[Above: Madison Gas & Electric transformer fires in summer 2019 spew black, PFAS-laden smoke over the city]
This morning I came across an excellent–though very disturbing–Mongabay article, part of a series: Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
The answer is unequivocal: YES
Mongabay cites the brilliant, prophetic scientist and writer Rachel Carson: “The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
That was almost sixty years ago.
Things have gotten orders-of-magnitude worse since then. As Mongabay outlines, thousands of new poisons have been invented and spewed into our air, earth rivers, and seas in the decades since Carson wrote her amazing book.
Have we done any better in progressive, privileged and “green” Madison? No. We can add this entry to Mongabay’s timeline below:
Madison, Wisconsin, USA (late 1800s to the present): Government entities dumped countless tons of toxic pesticides into the lakes to control algae and weeds. Government leaders and agencies allowed–and continue to allow, despite environmental regulations developed in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s–local industries and the U.S. military to discharge, ooze, drain, slosh, and dribble innumerable quantities of poisons (heavy metals, PCBs, halogenated solvents, pesticides, PFAS…X, Y, Z) into our groundwater, surface water, and air. Many of these poisons are now in Madison’s deep aquifers and public drinking water wells. Our prized Yahara lakes are contaminated with the highly toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS–which concentrate in fish that anglers, especially low income anglers of color, eat and share with family and friends.
Meanwhile, highly educated and purportedly science-loving Madison leaders, regulators and most residents are sleepwalking right through these toxic nightmares…
*****
Novel chemical entities: Are we sleepwalking through a planetary boundary?
- The “novel entities” planetary boundary encapsulates all toxic and long-lived substances that humans release into the environment — from heavy metals and radioactive waste, to industrial chemicals and pesticides, even novel living organisms — which can threaten the stability of the Earth system.
- Humans have invented more than 140,000 synthetic chemicals and we produce them in vast quantities: around 2.3 billion tons annually. Yet, only a few thousand have been tested for their toxicity to humans or other organisms. That leaves humanity essentially flying blind to potential chemical interactions and impacts.
- Global treaties such as the Stockholm Convention, Minamata Convention, and Basel Convention, limit production and/or trade of some environmentally persistent toxic and hazardous chemicals. But progress is slow: Decades after DDT’s impacts were reported, it is still regularly used in developing nations.
- NGOs call for an international tax on basic chemicals production, with the funds supporting countries devising and implementing regulations to protect human health and the environment. A 0.5% international fee could raise $11.5 billion yearly, vastly surpassing current global funding for chemicals management
Read the rest here.
