[HN Gopher] Scientists tracked down a mass killer of salmon
___________________________________________________________________
Scientists tracked down a mass killer of salmon
Author : prostoalex
Score : 301 points
Date : 2020-12-15 16:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| chefkoch wrote:
| It would be interesting why this hasn't been observerd at other
| places. I guess there are many places where road dirt is swept
| Info rivers.
| WhoIsSatoshi wrote:
| I'd theorize it has, but nobody has been able to coordinate
| such a focused investigation.
| 238475235243 wrote:
| It rains a lot there, not in other places.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| The paper also has data for Los Angeles, with concentrations
| begin similar.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| It's surprising they did not check toxicity on other salmon
| species. Either it's specific to the coho salmon, which is
| maybe unlikely, or other salmon species are not stocked in
| streams near cities?
| jandrese wrote:
| Fish in general have been undergoing a mass extinction event
| in recent decades. We normally blame it on overfishing, but
| effects like this could have been right under nose the entire
| time and simply missed because nobody was looking for it.
| mattbk1 wrote:
| They have to start somewhere. I'm sure we'll see more papers
| in the future.
| blue_cadet_3 wrote:
| The salmon swim up Cedar River in Renton, WA which a heavily
| used road follows and crosses the river few times. That gives
| plenty of opportunity for runoff to get into the river.
| Tagbert wrote:
| BTW - the Cedar River also flows past Renton Airport which
| serves small aircraft which use aviation gasoline. That fuel
| is still allowed to contain tetra-ethyl lead. This is another
| environmental issue that should be addressed.
| std_badalloc wrote:
| I've seen studies where they tracked wild Norwegian salmon, and
| found that 90% died before spawning. As far as I understood it,
| this was interpreted as "natural death", but it's the same
| figure as the one in the article. It seems like a very
| plausible explanation that those deaths also largely occurred
| due to the same poisoning from tires.
| remote_phone wrote:
| They use shredded tires in children's playgrounds as artificial
| turf. A few years ago a soccer coach made the connection between
| that turf and children getting weird cancers and has been
| campaigning against them ever since.
|
| It looks like tires are much more toxic than we thought and we
| should reconsider their composition quickly.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Yeah a couple of professional goalies got lymphoma too.
| 08-15 wrote:
| That's terrible! All the salmon in the playground will die!
| reachtarunhere wrote:
| Do you have a link for this?
| andrevoget wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-health-turf-
| idUSKCN0V...
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Because youth soccer coaches are well known for their
| contributions to cancer research?
|
| Contrast that to the treatment given over the past 10 months to
| any non-expert who dared voice an opinion on COVID-19.
| artvark11 wrote:
| As a kid, I remember playing at playgrounds made entirely of
| old tires. Shedded tires on the ground, big farm tractor tires
| to climb on. Car tires stacked up to form towers. I wonder what
| impact that had on the thousands of kids that passed through
| there.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I feel like the best option is to recycle the tires into
| tarmac and reuse as much into new tires as well. The other
| thing is to live far away from major roads.
| mattbk1 wrote:
| Recycling into roads sort of sucks for people who live near
| roads already (among all the other stuff they have to
| breathe in from car exhaust).
| abacadaba wrote:
| and we were so proud of using all that recycled material too.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Seems the problem is not the recycling, but the composition
| of the items being recycled.
| gmueckl wrote:
| I hope that the industry puts the required changes in place
| really soon and that it has the expected effect on Puget Sound.
| Are there any guesses whether a healthier salmon population would
| help the local Orcas as well?
| ur-whale wrote:
| https://archive.is/VvOTH
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| Putin?
| 14 wrote:
| To the person [1] who said tires don't matter I guess we can have
| this discussion again?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23613705
| [deleted]
| degenerate wrote:
| Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/VvOTH
| marknutter wrote:
| Humans. Was it humans?
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Great that they were able to identify a clear candidate. This
| type of testing of course can't be done on humans to eg identify
| hormone disruptors. Are there other methods to verify such
| damaging chemicals, or are we condemned to live with permanent
| small-scale damage?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Big datasets matching health outcomes to blood sample
| spectroscopy seems like a good candidate for identifying
| chemicals which detrimentally affect human health by small
| amounts.
|
| Obviously you won't be able to separate cause and effect, but
| in my view if "X chemical in people's blood leads to a higher
| likelihood of dropping out of school", thats a good enough
| reason to restrict the use of X, even if it sometimes turns out
| there is no causal effect.
| robocat wrote:
| It is a statistical nightmare to do what you suggest.
|
| 1. False correlations:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
|
| 2. True correlations:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding
|
| 3. The number of normal compounds in our body from cell
| processes or digestion is large. Measuring tiny amounts of
| unknown compounds is extremely hard in that environment.
