Industrial chemicals and biotic systems
Here is a news story that details an example of a consequence of using products made of industrial chemicals.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/30/swanson-suit-3m/
In this case, past use of PFCs to make tape, paint and fire-retardants. I hope the toxins created in the production of these products at an industrial scale gain as much attention in these forums as we give to energy efficiency. We risk a world full of ‘green’ homes in an environment where we can’t drink the water, eat the fish, or exercise in unfiltered air if we don’t take these issues seriously.
Article excerpt:
3M disposed of industrial waste from its PFC operations over the course of 50 years. The company halted processes involving two of the chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, in 2002.
The PFCs were buried in several east metro landfills, including one at 3M’s Cottage Grove plant on the Mississippi River. There, it piped the chemicals into a stream that flowed into the Mississippi River. The suit claims the release of 3M chemicals violated state law.
Attorney General Lori Swanson says you can still see the consequences of those actions today. They range from restrictions that limit how Washington County communities can build drinking wells to a health advisory on eating fish.
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Replies
J,
Thanks for the information. It highlights an irresponsible release of dangerous waste products into the environment.
However, I couldn't help noticing your warning about the "consequences of using products made of industrial chemicals."
In fact, I'm not sure what the definition of "industrial chemicals" is. Does it mean chemicals used in large quantities, like the sodium chloride spread on roads? Are industrial chemicals always more dangerous than chemicals brewed up in cottages and small workshops?
The word "chemical" isn't very useful. Obviously, some substances are known to be toxic, and some substances are known to be dangerous pollutants that have negative impacts on biotic systems. But let's avoid broad-brush terms like "industrial chemicals."
(By the way, I know that road salt harms the environment. My point is that almost everything can be called a chemical.)
Martin,
Point taken on language too generalized.
You say "some substances are known to be toxic". I would argue that toxic substances being produced and released into our environment is a subject most of us are not literate in. With proprietary chemical compounds I suspect it is not a very transparent commerce to begin with. There are many stories similar to the one I referenced where we deal with the consequences of pollution produced by manufacturing after the damage is done. I don't see a reason yet why to think that this will not continue to happen, especially if there is not a vigorous discussion on the subject.
We can discuss the useful properties of products like Grace Ice and Water, Huber Zip Systems, glues, caulks, WRB membranes and there associated tapes, etc. and recommend them for contributing to 'green' goals like air tightness, durability, energy efficiency. However, in addition I am concerned that the manufacturing of these products on industrial scales leads to more releasing of dangerous waste products.
In other words I want to argue that 'Green' should include the intention that the benefits of certain manufactured building components that contribute to a 'green' energy efficient BUILDING don't translate into polluted ENVIRONMENTS for a community somewhere else.
J,
I agree completely with your goals.
The analysis required to achieve your goal is a minefield, however. The production of many materials that have been routinely used by builders for hundreds of years -- including copper flashing, lead flashing, and large timbers -- carry serious environmental penalties.
It's quite possible that some brand-new materials that are being whipped up right now by the wizards at 3M will have a far lower environmental impact than some of these older building materials.
Good luck sharpening your pencil and figuring it all out! Heaven knows we need such calculations.
However, several analysts have come to the same conclusion: eventually, you'll have to make decisions between two options which are not really comparable. So what's worse, cutting a few acres of rainforest or raising the temperature of the Connecticut River by 1°F ? I don't know -- how do I decide?
The distinction between what we call "chemicals" and the naturally-occurring molecules is not at all arbitrary.
Life evolved on Earth over a period of 3.5 billion years with 90 elements and the various natural molecules that they combined to form. Though some natural molecules can be toxic to some life forms, they are all in some way symbiotic in that they were part of the environment which shaped the development of living creatures which are made of the very same stuff as their environment.
It is only in the last 4 millionths of a percent of that time span that we have introduced 80,000 petrochemicals that never before existed on earth. They are non symbiotic, in that life did not co-evolve with these chemicals, and they did not exist within living bodies until the last few generations.
Today we produce 250 million tons of petrochemicals annually. Very few have ever been tested for toxicity to humans or other life forms. Of the 17,000 of these petrochemicals that are "approved" for home use, only 30% have been tested for safety. The average American home contains 10 gallons of these chemicals and the average American human bloodstream contains 145 artificial chemicals that our bodies were not designed to tolerate.
The real danger of the Petroleum Age is not merely global warming, but the irremediable pollution of every part of the natural environment and every piece of earth - land, air, river, lake and sea - with chemicals that are alien to the biosphere.
It's most ironic that we've worried for generations about when earth would be invaded by unfriendly aliens, when all the while we were launching that invasion from the fortresses of industry.
