Comment by Ma8ee
20 days ago
It is fair and reasonable to demand that releasing a substance with new and unknown effects into the environment justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data that it is safe, or else get chopped.
I think people's health is more important than corporate profits. If corporations played fair, I'd be more tempted to agree with your formulation than with mine, but history has shown that that isn't the case. Take a current example like PFAS, where as soon there is enough evidence to prohibit one variety because it is harmful, the industry just starts using a very similar one that the legislature hasn't had time to collect evidence against.
I don't disagree at all in principle with what you're saying.
And, some people think that over-regulation on the insecticide use of DDT (which, to be perfectly fair is a nasty chemical and pretty much confirmed carcinogen, also was having negative effects on birds who were eating the poisoned insects and thereby getting unintended higher doses of the stuff) directly facilitated a rebound in mosquito populations in Africa, downstream from that a rebound in mosquito-borne malaria, and downstream from that a death toll debatably as bad or worse in terms of loss of human life than might've been had DDT use been more controlled and less banned outright.
Or think about how the banning of sulfur from cargo ship fuel in 2020 led to an 80% decrease in SO2 emissions... which is great for cutting harmful pollution around ports and such... But caused a measurable RISE in global temperatures because the sulfate aerosols had been reflecting sunlight off of the atmosphere, delaying global warming.
I don't know man, I don't have all the answers and I'm not trying to shill for mustache-twirlingly evil corporations who would turn us all into Soylent Green if it meant ten basis points more profit this quarter. I am just saying that there's gotta be a balance, and we have to recognize that there's no automatic, turn-your-brain-off safe side to default to. We always need science to verify that what we thought would happen happened, and that nothing we didn't intend to happen did, and in cases where the unforseen second-order effects should cause us to revisit the policy decisions we've made, even if just to revise and improve them rather than completely reverse course, we should actually do that rather than let political momentum override scientific validation and feedback.