|
| A better way is to proscribe more in-depth testing of
| compounds on animals. Removing all other factors gives
| statistical power to observations.
| sjg007 wrote:
| We could. I mean lead is commonly identified by blood test.
| quotemstr wrote:
| But this type of testing _can_ be done on near-human primates
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's just much more expensive to grow monkeys than growing
| fish.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Black box modelling by trying different thing on humans is
| hopeless. We will have to figure out the mechanisms.
| josephjrobison wrote:
| TLDR;
|
| The killer was the 6PPD-quinone from the tires in the roadway
| runoff.
| Bermion wrote:
| "The team is in conversations with the tire industry and hopes
| manufacturers will be willing to look for a replacement
| preservative" - Is this how it usually works? I'd think they
| should contact some regulator that makes sure tires containing
| this cannot be sold. Companies don't do things to be nice.
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| The manufacturers are not stupid, they know the next stop will
| be legislators. Companies prefer to get ahead of things and
| self-regulate if they know that the alternative is almost
| certainly going to be government bureaucrats stepping in (which
| they will anyway - this is going to be like BPA). The results
| are damning enough that they probably don't want to waste any
| time, and finding an alternative will probably take some
| research.
|
| Note that they said this affects _every tire on the market_ ,
| so this isn't a case of reporting a few manufacturers. This is
| going to result in an industry-wide change.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| I'm surprised, too. And the companies in question should be
| fined quite substantially, in my opinion. We need to create
| incentive for them to actually research the possible
| detrimental environmental impact of their products --
| scientists shouldn't have to beg them to use substitutes and
| the matter shouldn't be settled with the companies responding
| something along the lines of "whoops, we didn't know that."
| voxic11 wrote:
| Yeah, the tire companies deserve some fines, but I think the
| drivers who smeared these tires all over the roads are even
| more responsible for the environmental impact. The drivers
| should be allowed to get away with "whoops, we didn't know
| that.".
| Tagbert wrote:
| I don't suppose that any products that you use have
| unexpected impacts? Have you done the research?
|
| It's silly to expect consumers to verify safety upfront. if
| products are shown to be toxic and alternatives exist, then
| you can start expecting consumers to choose the less toxic
| version.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| I disagree with that sentiment. I do not consider the
| consumer to be the one responsible of researching the
| safety of a product, the responsible party is clearly the
| one that produced and marketed the product.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| > Companies don't do things to be nice.
|
| They do if it gives them a market advantage. If Goodyear can
| market tires that are more "sustainable" or "eco-friendly" than
| their rivals that will resonate with consumers who focus on
| such things (many of them, particularly millenials and
| younger).
|
| We saw this with trans-fats in food. They aren't prohibited by
| the FDA, but most producers have eliminated them and have "Zero
| Trans Fats" emblazoned across the package labeling, because it
| sells better. Seeing this effect also with high-fructose corn
| syrup.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's the point. They don't do it _to be nice_ , they do it
| _because it helps the bottom line_. I don 't think it's
| helpful nor accurate to conflate the two, as it only serves
| corporations who want to ride on paper-thin "social
| responsibility" PR.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| I guess I don't see the difference.
|
| People running the corporations who decide to be "socially
| responsible" are "being nice." The reason they do it is
| because their customers want/will pay for "social
| responsibility." If nobody wants social responsibility, why
| would it fall on corporations to do it anyway? Why do they
| get demonized and everyone else gets off the hook?
| uoaei wrote:
| You don't see the difference likely because your moral
| value system prioritizes outcomes instead of intent. This
| is not a bad way of looking at it and I'm not criticizing
| that perspective.
|
| They get demonized because there is nothing stopping them
| from simply undoing all those policies once the bottom
| line dictates otherwise. The public cannot trust
| corporations who act in that way, and when they
| inevitably do, they get valid criticism for it. They are
| using language in sinister and misleading ways, and for
| most people that is equivalent to lying.
| greeneggs wrote:
| Trans fats were banned by the FDA: https://www.washingtonpost
| .com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/18/artif...
| Iv wrote:
| Right now, the question to answer is "how much would it cost to
| use a different chemical?" and the answer could be "Oh, we just
| have to use one of the 100 different ones from our catalog,
| that's barely a tenth of a cent of difference" or it could be
| "no can do, this is a crucial molecule that prevents tires from
| rotting in winter."
|
| Once you know that, you can approach regulators who will have
| to weight between the interests of the fish industry and the
| interests of the tires industry.
| grawprog wrote:
| >who will have to weight between the interests of the fish
| industry and the interests of the tires industry.
