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abracaDavid , to news in ‘Forever chemical’ bans face hard truth: Many can’t be replaced

These terrible chemicals are just not worth it at all.

The only people suffering from forever chemicals being banned are the people producing these poisons.

You can’t even drink rainwater anymore. This is killing us.

andrewta ,

Quiz question : when electric vehicle catches on fire what do you use to put the fire out?

Hint : you can’t use water

MedicPigBabySaver ,

What about a 20’ x 20’ smother blanket?

Kiwi ,

Since lithium-ion fires can produce its own oxygen supply it wouldn’t work as an extinguishing method but, it could be used to contain the toxic and flammable fumes the fire would create

Agent641 ,

Smother it with the corpses of billionaires

Lightor ,

You put it in a box and set that box on fire. You have to fight fire with fire.

Franzia ,

Use the idiot who’s driving it sleeping in the driver’s seat.

Emma_Gold_Man ,

Sand. You use sand.

TigrisMorte ,

Nor anything else as the fire creates its own oxygen and thus must be allowed to burn itself out.

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

No, everyone on the planet will be suffering, because PFAS are vital for the manufacturing of integrated circuits, without them, we wouldn’t have computers, and by extension, all the products the latter made possible.

Pons_Aelius , to news in ‘Forever chemical’ bans face hard truth: Many can’t be replaced

Humans existed before these compounds were created. One of the ones mentioned in the article PFAS were first created in the 1940s.

So my question would be, what did we use in their place before that?

And what will happen if we stop using them.

burchalka ,

If that means we’ll have to forfeit the use of, for example computer systems, or some actually vital modern infrastructure - I don’t think we’ll agree to the ban.

On the other hand if their use is unavoidable, for any valid reason - there should be sufficient effort in recycling them…

PupBiru ,
@PupBiru@kbin.social avatar

recycling, containment, disposal… i’m pretty sure forever chemicals aren’t actually forever: put enough energy into them and we can probably make them no longer forever chemicals… it’s only a problem because we don’t contain and process them

bstix ,

Yes ideally they should just stop. However, there are things that have changed since the 1940s.

A lot of technology is based on plastics being available and will require a complete redesign to work without it.

Also ordinary stuff f.i. rain jackets, cookware and cleaning products. All of these could be replaced with whatever people used beforehand, but one reason why plastics has been used so widely is because it’s a cheap biproduct that could replace more expensive and more energy intensive productions. F.i. imagine if we had to replace all hard plastic casing with ceramics, glass or steel. That would require a lot of furnaces to run on coal. Multiply this with the increased population since the 1940s and it might very well just cause a different environmental disaster.

echo64 ,

furnaces to run on coal

If only there was a way of avoiding coal furnaces! I have this freaky idea from this sparky rock I found. It might be related to those times when the sky gets angry and makes loud bangs and flashes.

Blackout ,
@Blackout@kbin.social avatar

Cast iron pans work great, you can even use them on your induction stove and they heat way better than any expensive non-stick. Waxed canvas is also excellent at waterproofing. We do have solutions already for many things. Your plastic argument as well. The types of plastics the complaint is about is for specific products, not all of them. I work in manufacturing and the availability of safe materials are plentiful as science keeps looking for new ways. People just have to stop buying new things to throw perfectly good and usable ones in the garbage. It would go a long way.

bstix ,

Yes absolutely. Reuse is the second best step of the" reduce, reuse, recycle, reclaim" cycle of materials.

All I’m saying is that if everyone needs durable quality products, then we’re facing a different material problem than what plastics are doing. Plastic is used because it’s a cheap biproduct. Cast iron is not, and we can’t replace all plastics with iron, glass or stone without also damaging the environment in other ways.

Personally I think plastic wrapping is better place to start. Why not use paper, cardboard or another biodegradable material for wrapping.

alvvayson ,

One of their uses is in firefighting chemical fires.

When an electric car is on fire, you need PFAS to stop the lithium fire. Water just can’t stop it.

Of course, before batteries we used gasoline.

