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This only goes to show how powerful lobbyists are in the US. If a known carcinogen can take this long to be banned, imagine how fucked we are if we’re going to try to shift away from fossil fuels and such.
Reading the article, it actually does look pretty bad. Filter media containing asbestos, used to be make chlorine. Brake pads, that are made to wear away into dust, asbestos dust??
I agree with twinkle, technically it’s all about the proper application, but my god. Probably shouldn’t put it in brake pads, I know asbestos is a wonder material, but the whole issue is creating airborne dust.
Fossil fuels can’t be banned overnight; I am pro-renewables, but we’re just not there for freight/ag/rural/heavy industry. We can probably start getting enough city people on electric. The tech will continue to get better. Gotta walk before you can run.
Asbestos isn’t widely used in brake pads any longer, California and a couple other states banned it a couple decades ago. The market demand of those states pretty much forced manufacturers to change without federal input. It looks like this bill is just making it official.
I don’t really think using it as a reagent to make chlorine is very dangerous, so long as factory workers have access to proper PPE.
Fossil fuels can’t be banned overnight; I am pro-renewables, but we’re just not there for freight/ag/rural/heavy industry.
The largest concern I have as we move away from fossil fuels is the fact that we are super dependent on it for cheap fertilizers. Our current population exceeds the natural limitations imposed by the nitrogen cycle. As we stop fossil fuels production these fertilizers created mostly as a byproduct of refining fuel will go up in cost. Potentially moreso than poorer nations with large populations can afford to pay.
We still have to depart from fossil fuels, but I’m afraid of the consequences it will have on the global south.
We can make nitrogen fertilizers just fine with the Haber Bosch process and Hydrogen electrolysis. All you need for that is water, air and electricity.
Also crop yields are perfectly suitable to feed all of the global population without using fertilizers. It just requires farmin techniques, that are not suitable for industrial farming for profit maximising companies. On the contrary the current way of industrial farming destroys the yields as it erodes soils physically, chemically and biologically. If we continue farming like this for another century or two we will face severe global starvation.
It is all the more reason to switch both in the use of fossil fuels and the way of current agriculture sooner rather than later.
farmin techniques
We can make nitrogen fertilizers just fine with the Haber Bosch process and Hydrogen electrolysis. All you need for that is water, air and electricity.
The Haber Bosch process is what we currently use… We can make hydrogen via electrolysis, but it’s a lot cheaper and easier to create it via gasification of a high carbon material like natural gas.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that it will become more expensive, and that at risk communities already have a hard time paying the current price.
There’s of course a solution, my fear is that there will be no mechanism put in place by governments to make it economical for the entire globe.
Also crop yields are perfectly suitable to feed all of the global population without using fertilizers.
That’s just untrue. “around 175 million tons of nitrogen flow into the world’s croplands every year, and about half this total becomes incorporated into cultivated plants. Synthetic fertilizers provide about 40 percent of all the nitrogen taken up by these crops. Because they furnish—directly as plants and indirectly as animal foods— about 75 percent of all nitrogen in consumed proteins (the rest comes from fish and from meat and dairy foodstuffs produced by grazing), about one third of the protein in humanity’s diet depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.”
just requires farmin techniques, that are not suitable for industrial farming for profit maximising companies.
The communities that are most at risk do not generally partake in industrial farming, nor do they export a lot of food.
On the contrary the current way of industrial farming destroys the yields as it erodes soils physically, chemically and biologically. If we continue farming like this for another century or two we will face severe global starvation.
Yes, we should refine the way we farm, but we are absolutely dependent on synthetic fertilizers, or at least 1/4 of the global population is. The current population is just too high for the nitrogen cycle to sustain us. There’s a reason we haven’t seen the levels of famine endemic to the period before the Haber Process, this despite a huge surge in global pop.
The issue with our impact on the nitrogen cycle is that it is exceeding the planetary boundaries significantly. Same for Phosphor https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
However if we look at the countries with the highest use of chemical fertilizers per Capita it is also countries with industrialized agriculture that focus on meat production or cash crops.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertilizer-per-capita
We use about half of global agricultural lands for animal feed. So the nitrogen fertilizers are not needed to sustain nutrition. They are needed to sustain the meat overconsumption in wealthy countries.
Same for Phosphor https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
I’m sorry, but I didn’t see anything about the nitrogen cycle in the link you posted. What do you mean by “exceeding the planetary boundaries significantly”? I’m not very familiar with “planetary boundaries” as an ecological theory, and the site doesn’t seem to expand on their methodology to a significant degree, or maybe I’m just not looking at the right pages.
use about half of global agricultural lands for animal feed. So the nitrogen fertilizers are not needed to sustain nutrition. They are needed to sustain the meat overconsumption in wealthy countries.