|
| This bothers me. It's not about the 'fish industry' it's
| about weighting the interests of the tire industry against
| the life in the Puget sound ecosystem.
|
| https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/
|
| >Few animals have been as central to the Pacific human
| experience as salmon. Their annual migrations are a miracle
| of nature. They feed us and their presence tells us that our
| rivers are still healthy. From grizzly bears to orca whales,
| at least 137 different species depend on the marine-rich
| nutrients that wild salmon provide
|
| >Salmon and freshwater ecosystems are inextricably linked by
| feedbacks between salmon runs, food webs, and riparian
| forests. Salmon runs function as enormous pumps that push
| vast amounts of marine nutrients from the ocean to the
| headwaters of otherwise low productivity rivers. For example,
| sockeye salmon runs in southwest Alaska contribute up to 170
| tons of phosphorous per year to Lake Illiamna. These
| nutrients are incorporated into food webs in rivers and
| surrounding landscapes by a host of over 50 species of
| mammals, birds, and fish that forage on salmon eggs,
| juveniles, and adults in freshwater. Predators, such as brown
| bears, disperse these marine nutrients into surrounding
| forests, enhancing the growth of stream-side trees that shade
| and protect stream banks from excessive erosion
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| If its really that localized, why doesn't the state of
| Washington just ban the chemical? Not unprecidented for a
| state to have its own environmental regs that are stricter
| than national regs. And since there are no salmon migrating
| up rivers in Kentucky, it should be less of a concern there
| and you don't need to spend effort/political favors getting
| the support from the Kentucky delegation in congress.
|
| Sure it would not be perfect, because you would still have
| out-of-state vehicles using the roads, but it would be an
| improvement that could probably get done a lot faster and
| it might be enough.
| grawprog wrote:
| >why doesn't the state of Washington just ban the
| chemical?
|
| Is it just salmon affected by this chemical?
|
| It looks like Kentucky has both cutthroat and rainbow
| trout. Both of which are actually species of salmon in
| the genus Oncorhynchus, which are true salmon.
|
| Would they be affected by the chemical?
|
| How about other species of fish?
|
| That's the thing about this kind of stuff, it's not
| necessarily localized. There's a lot we don't know about
| ecosystems and the long term effects of chemicals like
| this. Chances are though, if it affects one area in such
| a negative way, it'll have other negative effects.
| mattgrice wrote:
| This research was motivated by the runoff effect being
| especially acute in coho salmon.
|
| It probably affects other species, too. Now that we know
| the chemical responsible it will be easier to test that.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Well start with what we know. We have a problem in the
| Puget Sound area. I'm not hearing anything about trout in
| Kentucky.
|
| A lot of environmnental regulation got its start with
| regulation in California that spread from there. It's
| easier to get something passed locally than to get
| national support from day one.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I 'm not hearing anything about trout in Kentucky._
|
| That probably says more about environment research
| funding in Kentucky than it does their fish.
|
| Washington is one of the most pro-science states in the
| US, the Puget Sound area has one of the greatest
| concentration of environmentally focused people, and
| salmon are historically deeply ingrained in Washington
| culture. If it took all of that to garner enough
| resources to discover this problem, imagine all of the
| other environmental disasters out there that we're simply
| oblivious to.
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| I suppose tire companies might be willing to find a replacement
| in order to skip the potential regulations and bad PR.
| russell_h wrote:
| It makes sense to start with the companies: if they view this
| as something that will inevitably be regulated there is a
| reasonable chance they'll just comply voluntarily to save the
| bad PR. They might even see an opportunity for good PR.
|
| This approach, if successful, will be way faster than starting
| with regulation.
| minikites wrote:
| I think this is incredibly naive. If bad PR worked, there
| would be a lot more companies going bankrupt.
| 08-15 wrote:
| It's probably in the tires _because_ of regulation, and it
| cannot be taken out without a suitable replacement and without
| relaxing some other requirement on the tires.
|
| Apparently, 6-PPD is there to scavenge ozone. If that ozone
| doesn't have anything harmless to react with, it reacts with
| the rubber, which makes it brittle. Ozone scavengers prolong
| the life of the tire, and make it safer.
|
| Companies don't do things because they are James Bond villains,
| either.
| jacurtis wrote:
| My concern with this is that it will likely take at a minimum
| 1-2 years for tire manufacturers to research new compounds that
| eliminate this chemical. Then it will take probably another
| year, at best, before manufacturing plants are transitioned
| over to build this new compound and we start to see the new
| compound trickle down into new tires. Then it will take 2-4
| years to propagate that compound across the entire product line
| and/or industry.
