Highlights: A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public.
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant emitted by gas stoves—was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems—four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered.
Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges”—a line that should sound familiar by now.
What is the better solution? What country has implemented something better than capitalism?
A system that fully accepts environmental realities and works against the wholesale ecocide of the planet as it’s first tenet. The rest is kinda whatever at this point. It could be a resource based economy or some sort of mixed planned/free market. Just gotta make sure that invisible hand doesn’t strangle us all in our sleep, ya know?
A climate-focused approach can be built into any economic system. This isn’t really an argument for ditching the economic system that has led to the least human suffering.
Saving the planet and endless expansion are simply not compatible. The way we are living is going to kill us all, and it’s just a fact. There are finite resources and the pollution and by products are not going away.
I mean you ever think about how much waste there is from regular everyday things like junk mail? From having to spend fuel on a tractor to plant trees to harvest paper and then process it into paper to then print the bullshit ads on the junk mail and then it has to be delivered and that causes more pollution and then you just put it straight in the garbage.
Or how about the plastic bag they give you with every purchase at literally any store? Those things don’t go away. And we are endlessly producing them, because that’s how capitalism works. You have to increase profits. That’s the whole point.
You can’t reconcile capitalism and the environment.
Seems like cradle to grave pricing would address the issues you mention.
We are still back at what’s the alternative? Planned Economies are notorious for not being able to predict the right things to produce, and that tended to massively misallocate resources too, arguably worse, but at best in a different way.
Corruption also just seems to be a human thing and in planned economies people still snuggle up to politicians in corrupt ways, just with a different veneer.
We also have tried regulation on capitalism - capture happens. We tried liberalization of communism and we got modern China.
I think tribe based society might be the only ones I’ve heard of that focus on sustainably living, but that loses out to larger societies force / power, and I haven’t seen a way to scale that up.
I really don’t think you can just point at China and completely rule out a system as a concept. It’s also worth noting that communism is the antithesis of capitalism. Why do you think that America aggressively attacked every country that’s ever tried it? If we didn’t attack them straight on, we ran a proxy war against them.
And just because the like 78 people that will see this thread don’t have the answer doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. This is obviously a massive and complex issue that will likely only be solved by all of the worlds power working together.
You can’t just say “Oh we don’t know what to do about this, so I guess we shouldn’t change anything at all”. We can still be taking smaller steps.
Just simple things like better public transit will do a lot. Stronger EPA restrictions on just about every industry would go a really long way.
We haven’t tried the one thing everyone’s asking for. Why is it that every time someone mentioned something like this, your minds immediately go to China, the Soviet Union, etc. And not any of the successful social democracies in Europe? Programmed much?
You do realize that capitalism itself is only a few hundred years old. There have been any number of other systems throughout history. And objectively capitalism hasn’t been any better than many of them. There’s been lots of differing circumstances under which they’ve all operated. It’s also arguable that capitalism enables and demands the worst of human nature.
It’s the basic premise of capitalism that it values capital over everything else. It’s in the very name. Socialistic theories of which there are so many outside leninism. Values, society and people more. You can still have markets. You can still have currency. Those things all predate capitalism and are not tied to it in any way. But having a robust social safety net and basic provisions for society always goes much better than leaving everyone to fend for themselves as the oligarchs gorge themselves on stolen wealth.
Also popping in to say you might get some mileage out of a book like The People’s Republic of Walmart, it’s neat, barring the stinky economist bullshit that pops up from the fucking cato institute as soon as you look it up on google.
That’s worked super well so far
I feel like least human suffering is a rather insane statement with for-profit healthcare a thing. Or, you know, slavery.
How many people die every year to housing insecurity? To inadequate access to healthcare? How many people suffer because they can’t afford not to?
Absolutely ludicrous.
Or all the suffering that has been and will be caused by climate change on behalf of the shareholders
Regulated capitalism. Prosecuting corruption.
Right, regulate capitalism… by regulating the capitalists that have all the money and can buy the regulators any time they feel like it.
Sounds legit.
