EU To Drop Ban of Hazardous Chemicals After Industry Pressure (theguardian.com) 74
The European Commission is poised to break a promise to outlaw all but the most essential of Europe's hazardous chemicals, leaked documents show. Bruce66423 shares a report: The pledge to "ban the most harmful chemicals in consumer products, allowing their use only where essential" was a flagship component of the European green deal when it was launched in 2020. It was expected that between 7,000 and 12,000 hazardous substances would be prohibited from use in all saleable products in an update to the EU's Reach regulation, including many "forever chemicals" -- or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) -- which accumulate in nature and human bodies, and have been linked to various hormonal, reproductive and carcinogenic illnesses.
But the Guardian has learned that the EU's executive is on the brink of a climbdown under heavy pressure from Europe's chemical industry and rightwing political parties. The industry-led backlash is causing internal disquiet over the threat to public health and policymaking. One EU official said: "We are being pushed to be less strict on industry all the time."
But the Guardian has learned that the EU's executive is on the brink of a climbdown under heavy pressure from Europe's chemical industry and rightwing political parties. The industry-led backlash is causing internal disquiet over the threat to public health and policymaking. One EU official said: "We are being pushed to be less strict on industry all the time."
inverted totalitarianism (Score:4, Interesting)
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I wanted to mod you up, but couldn't decide between funny and insightful. Sigh.
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What a really really nice and thoughtful reply to this. I really love this kind of comment. As a citicen of the EU I always had high regards for the ideas and promises of the EU. But in recent months, issues like chatcontrol and the likes are beginning to nag at me. And the fact that the EU council is in no way a democratically elected council but rather an appointed one doesn't make it any better. And the parliament has not enough power (and maybe not enough will) to stand up against such things.
So yes, yo
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This is the EU Commission, so it has nothing to do with democracy. It is, in fact, almost exactly the opposite.
You might be thinking of The European Parliament, which is a democratically elected and almost powerless talking shop used as a smokescreen by the Commission to pretend that the EU gives a shit about what you think.
Well... (Score:3)
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Expect to see more spinelessness like this as extremist authoritarians gain more power. Historically, they've always got on very well with corporations. One of the main reasons the USA was reluctant to join WWII was because of how much money US corporations were making in Germany at the time.
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I'm sure it will come as a surprise to all of those manufacturers that there are easy, safer alternatives that are only slightly more expensive.
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But of course they're also far worse in terms of function, meaning some products must be fully redesigned, resulting in massive shifts downstream.
You know, the whole "but it's just slightly intermittent wind, why wouldn't it just work?" followed by what is happening in South Africa right now.
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Because when you make everything more expensive, less durable and less functional, people who are well off are fine. It's the kids who were forced to study in candle light in Germany so your types got to go to their cafeteria meetups with friends and talk up a storm of how benevolent you are for implementing these policies.
Hell, let's not even mention the kids in Germany. How about poor sods in South Africa who because of ESG investing schemes making building up reliable power prohibitively expensive led to
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No, because this hasn't passed, so there are no measurable consequences. But there are measurable consequences for previous projects of the same activists, who were argued for on the same fundamental tenets with same methods that did pass.
So we can compare apples to apples as I do above.
Is sky going to fall because a lot of poor people fall off the cliff of privation? No. Should we make them fall off that cliff so that people like you can pat themselves on the back and get status points among their peers?
Th
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So basically your brain is so rotted from combination of drugs and ideology, that you see black circle, and hallucinate it's actually a tractor with a KKK member driving it.
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And this is why talking to you is generally impossible. When you run into an argument you can't address, you instead make an utterly absurd strawman and hallucinate that you're not presenting a strawman.
And when called on it, run away like you just did. I understand that too. If cognitive dissonance is sufficiently painful, mind will seek to shield itself from dispelling it.
B.S. (Score:2)
>> Fewer than they'd lose by stopping all manufacturing.
B.S.
FYI, the people manufacturing this shit are the first to die from exposure.
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Story is standard left wing partisan nonsense. "Right wing party" EPP is the biggest party in EU Parliament. It was at the table in the negotiations.
This is far more about reality asserting itself over Green nutjobbery again, and as always, they blame "right wing", because reality tends to have a certain bias against delusion and they really don't like reality. And right now, political pendulum is where left wing is utterly delusional about reality, from believing in evolution denial with "there are more th
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It's the geneticists and biologists who argue that there are more than two genders. So reality is clearly not your strong suit.
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Case to point. Delusion so extreme, everything is reverted to the opposite of itself.
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Right, number of sexes is exact science.
So how many sexes are there exactly? You should be able to provide a specific number then that is somehow not "two for pretty much all complex living beings on this planet and has been for hundreds of millions of ears of evolution at least", surely?