|
| Once the compound is readily available across the industry,
| then we can rest assured that new tires will be "safe". But
| tires have a usable life of 2-5 years depending on the type of
| tire. So it will take many more years before people with "non-
| safe" tires purchase new ones that are "salmon-safe". Remember
| also that some people (generally as a result of financial
| concern) may drag tire use out to 8 or even 10 years.
|
| This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from now!
| I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have that
| long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before spawning.
| According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to this
| chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers to
| spawn. Salmon are already operating at low population rates. So
| we may not have decades to sit and figure this out.
|
| As a more immediate alternative, I would like to see if there
| is a way to neutralize or catch this 6PPD chemical with some
| type of "filter" in the road runoff pipes or a road-coating
| that could be installed in critical areas. This would seem like
| a more immediate solution that wouldn't require global or
| national "buy-in" from tire manufacturers.
|
| And of course all this assumes that tire manufacturers care
| enough to save the salmon. This is the type of thing that
| regulation is useful for instead of relying on tire
| manufacturers to "do the right thing".
| munificent wrote:
| _> This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from
| now!_
|
| No, it puts a maximum end date for 100% removal at 10-20
| years. Incremental progress can happen much sooner. What you
| describe is basically the speed that most large-scale changes
| occur at. It's just how it goes.
|
| _> I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have
| that long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before
| spawning._
|
| The salmon will bounce back. It is a real concern and problem
| that we need to fix, but we are not on the brink of
| extinction and don't need to panic.
|
| _> According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to
| this chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers
| to spawn._
|
| 90% _in some streams._ That 's the worst case number, but
| there are many streams in Washington, many of which are not
| in urban areas.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Several Pacific Northwest US salmon species are on the
| brink of extinction. Tire pollution is one of several
| independent attacks on them. When they're gone, we won't
| quarrel over which really did them in.
| ip26 wrote:
| This chemical only seems to affect Coho - which is part
| of the puzzle.
| carlmr wrote:
| I think it would be acceptable to regulate more harshly
| where the salmon live. Make regulations that force getting
| the new tires as soon as possible if you live within 100
| miles of a river with salmon or your commute touches this
| zone.
|
| That way you could get the results in 2-3 years with a
| minimal extra cost because only a small part of the US and
| Canada have to renew their tires earlier.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| There is not likely to be a way to catch enough runoff to
| prevent this.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Wonder if we need to rethink tyres from first principles. Maybe
| Elon Musk can do it. Instead of tweeting.
| leesec wrote:
| Lol? Maybe you could do it instead of posting? I don't
| understand.
| splicer wrote:
| It's ironic that the toxicologist's name is McIntyre!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| tldr: " The killer was the 6PPD-quinone from the tires in the
| roadway runoff."
|
| 6PPD is an antioxidant added to tires, and the -quinone is the
| oxidized form (not sure if it oxidizes before/during/after
| manufacturing or after escaping the tire).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I wonder how long the industry has been adding 6PPD to tires?
| For better or worse we got along _without_ adding this to tires
| in the past.
|
| Cracked tires: dangerous? Cosmetic? Or early warning that tires
| are getting old?
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Your tire is a pressure vessel. Cracks in in will be weak
| points. Your tire is thinner on the sides then the working
| face.
|
| Ozone in the atmosphere react with the tire compound and
| weakens it, leading to cracks forming which exposes more and
| more area deeper in the tire body to ozone. increased area
| increases chance of reaction.
|
| A tire that has recently been inflated to the upper limit of
| it's pressure range making stiff is traveling at 70 miles an
| hour, suddenly there is a spike in pressure as if hits a
| bump. The sidewall is weak.... How will this failure end?
|
| Tire are not a fixed technology, the companies are always
| having to create and reformulate to drive the price lower,
| last longer, have better traction.
| canada_dry wrote:
| Good question. Of course, like many things, the answer
| usually is: _the moment they discovered the 6PPD was a cheap
| substitute for xyz_.
| Grazester wrote:
| An article I read last week said from micro plastic from tire
| wear entering the water as runoff from the land.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Same thing? Its the chemical leaching from the rubber
| particles in the river.
| Grazester wrote:
| Yes its chemical leaching.
|
| "The researchers determined that the chemical is formed
| when a preservative known as 6PPD reacts with ozone. 6PPD
| is designed to extend the lifespan of tires by reacting
| with ozone in the surrounding air before it has a chance to
| interact with the rubber and weaken it, Kolodziej said."
|
| https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/coho-salmon-
| toxic-c...
| dschuler wrote:
| Based on the Wikipedia entry [0], it looks like 6PPD binds to
| the extra oxygen atom in ozone to convert it to regular O2, so
| it would be used during the life of the tire to prevent
| cracking.