Thus I will continue to be that Vox Clamantis in Deserto (voice crying from the wilderness) that Ed Abbey embodied, preaching that the only "green" materials are natural materials. The Precautionary Principle would assume that all synthetic chemicals are dangerous to life, since they are all alien invaders to our home planet.
BUMP
J Chesnut, I think you are right to be very concerned.
Robert is correct. The rate at which we introduce never before seen compounds into our environment far exceeds the biosphere's capacity to adapt genetically.
To compound the problem, those "80,000 chemicals" are undergoing constant uncontrolled chemical interactions in the "real world" causing the synthesis of further unknown compounds.
To further compound the problem, we are handicapping the process of genetic adaptation through destruction of biodiversity.
To compound the problem yet again, we fan the flames on all fronts through the continuous growth of our self-destructive way of life.
Talk about entropy.
I think the analogy of humanity as an adolescent is a good one.
We have no appreciation for what unanticipated effects ripple outward from our actions. For the most part we don't even realize that our actions have these unintended consequences.
Stopping, or even just reducing, the release of these compounds would be a fantastic miracle - but the genie is already out of the bottle.
Maybe we could have done better if we had a better appreciation of time.
More of us need to learn how to think like a mountain.
...
This reminds me of attempts to measure disparate and varying impacts to the environment under an exercise termed 'Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)'. I see little understanding being gained in this approach. This would entail a subjective ranking based on complicated formulations that allow room for lobbying by powerful interests. Both the vinyl and portland cement industries have funded the Athena LCA software calculations. Also rankings allow for everyone to overlook the understanding of the issues. This is the 'easy button' approach.
The strength of Martin's body of writings is its focused topic, consistent and regular deepening of the topic, and its presentation in a format that builds a readership and productive dialogue. I will say again that I think the effects of 'synthetic engineered compounds' that have been introduced in the last fifty years on biotic life warrants a similar discussion within any auspice of 'Green' building advice.
Yes, this well illustrates conundrums with no solutions. However when faced with such dilemmas an attempt needs to be made to understand each category of impact. First each impact needs to be recognized as a problem that warrants discussion. I'm not confident the majority of 'green' builders agree that 'synthetic chemicals compounds' being introduced into the environment is a reason to practice differently.
The issue of rainforest destruction is one such topic that HAS been given focus and actions have been taken to make available 'sustainable' wood products. Actions have also been taken to educate a consumer populace to make these more compassionate choices.
It's possible that I side with RR here that the paradigm of our modern mindset is tainted by arrogance.
When do we know that something cooked up in the lab has a far lower environmental impact? Science is in part the continued discovery of human folly. Case in point the debate over fluoride treatments in our drinking water is raised again (in the main stream media at that).
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/01/07/fluoride-in-drinking-water/
J Chesnut,
One of the saddest trends I see occurring in the U.S. these days is the rise in popular suspicion, even anger, against the scientific method.
J, you wrote, "Science is in part the continued discovery of human folly." I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean that the scientific method yields useful results documenting human folly, I agree with you. If your meaning is different -- that the findings of science are themselves examples of folly -- I disagree with you.
The scientific method is all we have to separate ourselves from superstition, arbitrary hunches, and the burning of witches.
I think this is sad too.
The problem doesn't lie with the method but in the speed we use it to innovate.
When I said "More of us need to learn how to think like a mountain" I meant we need to learn to slow down.
Slowing down means more time to ponder the unforseen consequences.
Slowing down means making what you already have go further.
Slowing down means not getting sucked into newer/better/faster without careful contemplation.
Relying strictly on technological (or scientific) innovation to "solve" environmental challenges is akin to trying to buy our way out of bankruptcy.
It just ain't gonna work.
This is an apparent dilemma with no solution other than a crude accounting of relative impacts ONLY because of the extremely narrow framing of the question. It begs the question of whether we need to do either – and it does so by starting at the unquestioned assumption that we need a given level of energy production (or material consumption, or what have you) in order to live well.
There is always an alternative path between the horns of a dilemma, and often the best way to navigate a fork in the road is to shift laterally and discover a here-to-fore unseen path.
The latter sentence perfectly expresses the profound ignorance and arrogance of modern humanity. It is based on a very ugly back-projection from an a priori assumption that modernity is "advanced" and everything preceding it is, by contrast, "primitive" or even "barbaric". And it is based on the highly prejudicial illusion that science has improved the quality of life.
Just the simple fact that life managed to evolve in fitful harmony for 3.5 billion years and the genus Homo for 2.5 million years without the benefit of science, but that Homo Sapiens (non)Sapiens has nearly managed to destroy the biosphere in a mere few hundred years with the benefit of science should be proof enough against such ignorant assertions.