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Biologists and geneticists say that it's a continuum. You want to argue with THEM about biology and genetics? Go ahead. Take it off Slashdot and take it to the journals. I'm sure Nature will be happy to publish your rants as being equal to a peer-reviewed study. No? Then go the f away. If you can't offer a genuine contradiction to the scientists whose job it is to understand these things, just insults and bigotry, then you're not wanted. Here or anywhere else. And if you COULD publish a reasoned challenge t
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Of course they do. They also tell you that MTF and Male to Female are two different genders and for the life of them can't tell you how many genders there actually are. They're also not biologists or geneticists, but anti-evolutionary religious zealots.
Economic hit (Score:5, Interesting)
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You are in a lot more danger from UV radiation from the sun, traffic accidents, and plain stupidity
Do you mean the stupidity of representatives in a democracy ignoring their electorate? Or are you just trying to claim that the electorate's needs and desires should be irrelevant? The simple fact is in a democracy the majority rules. If the majority of the electorate in EU desires a ban, then the only valid outcome in a democracy is a ban being implemented. Regardless of "danger", "stupidity", or anything else. Anything less than that is not a democracy. Granted, the majority can make stupid decisions, bu
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You are in a lot more danger from UV radiation from the sun, traffic accidents, and plain stupidity
Do you mean the stupidity of representatives in a democracy ignoring their electorate? Or are you just trying to claim that the electorate's needs and desires should be irrelevant? The simple fact is in a democracy the majority rules ....
Hold on there. Time to get back on your meds.
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Re:Economic hit (Score:4, Informative)
They just do not want to take the economic hit it would require. A lot of those chemicals are found in everyday products as components or impurities. The economic disruption would be significant and the actual danger to the public is not that great. You are in a lot more danger from UV radiation from the sun, traffic accidents, and plain stupidity that from most of these chemicals. There are some like the polyfluorinated compounds that should be banned or greatly restricted, but most of them simply are not that big a danger.
That's not what the leaked draft says according to the article, (from TFA):
The draft analysis estimates that health savings from chemical bans would outweigh costs to the industry by a factor of 10. Reduced payments for treating illnesses such as cancer and obesity would amount to €11bn-€31bn (£9.4bn-£26.5bn) a year, while adjustment costs to businesses would be in the range of €0.9bn-€2.7bn a year.
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That's not what the leaked draft says according to the article, (from TFA):
The draft analysis estimates that health savings from chemical bans would outweigh costs to the industry by a factor of 10. Reduced payments for treating illnesses such as cancer and obesity would amount to €11bn-€31bn (£9.4bn-£26.5bn) a year, while adjustment costs to businesses would be in the range of €0.9bn-€2.7bn a year.
The link between most of these chemicals, environmental exposure, and concrete negative health outcomes is usually tenuous at best. We're talking about a constellation of thousands of compounds that absorb and collect in the human body at different rates and concentrations. Linking *that* nebulous array of factors to another layer of estimates on the cost of health outcomes on top of that - how actually useful is that information? It's an estimate based on an estimate based on an estimate.
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That's not what the leaked draft says according to the article, (from TFA):
The draft analysis estimates that health savings from chemical bans would outweigh costs to the industry by a factor of 10. Reduced payments for treating illnesses such as cancer and obesity would amount to €11bn-€31bn (£9.4bn-£26.5bn) a year, while adjustment costs to businesses would be in the range of €0.9bn-€2.7bn a year.
The link between most of these chemicals, environmental exposure, and concrete negative health outcomes is usually tenuous at best. We're talking about a constellation of thousands of compounds that absorb and collect in the human body at different rates and concentrations. Linking *that* nebulous array of factors to another layer of estimates on the cost of health outcomes on top of that - how actually useful is that information? It's an estimate based on an estimate based on an estimate.
I assume the EU draft is based on best available knowledge and according to that about 10xcost/year.
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That's not the way politics works. Instead what you do when you're an activist pushing for something is take the most extreme worst case scenario of whatever it is you're opposing, and then sell it as the average.
Guess who are the people who get these sorts of proposals through.
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That's not the way politics works. Instead what you do when you're an activist pushing for something is take the most extreme worst case scenario of whatever it is you're opposing, and then sell it as the average.
Guess who are the people who get these sorts of proposals through.
The calculations where afaik not made by activist politicians nor do I see any reason to assume that's the case. On the other hand, the opposition to the proposed legislative measures being sponsored by industrial groups is an undisputed fact.
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Not activist politicians. Activists.
I.e. not red cars. Cars.
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In the first place, do you actually believe anything in a government document?
Yes.
This gets fixed by direct pressure on executives (Score:2, Troll)
Very direct, very personal, very unpleasant pressure.
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Like what? Infiltrating their private lives, getting hired as a nanny/maid to serve PHAS filled meals to whole family? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ?
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I think the day's coming when that approach will become so popular it will be difficult for the usual government actors to protect these people.
The so-called "killer ape" has excelled through history in one particular area: the amount of damage one single human can inflict with some kind of easily portable weapon. My bet would be on a garage lab developing some kind of hideous virus coded very specifically to a particular family's genetic makeup...sort of a "23andme" for revenge seekers.
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Really? That's kinda cool, because I've never seen Blacklist. I'll look it up and see if I can find the relevant episode. Can you tell me approximately when it might have aired?
And thank you. You made my day!