|
| I just read that ozone will cause cracks in regular rubber
| bands over time, I never knew that was the cause [1].
| Interesting.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6PPD [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_cracking
| hikerclimb wrote:
| Bad. I think salmon should die so we don't have food
| stfp wrote:
| Our whole understanding and approach with regards to risks from
| industrial chemicals is so completely off...
|
| We keep churning out new compounds (~2000 every year??!) or new
| use cases for existing ones at insane scale or speed because
| "most of them are safe". Except the ones that aren't cause a wide
| range of damage, take 15 years to identify as causes, 15 more
| years to ban, 15 more to leave the ecosystem if they do at all,
| and are often replaced by minor variations that haven't been yet
| proven dangerous.
|
| It seems to me these things should be considered unsafe by
| default, tested at small scale for years, proven to be bio-
| degradable and if used at scale introduced very slowly... which
| in many cases won't be possible, which will readjust our stance
| so we only use them when absolutely critical and necessary vs.
| eg. putting teflon or PFAS in literally everything because why
| not.
|
| The other thing is individual accountability: chemical engineers
| who facilitate this insanity should be held responsible. Putting
| lead in gasoline and CFCs in the atmosphere used to get you
| medals, now similar "inventions" should get you a jail term
| proportionate to the damage caused.
| doitLP wrote:
| Agreed. The same thing happened with BPA -- banned in toys and
| bottles after decades of harm to be replaced by at least 40
| other chemicals that haven't proven to be unsafe -- yet.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| The precautionary principle, which is what you describe, is in
| greater use in Europe.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsal...
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _The other thing is individual accountability: chemical
| engineers who facilitate this insanity should be held
| responsible._
|
| How would they be expected to know what the results of their
| chemical will be? Drug companies focus exclusively on
| biological effects and can't even get drugs to regularly pass
| phase 1 trials, and you're asking for a single chemist at
| Industrial Sealants Inc to do what entire pharma companies
| can't? Putting lead in gasoline sounds dumb, but so does
| putting mercury in vaccines. The only way to tell the
| difference is to do studies, which would take teams of people.
| It is absolutely not possible to expect individual chemists to
| accurately predict the biological consequences of their
| products.
| mcguire wrote:
| Be careful about diluting responsibility---if everyone can
| point to someone else, no one will make a hard (and not
| immediately profitable) decision.
|
| In all of those studies, etc., there is someone at the top
| who does, and should, make the ultimate decision, just like
| when building a bridge, there is an engineer who puts his
| career on the line.
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you're going to assign responsibility, you need to
| assign it to people who know the right decision to make. If
| you assign responsibility to a janitor or a chemist for any
| torts set against the company, then janitors and chemists
| will simply quit working there. The only person who could
| begin to approach responsibility would be an executive with
| the authority to organize and pay for clinical trials and
| toxicity studies.
| bsder wrote:
| > so does putting mercury in vaccines
|
| Putting a known biologically tested and FDA cleared
| _preservative_ into vaccines is not "dumb".
|
| Having to remove said preservative because because people
| committed medical fraud (and later lost their licenses) to
| create fear about it and because a bunch of people picked up
| on it as a desperate, now-negatively validated reason for
| their child having autism?
|
| _That 's_ dumb. But the manufacturers did it anyway because
| _people_ are dumb.
| whatshisface wrote:
| You missed the phrasing slightly. I said they both _sound_
| dumb, and it 's only testing that can distinguish them. In
| an alternate universe, it's leaded gasoline that is safe
| and mercury in vaccines that is poisoning people.
| refactor_master wrote:
| But in this universe, you can eat a can of tuna and have
| both!
| tehjoker wrote:
| Maybe we should have tiered rules for how much testing is
| done based on the number of tons that are going to be
| produced and how they are being disposed of.
|
| (And if we already do, then the rules for the higher tiers
| need to be tightened.)
| whatshisface wrote:
| Given the extreme differences in badness per ton I'm not
| sure if that's a reasonable metric. Maybe instead we could
| mandate yucca mountain level storage for everything that
| hasn't been evaluated, and then let companies decide for
| themselves whether or not they will be making enough of the
| stuff to justify studying how to dispose of it more
| cheaply.
| tehjoker wrote:
| It might be possible to establish categories where if
| your molecule has XYZ properties it falls into this
| bucket. I think a category for really novel molecules
| that haven't been evaluated is a good idea with tight
| restrictions on how much can be produced.
|
| There should also be a presumption that minor edits to
| known dangerous molecules should be presumed dangerous
| without testing.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Putting mercury in vaccines was also dumb. It is impossible
| to quantify the damage _just_ from the direct consequence of
| people beginning to avoid vaccines because of it. They don 't
| put mercury in vaccines anymore.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| This has lots of practicality problems, obviously.