While the speed of change, the exponential growth of population and the scale of our institutions and impacts is an epiphenomenon of the scientific endeavor, the essential problem IS in the method.
The scientific method is based on a number of quite modern axioms:
1) the world is fundamentally material and we act on it by exerting force
2) learning and understanding comes from objectivity, with we subjects standing apart from the objective world we study
3) that knowledge becomes more refined the more we abstract, reduce, dissect and analyze the material world (a thing can be known by its parts)
4) that all things and events can be mathematized or described completely by numbers
5) that any phenomena that cannot be explained by accepted scientific principles or replicated in the laboratory is, by definition, superstition or witchcraft
What began as little more than a careful observation of nature through our bodily senses inspired by a philosophical desire to know the world, soon morphed into an extremely narrow window of technological analysis which excluded all other modes of knowing, regardless of how efficacious they had been (or still are).
For instance, anthropologists interviewing indigenous healers and shamans all over the world with the question "How did you learn which parts of the plant would heal and which parts were poisonous?" would almost universally receive the response "by listening to the plants" or "the plant told me". Without exception, they would interpret this as "trial and error", even though it made no logical sense. Those healers who sampled poisonous plants would not have survived to pass on that knowledge. Today, wiser seekers understand that indigenous healers DID communicate directly with the plants, and modern plant spirit medicine practitioners of our own culture are painstakingly re-learning that art. But, to science, it's still superstition even though it's far more efficacious than the process of refining and testing laboratory medicinals and typically results in none of the toxic "side effects" that are common to all modern medicines.
"It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct." - Sigmund Freud
"I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance." - Ruben Blades
Science has become the religion of modern culture – unquestioned, dogmatic and deterministic, relegating all other understandings as blasphemy. It may have increased our knowledge of the world at the microscopic and astronomical levels, but it has substituted that for wisdom. Unless we literally "come to our senses" – returning to our embodied reciprocal relationship with the living earth – there is no chance to sustain the human race.
Possibly. I do keep an open mind.
"Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear.
What deafness may we all not possess?
What senses do we lack that we cannot see
and cannot hear another world all around us?"
Frank Herbert - Dune
I'm not sure I'm ready to discard the scientific method altogether nor am I sure I want to entirely blame it for the ills of the world.
What is the scientific method but a tool to be a part of a collection of other tools? Each tool serves a purpose but there is danger in misusing or using any tool irresponsibly.
Precisely!
But even more than that, Native Americans have said that the Rational Mind is but a tool among many - to be kept in the quiver and taken out only when really needed. In modern culture, the Rational Mind is the only arrow in our quiver, and Science has insisted that any other arrow will miss the mark.
Once again, we survived for 2.5 million years on guts, instinct and intuition. But in the last 300 have nearly destroyed our planet with Reason. The equation should yield an obvious answer.
Precisely!
What is the Reason though?
At some fault of my own this has become an epistemological debate. I read everyone's response with interest.
My intention with this thread again was to focus on an aspect of environmental damage that I hope to see more information exchanged on this website. I think a discussion based on the science of the impacts of particular chemicals in building products on the environment is an effective means of forming arguments for changes in building practices that avoid contributing to toxic pollutants. If more and more instances of environmental damage were popularly understood within greenbuilding dialogues I think then a broader range of people would be open to the broader topics that this thread is starting to address.
I revisited the Pharos Project website. I haven't got past the surface of it yet but this LCA effort seems to represent a database of information an analysis that assists our understanding of this topic much more than the cynical picture I painted in my previous post commenting on LCA exercises.
J Chesnut,
I understand what you mean.
I do enjoy some of the "broader topics" but I also understand the value of having focused discussions - in this case, specific chemicals used in the manufacture of building supplies.
In order to confine the discussion to specifics, maybe some strategic phrasing within the original question would help.
However, you can never be sure how a thread will evolve... at least it might be easier to define what is "out-of-bounds" for that thread.
For example, from your original question:
Maybe statements like this - as easy as they are to include and as true as they may be - tend to invite broader discussion.
I think Martin makes a good point when he said:
Maybe the original question should be careful to focus on a specific chemical, product, material or situation to avoid this confusion.
I think this type of confusion can also invite broader discussion.
In any case, you are quite right that this is an important subject.
I suspect that this is also a subject that would have to become someone's altruistic "pet project" to really get proper attention.
Lucas,
I agree with yours and Martin's assessment about the language.
I've never found good writing easy; a reason I ended up a designer.
Truth be told I don't dedicate the proper amount of time to writing well when I contribute to this forum.
Also it's all too easy to knee jerk react and jump up on the soap box on internet forums.
But maybe if I whine enough GBA will bring on an authority to blog about this subject : )