I imagine their might be more of these cases where modern technology relies on unsustainable practices.

dan1101 ,

Just because PFAS is one way doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that would work.

alvvayson ,

I really hope there are others. I haven’t heard of alternatives yet.

echo64 ,

Regulate it and the ev car manufacturers will spend the money to find one.

dragonflyteaparty ,

So for electrical fires, they use carbon dioxide to smother the fire and sodium bicarbonate to aid in putting it out, along with class c fire extinguishers. Class c are just carbon dioxide.

For chemical fires, carbon dioxide extinguishers are also used. They can use extinguishers with bromochlorodifluoromethane, aka Halon 1211, (which I guess could be a pfas chemical, but I don’t find anything either way).

Haywire ,

Electrical fires don’t generate their own oxygen.

Kiwi ,

Well, normal electric fires don’t but, as @Vodik_VDK already quoted, lithium-ion battery fires do generate their own oxygen

Haywire ,

That was my point to. I guess I wasn’t clear enough.

SaltySalamander ,
@SaltySalamander@kbin.social avatar

Good thing a lithium fire isn't an electrical fire then, isn't it?

Haywire ,

I don’t know that it is a good thing. It just means you can’t use baking soda to out it out.

Haywire ,

Wouldn’t it just be better to cure cancer? Why don’t the scientists just do that?

Vodik_VDK ,

TheConversation.com

Another factor that makes lithium-ion battery fires challenging to handle is oxygen generation. When the metal oxides in a battery’s cathode, or positively charged electrode, are heated, they decompose and release oxygen gas. Fires need oxygen to burn, so a battery that can create oxygen can sustain a fire.

Because of the electrolyte’s nature, a 20% increase in a lithium-ion battery’s temperature causes some unwanted chemical reactions to occur much faster, which releases excessive heat. This excess heat increases the battery temperature, which in turn speeds up the reactions. The increased battery temperature increases the reaction rate, creating a process called thermal runaway. When this happens, the temperature in a battery can rise from 212 F (100 C) to 1,800 F (1000 C) in a second.

Emma_Gold_Man ,

Sand. You use sand.

Knightfox ,

The big one is airplane fires, AFFF is the best foam for putting out a jet fuel fire.

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

Use your brain for once and realise that there weren’t modern electronics in the 1940s, and without these compounds, we couldn’t have useful computer systems now.

MisterNeon , to news in Tech breathes new life into endangered Native American languages
@MisterNeon@lemmy.world avatar

Hell yeah. As a dude into Aztec history it’s always an uphill battle for learning anything Nahuatl. And that’s relatively easy to acquire comprehensive textbooks compared to getting high quality learning materials for Mixtec, Zapotec, Otomi, etc. I hope tech will fill a stopgap in the public’s apathy for indigenous American languages.

Also I still think it’s fucked up Duolingo made a Game of Thrones language course before something like Cherokee.

pory ,
@pory@lemmy.world avatar

It’s almost certainly easier for an app like duolingo to support a conlang like klingon, elvish, etc than it is to research a real language that matters. If they add something like Cherokee it’s imperative that it be near-perfect, since any errors stand a real chance of causing damage to the “endangered” language. See the whole Scots Wikipedia fiasco.

MisterNeon ,
@MisterNeon@lemmy.world avatar

Oh that’s an excellent point and it makes me more depressed.

2nsfw2furious , to technology in Tech breathes new life into endangered Native American languages

I love the idea of capturing the language for the future, but it’s so sad to think of a spoken language dying.

lagomorphlecture ,

Happens all the time. I haven’t clicked on the link yet, saw your comment first, but I’m curious to see what they’re doing here. There is a tribe near me who teach their language in schools and there are signs all over the place up there with the native names for places on them. The vast majority speak English as their primary language but I think it’s cool how they’re keeping Salish alive and using it to connect to their history and culture and as an educational opportunity.

Starkstruck , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

They’re not wrong, but they’re huge hypocrites.