|
| The individual accountability is certainly tough, particularly
| since we learn about impacts only over time. And discoveries
| like these are studied, applied and distributed by ultimately
| hundreds to thousands of people.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| The problem with the Precautionary Principal (that you seem to
| describe) is that it doesn't account for opportunity cost. New
| compounds are developed for a reason and to contribute some
| value to society. That could be a very small convenience
| optimization, or could be for a life-saving purpose.
|
| While we're waiting for some compound to be deemed 'safe' for
| some particular use, society is missing out on the benefits of
| that use.
|
| The COVID vaccine is a very timely example of this. It/they
| haven't gone through nearly the amount of testing and trials
| that are normally required. But we're going ahead with it
| anyway, since waiting would cost more lives. This is a
| judgement call that some set of fallible humans has made. Easy
| in this huge, public, major case. But for the thousands of
| compounds developed yearly, who decides this, and at what cost
| to society in lives, quality of life and resources?
|
| And this doesn't count the resources that society has to spend
| to make the determination of safety, which have their own
| opportunity cost as well.
| stfp wrote:
| Taking a step back: here, incidentally, they were trying to
| basically facilitate driving, which is not really in the
| interest of society / life on the planet -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| Maybe the vaccine is actually a bad idea? I don't think so.
|
| But even if it turned out to have terrible side effects, that
| would only affect people (the people alive now and taking the
| vaccine) and not the environment (all the humans and other
| animals, present and future).
| dgemm wrote:
| Probably the best known example of this (who I assume you are
| referring to) is incidentally responsible for both leaded fuel
| _and_ CFCs:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
| weaksauce wrote:
| there was a fun dollop episode about him if you want a little
| levity while listening to an absolute ecological monster...
| https://soundcloud.com/the-dollop/393-thomas-midgley
| triceratops wrote:
| He also appears on this amazing list: https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_th...
| minikites wrote:
| >It seems to me these things should be considered unsafe by
| default, tested at small scale for years, proven to be bio-
| degradable and if used at scale introduced very slowly
|
| That's no way to create shareholder value.
| derbOac wrote:
| Underlying this all is a sort of scientism issue. On the one
| hand you have a culture that assumes the framework of a
| scientific framework is "truth" and that the lingua franca of
| risk should be demonstrable evidence. On the other is a culture
| that denies the realism of the scientific studies, and sees
| risk in misrepresentative evidence.
|
| Generally speaking, the latter camp gets labeled as
| "antiscientific" by the former, and the former gets labeled as
| "elitist" or having conflicts of interest. It's part of a theme
| that seems to be popping up a lot in the last several years or
| so in numerous settings: which is worse, lack of evidence or
| misleading evidence?
|
| This example with the salmon is interesting to me because (if
| I'm understanding it correctly), the compound in the tire isn't
| the problem, it's a byproduct of tire breakdown. So I could see
| a chemist in the lab sitting there saying "ok we ran our tests
| on X it's fine" without understanding that in the real world, X
| reacts and breaks down into other compounds that are
| problematic. It's kind of a prime example of how the scientific
| model isn't the correct one to be using in the first place.
| Within the bounds of the model, X is fine, but the model is
| wrong as a representation of reality, so the conclusions are
| wrong.
|
| I think underlying a lot of this are differing ideas of what is
| "scientific", or what constitutes the universe of risks. I
| don't see this dynamic changing until certain cultures
| surrounding scientific authority change.
| ska wrote:
| > It's kind of a prime example of how the scientific model
| isn't the correct one to be using in the first place.
|
| This seems to be a category error - after all it was science
| that found the problem also.
|
| I think you are poking around the edges of something real
| here, but suspect the thinking is muddy still and falling
| into a false dichotomy. There _is_ a lot of confusion about
| the role of science and what it can and can 't do, but I
| don't think it maps at all purely onto the "culture wars" as
| you are seeming to suggest.
| xapata wrote:
| > the scientific model
|
| What you described isn't "the scientific model" but merely
| one flawed study. Science is the process of learning about
| the world. Scientific paradigms change. Right now we seem to
| have a statistical frequentist paradigm in most fields, but
| it's shifting towards Bayesian. The business science field
| still seems stuck in the case study / anecdote paradigm,
| though it's also shifting.
|
| If the science doesn't seek to learn about "the real world"
| then it's bad science.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _It 's kind of a prime example of how the scientific model
| isn't the correct one to be using in the first place._
|
| What's your proposed alternative to science for determining
| the products of tire breakdown? Asking psychics? Polling
| facebook moms? Voting on it in Congress?
