Thank you so much for the continued reporting on this and especially focusing on the fact that things with major ramifications can get a couple of lines of text in a massive document.
I don't understand how such an extreme policy agenda is getting so little coverage elsewhere, and if it does it is framed more like "Democrats attack Project 2025 and Trump distances himself from it" electoral race coverage, instead of actually just explaining what it is and how obviously it is what Trump and Republicans want to do, like here.
Don't have time to listen to the article but I'm positive it is great too! Thank you again Arielle!
Thank you for creating an audio version. For those of us with reading impairments it is greatly appreciated. It makes it so much easier to follow your great reporting.
We've let fluorinated chemie products go way too far. And other not-quite "forever" endocrine-disrupting chemicals. I actually try to have "carbon tunnel vision," meaning I think some other enviro issues might take a back burner to reducing GHGs which seems to have more of a deadline.
But WTF, WTF^2, it's absurd we let this stuff proliferate. I try to tell the young, enviro-depressed, "Look, in my life we did ban mass DDT spraying and bring back the raptors; we banned lead in fuel and paint, and blood lead levels are down by 80%." These were pretty central industrial chemicals and yeah it took too long. Asbestos and Hg and most tailpipe emissions. But it got done eventually.
So why are we so stuck now? I guess the 50 year project of Reaganites, the "Powell Memo" strategy (father of some of Proj 2025), using Fed Society judges to question any epidemiology and other science, now using social media to convince young men that pollution is patriotic, etc.
Really, firefighters don't have alternative protective gear yet? I can hear the argument, "Oh look at all the other toxic crud in a typical house fire..." Which is true, but it's not next to their skin for hours.
There is a tendency by lots of stories to look at our exposure to PFAs through our public agencies (water supply, military/fire, now wastewater), but a lot of exposure is through consumer products, even if it's not in frying pans anymore. (I think/hope.) House dust is a vector, from carpet and upholstery treatments. Housekeepers are probably getting high exposures. Lots of other clothing. Weren't there some airline attendants sickened by their uniforms, from the water/stain repellents or perma-press additives? Might have been some other chemie, but in any case, it's not as if these "ingredients" are listed or the potential "side effects," like on a TV drug add. Wouldn't that be entertaining?
"Fertilizing" with sewage sludge/biosolids has lots of guilty parties. I think for years mainstream enviro orgs supported this because the land application kept the sludge out of landfills or incinerators, and seemed like a way to "recycle nutrients." It helped minimize the cost of improved sewage treatment. Hopefully most have seen the error of their ways. I think every alternative has other drawbacks, mostly our municipal waste water systems aren't exactly rolling in $$$s.
Another instance of money versus health. The MAGA people are more interested in saving the taxpayers money by deregulating everything and allowing them to get cancer. Then they complain that these same people can't work anymore and have to have social assistance. The only winners are the rich oligarchs in charge of all of these PFAS factories. They could care less about who gets sick and dies. They have enough money to purify their water and buy the high end products that are free of this stuff while their factories are churning it out as much as possible. Got to keep those profits moving upwards.
Seeing aside the obvious environmental and health nightmares that would be exacerbated by gutting regulations, the argument from the Project 2025 types that "billions of dollars would be saved" needs to be clarified a bit. The polluters that are now on the hook to pay for PFAS clean-up may indeed save money out of their own pockets, but only by pushing those costs onto citizens and the government in the form of healthcare expenses, disability payments, and premature death. I think it's important to push back on the economic lies these people spew, because that's a large part of the BS they use to manipulate people into supporting their agenda against their own interests.
Thank you so much for the continued reporting on this and especially focusing on the fact that things with major ramifications can get a couple of lines of text in a massive document.
I don't understand how such an extreme policy agenda is getting so little coverage elsewhere, and if it does it is framed more like "Democrats attack Project 2025 and Trump distances himself from it" electoral race coverage, instead of actually just explaining what it is and how obviously it is what Trump and Republicans want to do, like here.
Don't have time to listen to the article but I'm positive it is great too! Thank you again Arielle!
Thank you for creating an audio version. For those of us with reading impairments it is greatly appreciated. It makes it so much easier to follow your great reporting.
We've let fluorinated chemie products go way too far. And other not-quite "forever" endocrine-disrupting chemicals. I actually try to have "carbon tunnel vision," meaning I think some other enviro issues might take a back burner to reducing GHGs which seems to have more of a deadline.
But WTF, WTF^2, it's absurd we let this stuff proliferate. I try to tell the young, enviro-depressed, "Look, in my life we did ban mass DDT spraying and bring back the raptors; we banned lead in fuel and paint, and blood lead levels are down by 80%." These were pretty central industrial chemicals and yeah it took too long. Asbestos and Hg and most tailpipe emissions. But it got done eventually.
So why are we so stuck now? I guess the 50 year project of Reaganites, the "Powell Memo" strategy (father of some of Proj 2025), using Fed Society judges to question any epidemiology and other science, now using social media to convince young men that pollution is patriotic, etc.
Really, firefighters don't have alternative protective gear yet? I can hear the argument, "Oh look at all the other toxic crud in a typical house fire..." Which is true, but it's not next to their skin for hours.
There is a tendency by lots of stories to look at our exposure to PFAs through our public agencies (water supply, military/fire, now wastewater), but a lot of exposure is through consumer products, even if it's not in frying pans anymore. (I think/hope.) House dust is a vector, from carpet and upholstery treatments. Housekeepers are probably getting high exposures. Lots of other clothing. Weren't there some airline attendants sickened by their uniforms, from the water/stain repellents or perma-press additives? Might have been some other chemie, but in any case, it's not as if these "ingredients" are listed or the potential "side effects," like on a TV drug add. Wouldn't that be entertaining?
"Fertilizing" with sewage sludge/biosolids has lots of guilty parties. I think for years mainstream enviro orgs supported this because the land application kept the sludge out of landfills or incinerators, and seemed like a way to "recycle nutrients." It helped minimize the cost of improved sewage treatment. Hopefully most have seen the error of their ways. I think every alternative has other drawbacks, mostly our municipal waste water systems aren't exactly rolling in $$$s.
That sludge is not a completely new issue. From 1999, featuring Adrienne Anderson, fired from dear old CU not long afterward: https://www.hcn.org/issues/issue-157/a-grudge-against-sludge/
Anyway, you deserve a stiff drink for immersing yourself in yet another reactionary manifesto.
Isn’t this the same class of people who worked to deny help to first responders at the World Trade Center and soldiers exposed to burn pits?
They've amended "greed is good" to add "poison is good." Thanks very much for setting this out for us.
Not the most uplifting read, but an important one.
Another instance of money versus health. The MAGA people are more interested in saving the taxpayers money by deregulating everything and allowing them to get cancer. Then they complain that these same people can't work anymore and have to have social assistance. The only winners are the rich oligarchs in charge of all of these PFAS factories. They could care less about who gets sick and dies. They have enough money to purify their water and buy the high end products that are free of this stuff while their factories are churning it out as much as possible. Got to keep those profits moving upwards.
Seeing aside the obvious environmental and health nightmares that would be exacerbated by gutting regulations, the argument from the Project 2025 types that "billions of dollars would be saved" needs to be clarified a bit. The polluters that are now on the hook to pay for PFAS clean-up may indeed save money out of their own pockets, but only by pushing those costs onto citizens and the government in the form of healthcare expenses, disability payments, and premature death. I think it's important to push back on the economic lies these people spew, because that's a large part of the BS they use to manipulate people into supporting their agenda against their own interests.