Your job is to consume and die so we can make $$$ (Score:4, Insightful)
Our world is controlled by monopoly capitalists whose only motivation is to make as much money as possible. They spread misinformation to confuse your vote and bribe the politicians so nobody will interfere with their profits.
Why are (Score:2, Insightful)
Right wing beliefs always anti science? Most of the time it’s knee jerk opinions without reading any research or listening to people who do this for a living.
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Why are Right wing beliefs always anti science? Most of the time it’s knee jerk opinions without reading any research or listening to people who do this for a living.
Because a certain segment of people on that wing of politics seem to despise education and think that wilful ignorance is something to be proud of.
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European right wings are massively anti science. To a point where it becomes laughable. Education? Yes, as long as it is old school with chalk on chalkboard.
Think of the right wing guys as the ones with bats and skinheads. Education is not their strongest point.
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It's the left wing that has been against nuclear power and GMO crops.
Both sides have their pet obsessions.
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Both sides have their pet obsessions.
I think you mean "boogeymen"
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This is completely correct. I actually think that both left and right refuse to accept science. The right seems to reject science more often than the left but that could just be an issue of the times we live in right now.
In the end neither side will allow facts to get in the way of what they want to do.
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Most of the time it’s knee jerk opinions without reading any research or listening to people who do this for a living.
Like when the government bans chemicals with no understanding of the difficulty involved in finding replacements and just assumes the scientists will “figure it out”?
I work in the HVAC industry and we’re starting to see use of flammable refrigerants (go look at the box for a window air conditioner at your local Walmart, it now has a warning on it) due to a EPA mandated phase down of refrigerants that have a high global warming potential. Sure, there’s plenty of chemicals that work a
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In the end I don't actually care how hard an alternative is. For example if you make an engine that puts out a lot of pollution and there is no way to make it so it is not polluting that doesn't give you the right to sell the engine anyways because that is the best you can do.
Governments need to evaluate the threat from various chemicals and then decide what is an acceptable level of usage of them. If that means certain technologies can no longer be used that needs to weigh into the decision.
I know refriger
An outright ban is ludicrous (Score:2)
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I had a product where we needed to use leaded solder
We didn't need to use lead everywhere, just in those few spots but we couldn't.
the signal quality suffered by 30%.
That sounds an awful lot like "save a penny, loose a million" to me. Why didn't you just reduce the distance between the components? Or use better shielding / filters? Or boost the output signal? Or combine the affected components into a single package?
If you are loosing 30% of your signal at an internal component interconnect, the leaded solder is the least of your problems.
That amount of lead would not hurt anyone
The job of a business is to fulfill the needs of it's customers. (So it makes a profit for it's shareholders.) One of those needs
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The seebeck effect and 1/f noise. It was for a sensor. We were measuring nanovolts
Tax them, do not ban. (Score:1)
Same story all the time. When some want to ban and others disagree, TAX it.
Devote the tax to remediation while the mere presence of the tax discourages non-essential use of the item.
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If you want this to work you have to set the tax high enough to pay for the remediation. It can't pay for just part it needs to pay for the FULL cost of the remediation. that is the only way to internalize the costs.
We have the morality we can afford (Score:3)
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If we just focus on the economy above everything else we will die. The world will end up more and more polluted and the impacts of that are already quite bad. The issue needs to be solved without creating so much harm. Focusing on the economy above all else will end up destroying everything including the economy.
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the ban was poorly written (Score:4, Insightful)
Tort and product liability law . . . . . (Score:2)
The Law used to come down, and hard, on organizations who caused unnecessary harm by knowingly or negligently pushing needlessly dangerous substances.
The system was never perfect for many reasons, including the fact that sometimes a lot of time passes between the introduction of a substance that later proves harmful, and the harm that it causes. Cancers have incubation periods sometimes measured in multiple decades. And during that time, the people and/or businesses that used those chemicals might have ce
Tax the chemicals based on how harmful they are (Score:2)
Re: Tax the chemicals based on how harmful they ar (Score:2)
Do you think some voter can figure that out and elect politicians to regulate it? No chance.
Okay. But we can expect voters to somehow figure it out enough to elect politicians to hire a guy to "create a table of costs per unit of pollution"? Seems about as far-fetched to me.
More Guardian Bullshit (Score:2)
Typical Guardian Bullshit.
Anything that isn't hard-left or from the rabid Socialists is "right wing".
It reads as serious pushback from individual Governments, Industry and Political groups which would point to the proposed legislation being too draconian in it's reach.
And any American's commenting on this have a serious fucking cheek considering how screwed up their environment is e.g. trains constantly derailing themselves on rickety tracks and dropping chemicals straight into the water or just plain catch
Germany wants a chip fab, and those need chemicals (Score:2)
Germany has just agreed to bribe Intel EUR 10 billion to build a fab in Magdeburg, and it turns out fabs need lot of chemicals. Including some on the banned list.
So Germany could either cancel the fab, or drop the ban. And since they're agreed to pay over EUR 1 million per fab job, they REALLY want the fab.