| monkeycantype wrote:
| The scientific method enables us to rigorously build
| models.
|
| But it takes effort, so the model only expands in the
| directions where a person chooses to the do that work.
| Scientific models are a communal human artefact, flawed
| with the bias and inattention of those that built them.
|
| The is a lot we know about the world, from history, from
| our experience, that we are not able to express with enough
| rigor to include them in a scientific model.
|
| So we can be confident that our scientific understanding of
| any new compound, will not gives us a complete
| understanding of the impact of that compound in the world.
| From history we have a partial map of our ignorance. We
| know from past experience that there are realms of unknown
| - ecological effects, decomposition products, birth
| defects, health impacts - associated with new products. We
| know there is a very big difference between safe and no
| known adverse impacts
|
| Rather than an alternative to science, we need a more
| vigorous meta model, better appreciation of where the model
| ends, and a better model for how we should act given our
| ignorance. I don't think we lack the ability to do this,
| it's a matter of will and power.
| stfp wrote:
| Look up scientism.
|
| The whole point is we need to accept that no single method
| will give us this kind of visibility and understanding, and
| given that fact we should be more careful about certain
| things, especially things we just seem to keep
| miscalculating and that have long-lasting, terrible
| effects.
|
| That's _actual science_ vs. commercial /industrial
| marketing masquerading as science.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Unfortunately, alternatives to science are being pushed
| right now in the current culture war. Google "other ways of
| knowing".
|
| Worth pointing out just because your appeal to absurdism
| (which most of us would agree with) is losing steam in the
| marketplace of ideas.
| the_af wrote:
| > _It 's kind of a prime example of how the scientific model
| isn't the correct one to be using in the first place_
|
| Do you mean "this particular scientific model" (which lacks
| the analysis of byproducts) or the scientific _method_? If
| the latter, what other method would you use instead?
| FooHentai wrote:
| The issue is that you can't prove a negative, not even the
| scientific method can achieve this. So you can prove harm,
| or benefits, but you can't prove an absence of harm.
|
| So while the scientific method is fine, applying it without
| an abundance of caution commensurate to the potential
| negative impacts leads to poor outcomes in the long run.
| zamadatix wrote:
| You can't truly "prove" harm or benefits either they just
| happen to be things you can very easily make the error
| bounds minuscule on. Likewise the problem with "absence
| of harm" is making the error bounds small is extremely
| slow and costly so we avoid it. The scientific method (or
| any method to this point) never ends up "proving"
| anything, you always have to set what error bounds are
| acceptable.
|
| Which leads to the real overall point I suppose - is
| there something better we could be using as "just never
| make anything new" isn't free of problems either so it's
| a question of "what's the best method" not "what method
| can guarantee something" (none so far can).
| meowface wrote:
| The solution to poor results from scientific work is better
| scientific work, not throwing out the scientific model.
|
| The issue described is akin to testing some new code with
| unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, and running it for
| some time in a dev environment, but not running it in a QA
| environment that mirrors production, and not monitoring it
| for issues when it does get deployed to production.
|
| The response there wouldn't be "the test/devops model isn't
| the correct one to use in the first place", it's that the
| testing and QA was inadequate because it only looked at an
| idealized model of reality and didn't consider "where the
| rubber meets the road" (literally). Testing something in
| isolation is insufficient, since you need to test the
| downstream effects and potential complex interactions with
| everything else in the environment.
|
| There is no testism problem; only a poor testing problem.
| Unless, as you say in your last sentence, one is just arguing
| about definition semantics - e.g. if "QA" falls under
| "testing", or, here, if "real-world observation" falls under
| "scientific testing". I'd argue both do. I think your
| concerns might be better phrased as "lab model" and "lab-
| ism".
| zug_zug wrote:
| I guess my proposal is that new chemicals need to be tested at
| a 100x dose on 15 different species, up to primate. On lesser
| species, things such as number of offspring need to be measured
| (reproductive health seems to be the first to go a lot of
| times). On primates, we'd look for sperm count relative to a
| control group (again the first thing to go).
|
| If any effect is seen at a 100x dose (of the amount expected to
| be ingested) the chemical would be dropped.
| cogman10 wrote:
| IDK, I think disposal and recycling is really where we need
| to focus.
|
| Some chemcials are damn useful while being toxic. I don't
| think the right thing to do is banning all toxic chemcials
| because they might cause environmental damage. Instead, let's
| focus on figuring out safe handling upfront.
|
| A good example of this is batteries. Super toxic, super
| useful.