Cheerstothe90s , to world in Japanese hotel owners plan to sue Booking.com over payment failure

They also double dip on the other side, the amount they charge is not always the amount you click on. Several times they add a few bucks and you have to go thru hoops to get it back, most wouldn’t bother. But it would add up over a lot of accounts. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a class action spring up, no way it was just happening to me.

jordanlund , to world in Japanese hotel owners plan to sue Booking.com over payment failure
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Booking.com fucked us on a hotel reservation.

We booked the hotel, got an email saying “Your reservation is confirmed, no need to call the hotel and confirm.”

We showed up at the hotel… Booking.com never confirmed it with them. Hotel was booked, we had no room.

So we sat in the parking lot for an hour talking to customer service. They did get us a room at a more expensive hotel and covered the difference in price, but Jesus, not a good look.

The first hotel told us Booking.com does this all the time.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

In general: Unless you are going through a rewards program, the booking sites are almost never worth using. Or, more pointedly, use them to find the popular hotels in the area. And then go to that hotel chain’s website to book it.

Ignoring that said booking sites will often steal your hotel chain points (and you can get the low tier which gives you early/late checkout REALLY easily), they don’t even have the special deals that the old travel agents had. So you are actually paying more.

Currently booking travel for a Japan trip and have consistently gotten MUCH cheaper prices just by going to the actual chain website.

And speaking of rewards program booking: I have found Hilton hotels are great for letting you just transfer that to your actual account. They seem to HATE all the booking sites and rewards programs. So if you just call them up asking if you can confirm your reservation and “get it in your app” so you can use mobile check in: you pretty much get the nights while still getting to use your credit card points.

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

I had a $1,000 booking.com gift card. :)

dgriffith ,

Booked a place in Queenstown (New Zealand) on a long weekend via booking dot com. Tourist town, you know what it’s going to be like on a long weekend, and I had trouble finding a place a week out, it was a short notice trip.

Same, “no need to confirm!”

Arrive 5pm… nope, no room, fully booked due to the long weekend, nothing from booking dot com as far as the hotel is concerned.

Slog through booking dot com’s horrible script driven online chat, 90 minutes later, “oh noes we can’t find a place in Queenstown, here’s your money back plus a 5 percent off your next booking voucher for your trouble”.

6.30 pm in Queenstown on a long weekend.

After ringing through every accommodation provider I could find on Google I eventually found a place that had a four bed room for $450 for the night, vs the $150 I had originally planned.

And as a final irritation, the money that they naturally zapped out of my card in an instant at the time of booking took three weeks to be returned to my card.

Booking dot com, booking dot never again you fucks.

pai_zosima , to world in Japanese hotel owners plan to sue Booking.com over payment failure

It looks like the case of 123milhas here in Brazil, it started like this until it went bankrupt

iturnedintoanewt , to world in Japanese hotel owners plan to sue Booking.com over payment failure
@iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee avatar

Also in Japan? Boy they sure seem to have trouble paying everyone. There’s no news about their financial status?

Cleverdawny , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

TIL China won’t take significant military action if you launch some rockets at their cities

Xariphon , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

How evil do you have to be to be too evil for China?

Maeve , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

Just because one may be a hypocrite doesn’t make them wrong.

dingleberry , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

A hallow criticism, given that china runs forced labour camps full of Uyghur people (and political prisoners), and is in territory dispute with every neighbor. Not the mentioned, successfully erased the Tibetan people, and is doing the same to Muslims now.

Hyperreality , (edited )

If you think about it, it is quite an accomplishment that they managed to make communist Vietnam dislike them so much, that they'd rather engage in relatively close military ties with the US. Public opinion towards the US is also surprisingly good. I mean, the US committed plenty of atrocities during the war, so you'd expect them to be far more negative than those towards China.

emax_gomax ,

Much worse than just labor. Their literally sterilising the uighurs in their detention centres.

stinkypoopsalot , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'

Rich words from a country putting muslims in reducation camps.

BobVersionFour ,

"Forced labor camp"

FlyingSquid , to news in China says Israel acting 'beyond scope of self-defense'
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

“That’s not how you do a genocide, you idiots. You do it like this.”

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