No we overcomplicate it with overly complex regulations. It’s pretty simple, don’t dump chemicals in water or on land period. Assuming chemicals are totally fine until proven otherwise is backwards as hell and clearly corrupt.
Everything is chemicals. You just described 2/3 of all industrial activity and proposed we should stop them. Are you willing to take the consequences which follow from that proposal? (And somehow forgot the 1/3 “dump chemicals in air”)
This is a thought terminating cliche and pedantically destroys the conversation.
All of these have hazards in specific circumstances, and huge benefits in others. All are chemicals.
All are well known and characterized. Many other compounds are too new for that level of knowledge and characterization. They are chemicals too.
If we allow someone to make new chemicals (it’s hard to stop, frankly!), either we say ‘no, not until they are fully understood and characterized’, or ‘yes, unless we learn it’s too hazardous’.
Saying no first is a bit of a catch-22 since how are you going learn anything and characterize the dangers if you don’t make and use it a bunch?
If you say ‘yes, unless we learn it’s too dangerous’ then we learn a huge amount quite quickly - but inevitably have something too dangerous causing problems.
It’s a fundamentally conservative vs liberal development strategy debate.
The MSDSes will elaborate on this and you probably know that.
This thread chain has gotten impressively disingenuous very fast. We aren't arguing the colloquial definition of chemicals which if we're not being pedantic, we know brings up ideas of substances damaging to other substances or life itself.
Which is fairly obviously the line that you're giving a good traditional "but where would we POSSIBLY STOP?!" gambit that comes out of paid lobbyist's mouths more often than hello or goodbye.
The line to be crossed is obviously at least a few blocks up the way from "what is the difference between water and hydrazine though".
And also, anything cumulative becomes "too hazardous" within years. But by then profits are made, and war chests are filled to keep the spice flowing.
The world got by for thousands of years sustainably without a lot of these "huge benefits" and I'm willing to take a hit or two within my lifetime to ensure there's still lifetimes at all down the road.
How do you create a MSDS for a chemical that hasn’t been made yet?
How do you decide it’s safe to create a large enough quantity of a chemical to figure out what even should be in that MSDS?
How can you know if something is mutagenic without exposing it to DNA? Or cancer causing without exposing it to a living organism? Or causes reproductive harm without exposing it to organisms and seeing how it impacts reproduction?
Those all are potential harms.
Traditionally, some enterprising alchemist/chemist would just try it - and if they lived, would write a paper on it. Further research and experience would then inform if a better alternative should be used.
The Haber-Bosch process that allowed the creation of artificial fertilizers has allowed for the massive expansion of the human race. Roughly 3/4 of the humans on this planet right now would starve to death without it. Assuming they didn’t get nuked first. That was in 1909.
It also allowed for the creation of modern high explosives (and propellants) at scale, and the horrors of WW1 and WW2. And the mining revolution, which has provided the raw materials necessary to build our modern economies at vastly cheaper prices than were ever possible before for humanity.
Chemistry is a fundamental building block of modern society, and removing it would literally cause its sudden and violent collapse.
Deciding if ‘freezing’ it in place, or letting it continue to develop new and interesting applications is the discussion - because no, we weren’t sustainable before (unless you count constant and ongoing genocides as ‘sustainable’), and we’ve long passed the point where trying to return to that would be anything but apocalyptic.
Literally.
And keeping in mind that just because we agree to stop research in one area doesn’t mean anyone else (competitors) will do so. Regardless of if that is in the realm of drugs, or weapons, or soaps, or foods, or whatever.
>How do you create a MSDS for a chemical that hasn’t been made yet?
What argument that I've made do you present this logical fallacy to?
> Deciding if ‘freezing’ it in place, or letting it continue to develop new and interesting applications is the discussion
This is not my viewpoint and was never mentioned by me. This is an argument you're either making in reference to another comment, a point not addressed by myself, or you're talking to your own strawman, who doesn't seem to have a significant stance other than "well, it's basically unsolveable!".
That is the discussion I was having. You're doing exactly what I mentioned, being disingenuous about the literal technical definition of chemicals and muddying waters because water is a chemical too, man!
Well watering my lawn doesn't kill it or give organisms that live mere decades cancer. That's a reasonable measurement to start.
And if you're really saying there can't be more in depth, slower research to chemicals that people will end up having in their bloodstream, then I don't even know what to say to that, other than Andrew Ryan would be proud.
The concern about the chemicals we’re talking about is that they are in the water you are using to water your lawn, anmong other things, and have been getting made at scale for over 50 years. And is a family of 6 million something chemicals, some of which we suspect now may be dangerous - including causing cancer - and some we have no idea.
We can only test for things we suspect are an actual issue and have a test for. And for which we actually test.
Which we don’t really have reasonable tests for ‘doesn’t bio degrade over decades+ and bio accumulates to potentially dangerous levels’ yet. Except watching nature, anyway, which is how we discovered this problem. There are millions more chemicals that this hasn’t happened either.
So what do you propose doing here besides freezing it until such tests can be put in place and developed?
Do you actually have a line? We can't make a law out of people saying "you know what i mean".
From the comment you're responding to. Damage is quantifiable, if it wasn't, the OP (EPA proposing hazardous substance classification) wouldn't even exist.
If the point is just to ban things when the risks outweigh the benefits, that is simply the status quo.
The first real problematic PFAS compounds were in fire fighting foam used to put out aircraft fires for example, and took decades for their problems to show up.