| doitLP wrote:
| Damn useful but at what cost? Unfortunately we often don't
| know the cost until 10 to 50 years on. It's impossible to
| close Pandora's box once it's open. Look at DDT
| https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-coast-ddt-dumping-
| ground... and mercury in the food chain and and and and
| DennisP wrote:
| I think GPs point is to keep them contained while in use,
| with a plan to keep them out of the environment once
| you're done with them.
|
| Batteries are a great example. We really need good
| battery recycling. We also really need good batteries,
| since it looks like they'll play a major role in
| preventing catastrophic global warming.
| kjs3 wrote:
| No.
|
| First, what is a 'dose' for a new chemical?
|
| Second, there are all sorts of critical things that if you
| took 100x the recommended dose you would see a significant
| negative physiological effect. Like salt. Or water.
|
| This is a _far_ more nuanced problem that "let's just shoot
| up some monkeys with a gallon of the stuff and see if their
| nuts shrivel up". In fact, that sort of reductionist approach
| is why we have this problem.
| uoaei wrote:
| Strong acute exposure and slow chronic exposure will show
| different effects overall. But yours sounds like a decent
| heuristic as a first pass.
| fh973 wrote:
| In the EU new substances seem to need registration at least.
| It's called REACH regulation:
|
| https://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/understanding-reach
| consumer451 wrote:
| > It seems to me these things should be considered unsafe by
| default, tested at small scale for years, proven to be bio-
| degradable and if used at scale introduced very slowly...
|
| It sounds like you are describing the Precautionary Principle,
| which is unfortunately made light of here due to its impact on
| GMO food adoption in the EU. I do agree with you, but this idea
| seems to go against the hyper-growth form of capitalism which
| is generally accepted as the only option in the USA.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...
| aardvarkr wrote:
| >The other thing is individual accountability: chemical
| engineers who facilitate this insanity should be held
| responsible.
|
| Hey, I wanted to point out for your future reference that you
| really should be blaming the chemists. They're the ones who
| design the product and intentionally choose this. Chemical
| engineers are the ones who do the manufacturing of chemical
| products. I have CE friends and they're the ones in the plants
| keeping processes running
| stfp wrote:
| Thanks, good clarification!
| sradman wrote:
| The paper _A ubiquitous tire rubber-derived chemical induces
| acute mortality in coho salmon_ [1]:
|
| > In U.S. Pacific Northwest coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch),
| stormwater exposure annually causes unexplained acute mortality
| when adult salmon migrate to urban creeks to reproduce. By
| investigating this phenomenon, we identified a highly toxic
| quinone transformation product of
| N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N'-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine) (6PPD), a
| globally ubiquitous tire rubber antioxidant.
|
| [1]
| https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/09/scie...
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Runoff carries all sorts of things into waters, and I think the
| issue is particularly bad when you have large denser areas like
| Seattle, since the concentration of unwanted chemicals in local
| waters can be huge. For example opioids from Seattle's street
| level drug abuse can be found in local marine life:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/25/614593382...
| loraa wrote:
| spoiler: it's a bear.
| Tepix wrote:
| So, are there any tire manufacturers that advertise their tires
| as being 6ppd free? I'd buy them.
| rini17 wrote:
| It will end up like "BPA-free" beverage cans. Manufacturers
| just slightly change the chemical structure or use another
| plastic with not yet known adverse effects.
| m_eiman wrote:
| Which is why it's a tragedy that the EU chemical regulations
| weren't allowed to be based on a "you can use it if you can
| show it's safe" instead of "you can use it until someone else
| shows it's unsafe" principle. That would have been good.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Also impossible. Proving something safe is like proving a
| negative - proving a lack of something (harm).
| bawolff wrote:
| That doesn't mean you can't require a certain amount of
| safety testing.
| Karunamon wrote:
| You can only reasonably test for acute effects. Chronic
| effects are only ever going to be found in large cohorts
| (i.e. public consumption) over a long period of time.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Define 'safe' and 'unsafe'. That's not as easy as it seems,
| and it would be the source of endless bickering between
| business and the regulators.
| bzb6 wrote:
| It would be impossible to prove that a new chemical is safe
| until after decades of widespread use. Lab tests can only
| go so far
| Gunax wrote:
| I am not sure how this would work. For instance, what
| animals would it have to be tested on? This time it was
| Salmon in puget sound, but next time it could be geese in
| Alberta, or lizards in Argentina. It just seems like too
| big of a problem space.
| throwaheyy wrote:
| The mode of transfer is urban stormwater runoff. Proving
| the replacement chemical is safe for the salmon is good
| enough.
| ars wrote:
| It's probably too early since this just came out.
|
| But I suspect they can find an alternative to 6ppd and we just
| need a bit of publicity, and then maybe a year to reformulate
| tires.
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