial system, which require exponential growth to sustain themselves.
I don’t see what socialist or capitalist or democracy or dictatorship has to do with it. If everyone wants a detached house with a garage and yard and personal vehicle to travel with and flights to tropical destinations, then this is the price that will have to be paid (barring a drastic reduction in population that can afford to do that).