It was four words dude. I know it hurts, but try reading all of them.
Then this is what should be said, and I think most would agree. Throwing out capitalism entirely (which is mostly the calls I see on Lemmy), when there aren’t any viable solutions, seems silly.
Well considering all it would take is knocking out the few corrupt people at the top that monopolized the industry that means it’s too fragile a system and bad design. So really it should be replaced. They are after all responsible for setting the pace of stolen wages, slave workers, lack of ethics and the reason why unions are a thing.
England trying to take over the world should have been the example on what to avoid.
I think the issue is the politicians who should be regulating these things are being funded by the companies. Eliminating lobbying and corporate political donors (or anyone with specific corporate interests) would go a long way to removing the corruption and conflict of interest in the government. I think anyone in politics taking money from corporations, or participating in any quid pro quo should be removed from their current position, fined (lets say double the pay the received for their entire time in office), and barred from holding future public office. Don’t make it worth the risk. As things stand right now, they don’t even really have to hide it.
The problem is the mere existence of the state. Without a state, there’d be no politicians to buy.
And without a state you dont have liberties, what is your recourse for griviences? Violence?
Most would not agree. Capitalism has only existed for a few hundred years. We got along fine before it. And we could get along fine after it. The fact that you think that most on Lemmy just want to throw it out and that it would be disastrous. Just really only underscores you have very little idea of what capitalism is effectively. And that is a flimsy justification for a ruling class. Decoupling divine right , or rule by blood from wealth and power. Now wealth and power is the only measure that justifies who should be wealthy and powerful. Completely disregarding the fact that those who tend to be the most powerful and most wealthy are also some of the most immoral and harmful people society has ever produced.
But for a moment, I’ll humor this uneducated hot take of yours. What exactly is it that you think, objectively that is unique to capitalism that sets it apart and makes it beneficial from all other systems before it. Just a reminder. Currencies and markets existed thousands upon thousands of years before capitalism was even mangled malformed from the muck and sewage under the seat of merchants.
Well if no one else has done something, it clearly can’t be done, right?
The main alternative is, instead of focusing on wealth accumulation, focus on societal betterment.
I might just not be able to see outside my capitalist culture, but I think that’s a long road to get the mass of society on board. There’s just so many tasks that need to be done that I really doubt societal betterment would get people to do it.
There’s a reason Peter Singer’s stuff has only limited appeal.
You can do both, it’s not an either/or.
It depends on what limits you put on wealth accumulation. The problem is if there’s no upper limit, everything else falls by the wayside. Because accumulating wealth gets a lot more difficult if your workforce can think for themselves.
Absolutely, that’s part of it. In the US, the wealthy used be taxed a lot more, we need to go back to that time.
BombOmOm wanted to do nothing.
I don’t know what that means.
“ BombOmOm” = username
“”wanted to do nothing” should be self explanatory.
So now we judge people based on vague usernames? And no, it is not self explanatory. Even with the given information.
Marx figured it out 160 years ago. Spend some time and learn about it. Did the Wright brothers have to fly in a plane before they built one?
Marxist ideas just don’t seem to work in practice. You have to have a revolution that is authoritarian to force the change, and then the people in power never give it up willingly. Almost no one ever does.
But even if you did an ideal Marxist transformation, you have the huge economic problem of figuring out what to produce and where to distribute it. This is an impossible task for a committee to manage at a national scale. Capitalism outsources figuring that out to every transaction. Even when a company gets it wrong, it’s limited to that company or sector. But in planned economies when they get it wrong, it’s the entire economy. It’s all great depressions and no minor corrections.
Whats worse is you lose a lot of choices - at best a good hearted technocrat is telling you what to make and what you will get. At worse you get famines because of mistakes in prediction.
This has all been debunked. Particularly, Second Thought has a great video on planned economies if you are interested. Cybersyn in Chile would have worked if capitalism and the CIA hadn’t planned a coup.
Edit: Cuba is still going strong after 60 years despite sanctions and embargoes. To say Marxism/ socialism doesn’t work is a bit superficial and certainly not true.
