Rhinocrisy

Woohoo! Your daily dose of cantankerousness, right here. His blog is titled “Drink, Pray, Fight and Fuck”. Awesome.

Brita filter pitchers, Nalgene bottles, and some sippy cups are all made from a chemical that has been linked in many independent studies to serious developmental disorders. The chemical, Bisphenol A, is the main component of the hard, clear plastic called polycarbonate.

Bisphenol A can be released from the plastic when scrubbed with detergents, scuffed, or fogged from exposure to sunlight. It can then enter the body of a person or animal eating or drinking out of the polycarbonate container. In the body, it imitates estrogen and causes all manner of sexual disorders, from low sperm counts to genital cancers.

At the hearing on Tuesday, Fred vom Saal, a reproductive biologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said the effects of low doses of bisphenol A, known as BPA, are clear in animal studies.

“Every aspect of maleness is disrupted,” Vom Saal said, including the animals’ sperm counts, prostate size and behavior, because it blocks testosterone production.

Now California is considering banning polycarbonate in baby toys. Unsurprisingly, the plastics industry has sent its pet scientists out to prevent regulation.

“Human exposure is extraordinarily low,” said Steve Hentges of the polycarbonate division of the American Plastics Council. “And there is no evidence that any human has been harmed by use of these products.”

Unfortunately for the plastics industry, these scientists are probably charging way too much for their services. The good news for any industry seeking to prevent regulation is that Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has created a handy guide to preventing regulation — even if you know nothing about the industry. And his guide is brilliantly written as a deck of poker cards, for easy memorization. Next time, perhaps the plastics industry will take on some high school student-council vice-president who would gladly accept a volunteer “internship” testifying in Sacramento. She could probably do a perfectly competent job.

Just to bring her up to speed, let’s see — so far, the plastics industry has used:
2 of spades
3 of clubs
5 of hearts
5 of diamonds
and at the end of the LA Times story, a hint of the deadly 8 of diamonds.
I am sure that Jack of Spades is waiting in the wings.

Meanwhile, the story gives a great insight into the power of the purse when it comes to the alleged objectivity of science:

Vom Saal countered that 140 animal studies have found hormone-altering effects from low exposure to the plastics chemical. In a published review of the studies, Vom Saal reported that every one funded by industry showed no effects while more than 90% of the government-funded studies found effects.

Go figure!

So the U.S. and Australia, the only two Kyoto holdouts in the world, are putting together an alternative climate change coalition along with India, China, Japan and South Korea.^* They’re calling it the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. To me it seems something like a well-written farce. The premise of the partnership is that real action on climate change will be driven by industry and new technology, not by government regulation.

Playing the part of Head Clown was U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who told reporters, “”It’s really the private sector, the companies that own the assets, that make the financial allocations, that are ultimately going to be the solvers of the problems.” His best joke was this: “I believe that the people who run the private sector, they too have children and they too have grandchildren. They too live and breathe in the world and they would like things dealt with effectively.” This should pass without commentary, I think.

The favorite technology being pushed by this coalition is “clean coal”, which we’ve previously insulted here (mostly by describing it). Clean coal, you’ll recall, is expected to come to market, optimistically, in ten years’ time, which might coincide nicely with Tuvalu being completely submerged.

Be sure to note that the coalition will not set any targets for countries to meet, and will instead rely on a “non-binding compact” to reduce emissions. They won’t even include the sort of carbon credits trading favored by Kyoto. One has to wonder what sort of incentive is there going to be for development of low-emissions technology in the complete absence of any regulatory pressure. In fact, this seems like nothing so much as a bid to allow foreign investment into difficult-to-reach corners of the four Asian countries. Never lose an opportunity to engage in some shameless capitalism at the world’s expense.

^* This might be news to China, India, Japan and Korea, all Kyoto signatories who perceive this as a complement, not an alternative, to Kyoto. Meanwhile, however, the Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell explicitly stated that this would be an “alternative”, and it’s hard to see how the anti-Kyoto Bush administration could see this as anything other than a way to cloak their inaction.

Did the Ancient Egyptians invent Freon?