Which requires either extremely exhaustive (or essentially impossible economically) testing, or yolo’ng it. Or only using already known compounds.
It is not. Quite contrary. The thought it provokes is "what chemicals do you want to ban?" Do you want to ban water? Should we throw anyone in a prison who transports it? It is a chemical after all. One which is quite dangerous in many circumstances.
But surely that is not what edgyquant meant. Should we prohibit people selling soap? It is a chemical! But that is silly. We would probably lose more by banning that than by not banning it.
Should we ban plastics? Maybe? Which types? All types? All uses?
Should we sell hydrazine in grocery stores? Oh, we better not. Can we use hydrazine in special applications like fuelling satellites? If so what do we require from people who handle/store/dispose of it?
So many thoughts provoked by that simple observation.
I mean, there's a good example there with phosphate compounds in detergents.
Exactly. You prove my point.
In this case it's about PFAS, a subgroup of organofluorine compounds. There's only 5 known organofluorine compounds produced by organisms.
There are plenty of counter examples to this (and also pretty unclear what is meant by "natural")
Lead is natural. Mercury is natural.
"Don’t dump chemicals in water or on land" is a perfectly logical and defensible statement.
See how that works?
Real productive mode of conversation, huh.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-05-18/heres-w...
classic bad-faith interpretation, using the classic bad-faith slogan. No, you’re not “just trying to understand” anything, and GP is absolutely correct about that.
We are not dying for content here without your “hurr durr don’t you know water is a chemical posts, and we generally try to maintain a higher level of discourse here. Maybe try Reddit instead.
Please see the site rules about using the most generous possible interpretation of a comment, and if you actually have something to contribute then maybe try again.
I'm being plenty charitable in assuming you're arguing in good faith, at first glance your comment comes off as anti-intellectual value signalling, which will never ever solve anything. Ever.
But this is HN, so I'm going to assume you've simply misunderstood the concern, as anti intellectualism has no place here.
Okay, no more fertilizer on the crops then. Enjoy the famine.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. Pretending that "chemicals" can only ever be used to refer to all material substances equally is just intentionally trying to sabotage productive discussion.
Well define it then.
Nobody is complaing that there might be an alternative definition of chemical.
The complaint is that you're not using any widely known definition of "chemical" and not providing your own definition.
You can shut everyone up by just defining how you are using the word. I doubt you will since i think you are lying about there existing some other definition that makes sense in the context you are arguing, and you lack the knowledge/ability to make up your own definition that would fit your argument.
Now would you like to discuss which "substances produced by chemical processes" are likely to be the most impactful upon the environment, or would you like to continue quibbling over semantics?
chemical [ kem-i-kuhl ]SHOW IPA
noun
a substance produced by or used in a chemical process.
chemicals, Slang. narcotic or mind-altering drugs or substances.
adjective
of, used in, produced by, or concerned with chemistry or chemicals: a chemical formula; chemical agents.
used in chemical warfare: chemical weapons.
> "It’s pretty simple, don’t dump chemicals in water or on land period."
Then i still maintain anyone using that definition of chemical in the context of that statement is an utter idiot.
> Now would you like to discuss which "substances produced by chemical processes" are likely to be the most impactful upon the environment
Why? There is already a government department tasked with that, that can probably do a better job then you or i could.
If you're trying to argue that the status quo is fine and we shouldn't change anything, then you have a weird way of doing so.
Humans have been naturally digging these things up and refining them since at least the Roman Empire [1] in the west and the earliest Chinese Dynasties in the East [2].
[1] https://sites.dartmouth.edu/toxmetal/more-metals/lead-versat...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_the_First_Qin_Emp...
We do need to be a bit more specific than that, or we're not gonna get anywhere.
Also, once we've specified which chemicals shouldn't be dumped, I'd like to include the atmosphere in the list of places where one shouldn't dump them. Seems to be a very popular place to dump really harmful stuff, we should stop that.
This intentional nitpicking of the colloquial usage of the word chemicals is a favorite of both, disingenuous conversationalists who like to take a chance to feel correct rather than participate earnestly, and lobbyists.
At least one of them gets paid for it though.
Why not just use more specific language? If indeed everyone is acting in bad faith, using clear language would shut them up. If instead they are being ernest and cannot understand you because of the "colloquial" language, then being rigorous would further your stated goal of ernest participation. Either way seems like a win-win for you.
Which, since HN is a place for technically minded people, has resulted in people arguing that chemical contamination of PFAS is categorically the same as watering my lawn.
You are technically correct, but this is called a "gotcha": it's not about continuing the conversation in earnest, if anything, it shuts down conversation about the important details by, in the writing of mike judge, "playing lawyerball" instead.
In reality we all know that none of us are writing the technical legislation, so any of us becoming enamored with defending for profit entities against hazardous chemical classification through technical usage of language is...basically the core spirit of corporate lobbyism.
I don't recognise anyone here arguing this. Let me recap the conversation: tankaiji said it is good to ban these, but expressed concern that companies will find other dangerous chemicals to replace them with. mensetmanusman responded something along the lines of this being an inevitable consequence of human technology. edgyquant responded that the problem is overly complex regulation and seemingly proposed a simpler solution.
People rightfully pointed out that his simpler solution can't distinguish between the chemical contamination of PFAS and watering ones lawn. Which is ridiculous. So clearly the problem is not that simple. In fact the problem is complex and therefore the regulations around it are complex too.
You do not appear to have done that. That's why you are arguing with the colloquial usage of the word. Because you can't offer a useful and precise definition.