Why not move to cuba…
I love that you seem to think that it’s just as simple as pick up and move to the country you like. As if the red carpet in all other countries was always rolled out just for you. Let me guess, American? Can anyone just pick up and move to the US? Or the EU? Heard of all the crap around ‘migrants’? You don’t think you’d be considered a migrant if you wanted to move to Cuba, with all the restrictions that would entail? Or do you just assume that the whole world is just dying to welcome you to settle in their countries?
But changing to entire modus operandi of a country is just a walk in the park?
Why don’t you move to Somalia?
Ergo decedo. Why don’t you learn why that’s a bad argument?
If that place is a pinnacle of the ideaology you purport, then maybe leaving for that place is a natural progression of thought.
If you dont want to live there, but rather in your current country but you want it to mimic the desired country, that makes no sense. You have one available, and one that seems nigh immpossible, which one makes more sense to achieve?
It makes perfect sense if you like the policies of another country. By that logic, 8 billion people would be living in Finland because it was ranked the happiest place on Earth. There’s a reason many are disillusioned with capitalism. A curious person might ask - why?
It’s pretty ignorant to act like we know it doesn’t work. If you’re having a race and one racer has his shoes tied together, do you really know who was fastest? Nearly every time a leftist government has been installed the US intervenes to ensure it doesn’t succeed. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d’état
The US feared a successful “communist” country, so they toppled the democracy and installed a dictatorship more aligned with US business ideals. If it’s guaranteed to fail, why was the US so scared of them succeeding?
The fact of the matter is the only countries that could survive the US attempting to topple then were countries with a strong central power and cultural hegymony. Those aren’t requirements to exist, they are requirements to outlast US intervention.
Why would non-capitalist countries need capitalist countries to do well? We have had very large non-capitalist countries, like the USSR. Can a country that size not do well if there aren’t capitalist countries to help it economically? What size does a non-capitalist country need to be to not have to rely on capitalist countries?
What?
I’m assuming you didn’t read my comment. They don’t need capitalist countries. They just are never given a chance by capitalist countries to even try to be successful. Capitalists are scared of the status quo changing, so they undermine any non-capitalist country. Why do they always do this, without exception, if they’re so certain they’ll fail regardless? Obviously it’s because they know they aren’t guaranteed to fail.
You, with a time machine, probably.
Reactionaries mad
Everyone’s gonna be like, oh the USSR, or venezuela, or whatever type of fully nationalized country that’s got embargoed to shit and has either gone under or has gone the way of cuba and just kind of lives with it. And I’m not gonna waste your time trying to convince you about how all those countries are actually great or yadda yadda ya. Instead, I wanna turn you on to a couple neat things. First, would probably be the Zapatistas, who are a pretty cool kind of anarchist group that tends to function well mostly independent of the mexican government. Kind of hard to find information on them, but they’re neat and I think outside of the general preconceived notions that people have against the idea itself, it’s hard not to empathize with opposition to the mostly corrupt and totally fuckied mexican government. There’s also, for your consideration the Mondragon Corporation, a co-operative that employs 80,000 people and rivals the size of probably a mid-sized country. If you’re just taking issue with power structures themselves, rather than the monopoly on violence or the borders said to define a country as different from a corporation, than that’s kind of an interesting counterpoint to like, global capitalism. Kind of ironic that they’re, you know, a corporation, but then the structure of the corporation is different enough as to call into question whether or not the insane wealth disparities of corporations that americans are generally used to are required. But then, the surrounding stuff also has some problems, because the corporation itself has been criticized for employing contract workers, much like a state might employ immigrant labor or outsourced labor, reaping the rewards but giving none of the benefits, kind of creating an internal sense of “nationalism” in the corp. But then, I suppose, let us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
What country isn’t at least mostly capitalist?
paradism dot org
Capitalism is industrialised greed, it keeps the wheels turning, having people forever chase shit that they don’t need for the sake of feeling better than the man stood next to them. What an inspirational ladder to climb.
You’re under the misunderstanding that it works.
Again, what works better? What country has implemented a better economic system?