Right… But do we actually expect that to happen? You seem to be focused on the physical possibility and the science behind the problem, when my argument has been entirely policy based.
If we had the political will, or if we were motivated as nations to help our fellow man, I wouldn’t be worried in the first place. My concern isnt that this is some unsolvable and inevitable problem, but that governments will respond to this problem in the easiest and most profitable way. By ignoring it and allowing big AG to create a natural monopoly over an artificially inflated scarcity.
You can only push so much nitrogen and phosphor into the biological cycle w.o. having grave side effects. Acidification, erosion of soil microbiomes, eutrophication of water bodies…
The current amount of fertilizers used are killing the environment and through this reducing crop yields.
The tech will get better if we were really interested in it. Remember, the automotive industry attempted to kill the EV in the 1990s and nearly succeeded. They only changed their tune when they realized they had to adapt or die.
Known carcinogens are used for a ton of things. The problem with asbestos is how hard it is to handle properly, and the consequences of getting it wrong.
Look at what it’s being used for. It is impossible to be handled properly if you’re using it in brake pads.
Wait, there are countries where that shit is still legal?!
Yes, India, Philippines, China and Russia come to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law
Reminds me, we used wire gauze with asbestos during high school in the Philippines. “Fortunately”, it was a public school with not a lot of resources so the use of lab equipment are very rare.
It’s extremely effective and quite cheap.
… and super carcinogenic too.
Yeah but that’s not stopping many. I’m not saying it’s ok to keep using it. Just giving the reason. It’s the same reason most electricity in the world comes from burning coal and gas.
Sad but true.
Me, realizing the US had not yet banned asbestos: 😕
It was 98% banned. In fact this specific type, chrysotile asbestos, still has an exemption in Canada because of it’s specialty uses like creating chemicals for water treatment plants.
Have you got a source for that? The article is pretty clearly stating that previous attempts to ban it were unsuccessful. And this suggests there is no ban even though they allow small exceptions for the countries listed as having a ban.
Cue the GOP taking a pro-asbestos stance in 3, 2, 1…
You know what would REALLY own us liberals? If they protested by wearing suits and masks made entirely of asbestos fiber. I don’t even know what we’d do at that point.
I hear a lot of woke trans liberal immigrant scientists say wearing an asbestos mask is bad.
Oh, I like you!
They already did. Trump reversed many asbestos regulations during his administration.
A Russian asbestos producer put the face of Trump as a mascot on their product because of his positive stance and deregulation of asbestos.
It’s not banned already?
It was still allowed in certain forms if I recall correctly. It’s only really dangerous when it’s an airbirne particulate. So if you used it in a way that didn’t turn it into dust, then it was considered “safe” to use.
Interestingly enough, carbon fiber has the exact same dangers since it’s molecular shape is nearly identical to asbestos. So don’t breathe that in, either.But wouldn’t mining and processing inevitably cause airborne particulate?
Proper environmental controls and PPE protects you from any risk.
protects you from any
i think “mitigates the” would be more accurate here
Weird that they call it personal PROTECTION equipment instead of mitigation equipment……
Proper and right fitting ppe is 100% safe, so no, mitigation isn’t even a better word anyways.
Yeah because it’s not like American mining corporations are notorious for failing to adhere to safety regulations, not providing adequate PPE and hardly ever being inspected…oh wait! That’s EXACTLY what they are!
But it smells nice :(
You’ve smelt it? What does it smell like?
Spicy.
Musty/dusty with a faint metallic aftertaste.
Does it smell a bit like tar, but sort of dusty? I was in some old buildings in strong sunlight and I never knew if what I was smelling was the tar-infused wood (ok) or the asbestos cement roof (!!)
Well, it was over 30 years ago, but what it smelt like to me was dust, like an old shed or basement, and hot metal, like one of those engineering workshops where they use machines to cut and shape metal.
We had to wear sealed suits and air filters to run new cables into a section of a telephone exchange that had asbestos sludge/paste sprayed on the walls as fire removedant, spent a week or so working in the asbestos area.
What will Asbestos Lady wear now??? Oh wait…
I can’t decide whether “Asbestos industry lobbyist, 1970(ish)-2024” is like mesothelioma for one’s resume or a sign to prospective future employers that they’ll keep up the fight for the almighty dollar until the last dying gasp of their cause is extinguished. Either way, that’s a bunch of carcinogenic old garbage heading for retirement.
