PRODUCTION: “Use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with natural resources to make toxic contaminated products” – Very crafty. Immediately we associate the words “toxic” “chemical” “contaminated” and “products” where there is not a necessary link. Chemicals are naturally occurring elements. Sodium Chloride is a chemical, and we use it in food to help our bodies retain water (Table salt). Dihydrogen Oxide is a chemical, and yet we’d die without it (water).
Over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today. – Very little could be made without them.
Only a handful tested for health impacts. – This is true, and a problem. Market pressure from a populace wealthy enough to pay for the extensive and expensive testing is the best way to fix.
None tested for “synergistic” health impacts: impacts when combined with other chemicals accidentally or purposefully. – See above
Toxins in = toxins out – True. Read about Lobsters. Talk to ShatteredChina.
BFR’s = neuro-toxins, flame retardants added to many products. – How many lives are saved because of it? Is there something better right now? There are places people can purchase products free of this.
Food with highest level of “toxic” contaminants: Human Breast Milk – Real gut-wrencher. Likely true, but what does it mean? Here in the most toxic land on the planet we have very low infant mortality rates. Why?
Babies = most vulnerable – What about abortion? Which is the greater moral ill: possible harm from higher toxin rates in their food, or killing them before they even have a chance?
Why are we not protecting “sacred” breast feeding.
Goes back to government: “I thought they were looking out for us” – Is the government morally responsible or is it defined in their limited scope to protect breast feeding? This is a ludicrous assumption. Government policy may indeed have been indirectly responsible for pollution, but if that is true, do you trust them, being part of the problem, to be part of the solution? Further, your rage, as a consumer with a voice, is much more effective in causing change on the part of the corporations which can develop and create and invent actual solutions to problems. Is the government capable of development of creative solutions?
Factory workers, many women, of reproductive age – This is a bloated claim. Quick to tug the heart strings, but without serious validity. The number of safety precautions in modern manufacturing are mind blowing. Further, this is reminiscent of the tales told in Sociology classes of the hideous conditions of the common man over the years of industry. They are sensationalist and disproven. The photographers famous for their cataloging of the ills of modern commerce were out to make a buck. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a truism and has led to many a distortion. Not that there are not cases of real damage, they just are not nearly as common or egregious as is commonly believe based on the narrative sold us by the purveyors of doom.
No other option – What about the better lives they are able to give their children because they have a more stable job with better wages? A good parent will do what is necessary to give their children every advantage they can. If that includes taking risks, that is a judgment made by each individual. Certain jobs carry risk. Do we ban jobs which entail risk? Would such a ban be truly beneficial?
Erosion of local economies and resources push people to leave previously self-sustaining local economies live in cities – If they were self-sustaining why did people leave? The agrarian economy is subject to a boom/bust cycle which is one reason the push to a industrial/commercial economy has been so embraced by so many. We tend to glamorize the agrarian life-style to a dangerous degree, philosophically. And while there are many good people who survive and thrive in that life-style, many choose to leave it, and have chose to leave it, due to it’s many hardships.
“many to live in slums” – Should we outlaw slums?
“looking for work no matter how toxic that work may be” – And now we are to outlaw work? As a husband and potential/hopeful father, I make a judgment call when I take a job whether the potential risk outweighs the potential benefit. Watch the Discovery Channel’s shows Dangerous Jobs, Ice Road, and other shows which highlight people performing hard work under extreme conditions. Often they enjoy the jobs. They fill serious needs and sometimes ‘frivolous’ desires of
“Not just resources wasted along this system, people are wasted, whole communities” – There is never a waste where people choose to apply themselves to a system which produces. This is loaded language with the intent of causing us to be increasingly against the heart of personal enrichment: the ability to create and earn wealth from that creation.
Environmental impact of production: toxic byproducts, pollution. – This is incontrovertible, but incomplete. Therefore it is misleading.
4 billion pounds US industry “admits” to releasing each year. – Spread that across the volume of the atmosphere, water, subtract for the processing ability of the green on the earth. Now how much is left?
“It’s probably a lot more because that’s only what they admit” – Leading language, assumes they are all crooks.
“So what do they do? Move the dirty factories overseas. Pollute someone elses land.” – Why is it that the Kyoto Accord and other such environmental pacts exempt third-world countries and their corporations and factories from any accountability? Because without the ability to produce “more than their fair share” of garbage until their populace gained enough general wealth they will not be able to afford the production standards and technology necessary to make cleaner factories and production environments.
Pollution “comes right back at us carried by wind currents” – This has been true for a long time. Early mariners sailing outside the Los Angeles bay and basin noted the smog in the areas. It’s not worth panicing over.