#PFAS are forever?

How the #ChemicalIndustry is fighting back against regulation

13.07.2023

"Corporate Europe Observatory uncovers the story of how the toxics industry is fighting back against the upcoming regulation of PFAS or 'forever chemicals', which are found in everything from frying pans to food packaging. Using access to documents requests and LobbyFacts data we show how chemical companies paint themselves as reasonable, concerned actors, whilst at the same time privately pushing hard for exemptions for their own PFAS products, and warning in dramatic terms of the economic fallout of banning them. Meanwhile the real catastrophe – the impacts on human health and the environment – as well as the costs of clean up, continue apace.

"The companies producing PFAS knew for decades about the toxicity of these chemicals, but they chose to do nothing about it. Recent academic analysis of previously secret documents from DuPont and 3M shows that companies knew PFAS were 'highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested' by 1970, 40 years before the public health community. The analysis further notes that the industry used several strategies also common to #tobacco, #pharma, and other industries to influence science and regulation, including 'suppressing unfavorable research and distorting public discourse'.

"According to documents analysed by the news show #Zembla, #DuPont knew 30 years ago that it was seriously contaminating the groundwater under the #Dordrecht plant in the #Netherlands and in the surrounding area with large quantities of toxic and carcinogenic PFAS. Sidenote In 2022 it was recommended not to eat vegetables or fruit coming from gardens within a one kilometre radius of this PFAS factory."

https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/pfas-are-forever

#ChemicalManufacturers #ChemicalIndustries #DowKnew #ZemblaKnew #DuPontKnew #ForeverChemicals

#IndigenousGardens in #Ontario

" #Indigenous gardens and other special places are designed for people to gather, learn, heal, reflect and celebrate the diverse and rich #FirstNations, #Inuit and #Métis cultures.

"From the banks of the St. Marys River in #SaultSainteMarie and #LakeSuperior in #ThunderBay to downtown #Toronto, learn about the important role of Indigenous gardens in honouring #IndigenousCulture and knowledge in Ontario.

"Traditional plants, including the four sacred medicines — #sage, #tobacco, #cedar and #sweetgrass — are often integral to Indigenous gardens.

- Sage is often used in smudging, where the smoke is washed over participants to cleanse away negative energy.
- Cedar is a protective medicine that can be used as cedar tea, cedar baths or hung in the home to guard against bad elements.
- Sweetgrass is a kindness medicine. It reminds us to be good to others, the world and ourselves.
- Tobacco is a relationship medicine offered to start things: before a harvest, before a hunt, before asking for assistance from an Elder or to start the day. It opens up communication and ushers in good energy.

"Learn more about Indigenous gardens in Ontario and their significance. This is a short list of the many Indigenous gardens across the province. Please respect these Indigenous spaces, as not all gardens are open to the public."

Learn more:
https://www.destinationontario.com/en-ca/articles/indigenous-gardens-ontario

#SolarPunkSunday #Canada #FirstNations #CulturalPreservation #TraditionalAgriculture #TraditionalMedicine #MedicinalPlants #IndigenousKnowledge

Healthy radium cigarettes

This one was inspired by a tweet I saw a few years ago, something along the lines of “machine learning is the radium salts of the twenty-first century”. This joke is more relevant than ever; corporations are trying to squeeze “AI” into every role imaginable, no matter that it’s mostly useless and often harmful.

Full size (3000×3500, 1.13 MB): https://www.deviantart.com/lurkjay/art/1056757106

#art #notAI #noAI #AI #LLM #cigarettes #tobacco

Alt...

Painting of a white pack of cigarettes on a dark blue background. The front of the pack says “LLM” in dark red slab-serif letters, underneath it is a line of dark grey sans-serif text saying “healthy radium cigarettes”.

The surprise tobacco plant that popped up in the onion bed is doing well and I've been looking up how to process it.

Maybe we should let it grow seeds instead and start a tobacco farm? 😆

#Tobacco #Garden #Homestead #Unplanted

Alt...

A tobacco plant with wide green leaves is growing in a bed of onions.

I am currently addicted to nicotine, have been for 15+ years. I started smoking right out of high school around "the wrong crowd" and I've been vaping ever since and recently transitioned to smokeless tobacco/snus and velo. My habit is currently controlled, isn't as unbearable as it used to be, even if I should quit.

and I should quit... anyone should. No one should "start", which, btw, disclaimer
: If you aren't currently biologically addicted to nicotine, stop right here, take inventory of yourself. This is a small blog, an opinion from one man, one misguided, weak human being. Do not take anything here as a suggestion. Good? Good. Do not consider me influential. I am not. Do not take my words as suggestions. They are not.

Ok, continue with this "examination" into the mismanaged life of a drug-addict, which you (obviously) are not, and will continue to not be by the time this is over.

Won't you?

wipes forehead I'm watching you! Don't you dare open ebay.

Alright...

It's mellow, enjoyable, calming, surprisingly cheap and you'd never want to do it constantly anyway. There's an entire process to it that makes it a full-on, attentive experience and it isn't something you'd want to do whilst preoccupied with other things.

How it differs
If pipe smoking is "smoking", it's about... 70% incense, and 30%... actually "smoking".

I'd say that yes, technically a pipe was "smoked", but only in the sense that a fire was lit and I enjoyed it tangentially, not in the same sense that I lit a joint and attempted to injest every bit of it lest I waste the $120 worth of bud wrapped up into it. Pipe smoking is less interested in the ingestion of (insert drug) and more interested in the...

_...ingestion of_

_V I B E S._ ~ Cello plays ~

Am I advocating that anyone young or old out there goes and buys a tobacco pipe and reads some Lord of the Rings by a tree outside?

Y-yes, actually. That sounds lovely. Can we bring a dog and some picnic supplies? Some watermelon. It is summer, after-all.

-Wait a minute, NO. That's not how this goes! You aren't supposed to want to do this! Stop smiling! Do NOT go and get addicted to nicotine because some lonely millenial is adventuring into fantasy novels and has decided that full-bore immersion would be neat. This is a sad tale of woe!

If you are my age, and you've made your mistakes, and you want to chill, yeah, come with me, fellow graybeard. To the mountain! Grab your churchwarden and staff. We leave at dawn.