An attempt to ban all “forever chemicals” in Colorado failed. What will it take to finally get rid of PFAS?

New bill takes aim at harmful chemicals found in cookware, outdoor gear and even makeup

Water quality scientist Sarah Erickson collects samples from fish for PFAS testing at Fountain Creek Regional Park in Fountain, Colorado, on Sept. 9, 2020.

 (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

By ELISE SCHMELZER | eschmelzer@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: March 17, 2024

First, Lisa Cutter removed the carpet from her downstairs level.

As she learned more about PFAS — also known as forever chemicals — she replaced her nonstick pans. Then she started buying dental floss that was free of the harmful chemicals that have become pervasive in modern life.

“The problem is that we can’t keep track of all these things as people,” said Cutter, a state senator from Jefferson County. “It’s too hard. They’re in too many things.”

Cutter and two fellow Democratic lawmakers are running a bill in the state legislature to ban the sale of some consumer products containing PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — including cookware, outdoor apparel, ski wax and artificial turf. Senate Bill 81’s first draft had also included a full ban on the chemicals beginning in 2032, but the full ban faced enough opposition that it was written out of the bill at its first committee hearing on Tuesday.

The challenges against the bill illustrate the difficulty of regulating PFAS, which have been used for decades to make commercial products waterproof, nonstick or stain resistant. The harmful chemicals are difficult to regulate because they are everywhere, lawmakers and experts said.

They’re used in thousands of consumer products, from skillets to lipstick to jackets coated in Gore-Tex. They’re in some food packaging as well as in rugs and rock-climbing ropes. And they’re used industrially in firefighting foam, hospital floors and microchips.

“The more we look for PFAS, the more we find,” said Gretchen Salter, strategic advisor with Safer States, an organization that works on policy to remove toxic chemicals. “That makes regulating PFAS really tricky, because it is in so many things.”

The chemicals are linked with a wide range of health problems, such as increased cancer risk and lower fertility. They’re also complicated and expensive to remove from water supplies — costs that water treatment companies say will eventually lead to more expensive rates for residents.

Some companies that use PFAS in their products say they would like to transition to a safer replacement but need more time to make that happen. Others say there is no effective replacement in their processes.

The amended bill passed the Senate’s Business, Labor and Technology Committee on a 5-2 party-line vote last week. Cutter said she still wants a complete ban. But she must walk a line between pushing for change and allowing reasonable accommodations for companies and industries.

“As much as I want PFAS to go away forever and forever, there are going to be some difficult pivots,” she said.

Exposure through air, water and food

PFAS is a shorthand term for thousands of different chemicals used in products and industrial processes around the world.

When products and materials containing PFAS are discarded in a landfill, the chemicals seep into drinking water supplies. When they’re incinerated, the chemicals remain in the air. They enter the body when people breathe air or drink water contaminated with PFAS; people can also be exposed by foods they eat — such as fish that swam in contaminated water or dairy products from livestock exposed to PFAS.

Once consumed, the chemicals stay in the body for months or years. Researchers don’t fully understand all the potential health effects. Still, the chemicals could lead to reduced fertility, developmental delays, increased risk of cancer, suppressed immune systems and hormonal changes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The chemicals were super-useful until we started looking at their toxicity,” Salter said. “But at what cost? That’s what everyone is asking now.”

Colorado lawmakers in 2022 passed a bipartisan bill that banned the sale of carpets, fabric treatments and food packing that contained PFAS, along with other restrictions. The legislation was a significant step forward in the national context, Salter said, because it applied to broad types of products instead of individual items.

But Cutter said she knew it wasn’t enough.

Her bill this year, SB24-081, would establish new deadlines for restrictions or bans:A ban starting July 1 on the installation of artificial turf that contains PFAS.

Starting Jan. 1, 2025, a ban on the sale of cleaning products, cookware, dental floss, menstruation products, ski wax and textiles that contain intentionally added PFAS.
By the same date, sellers must label outdoor apparel made with intentionally added PFAS.

Also at the start of 2025, firefighting foam containing PFAS, already banned in some cases, would no longer be allowed for fuel storage and distribution facilities as well as chemical plants.

Starting in 2028, a ban on the sale of outdoor apparel containing PFAS.

States increasingly are passing laws regulating PFAS, Salter said. The resulting patchwork isn’t consistent, but it sends a message.

“State action really does drive the market,” Salter said. “When enough states have acted, it does move the market.”

Pipes run with water through Plum Creek Water Purification Facility in Castle Rock on Wednesday, August 16, 2023. The facility started testing in 2021 for PFAS on a regular basis. 

(Rebecca Slezak/Special to The Denver Post)

Removing chemicals from water is costly

As Colorado lawmakers look at ways to reduce the sources of PFAS, water utilities are trying to clean up existing contamination.

More than 100 drinking water sources in Colorado already have potentially hazardous levels of PFAS, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment found in testing in 2020. Federal regulators are considering imposing stricter limits on drinking water contamination, and water treatment managers in the state warn that they likely will have to pass on the cost of removing the chemicals to residents.

Federal environmental regulators last year proposed new rules on the two most common PFAS chemicals. The proposed rules limit the amount of allowable PFAS in drinking water to 4 parts per trillion — equivalent to a drop of the chemicals in 125,000 barrels of water.

“If we can mitigate this at the source, that would probably be the best move forward,” said Libby Hauth, the wastewater treatment manager for Pueblo West Metropolitan District, during the bill’s hearing Tuesday.

Englewood-based South Platte Renew treats 20 million gallons of wastewater every day and is considering implementing reverse osmosis treatment to remove PFAS, said Dan DeLaughter, its data and regulatory programs manager. The treatment would cost $350 million to install, not including the cost of electricity to run the process or to dispose of the resulting brine, he said.

The company’s typical annual capital expenditures add up to $15 million, he said.

“There are no easy buttons with PFAS,” DeLaughter said.

The potential for higher water rates is one of the reasons Cutter is pursuing more regulation — especially as water supplies become stretched by drought that’s fueled by climate change.

“I’m not as concerned about corporate profits taking a ding, because should the taxpayers be on the hook for that?” Cutter said.
Overly broad and non-scientific?

Lawmakers heard from representatives of several industries Tuesday, and they asked for more time to sell through their existing stock of products facing bans. Burning or trashing products with PFAS is wasteful and doesn’t prevent the chemicals from entering the environment, they said.

“Products that can’t be sold don’t simply disappear,” said Shannon Fender, senior manager of state government affairs for Denver-based VF Corp., which owns outdoor apparel brands including The North Face, Vans and Smartwool.

Companies that use PFAS to manufacture semiconductors and electric vehicle wiring also asked for leniency because there are no substitutes for the chemicals in their processes.

“There are critical uses for PFAS that are going to be hard to replace with other chemicals — those will take more time,” said Timm Strathmann, a Colorado School of Mines professor who researches PFAS. “Then there are products where we already have viable alternatives.”

The American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical manufacturing industry, went even further and argued that not all PFAS are harmful and should be regulated individually.

“SB-81’s overly broad and non-scientific approach undermines efforts to implement effective regulatory policies for PFAS. it will have far-reaching negative effects on the economy,” Shawn Swearingen, the council’s director of chemical products and technology, told lawmakers.

Cutter says she’s not interested in parsing harmful PFAS from those some say are not harmful. She’s also standing firm on the types of products she wants to be PFAS free but is open to negotiating timelines.

She wants to put companies on notice: Even if their products containing PFAS aren’t included in this round of legislation, they will be at some point.

“I don’t know what that date would be, but there’s got to be some sort of a ban eventually,” Cutter said. “They’re proven to be harmful to human health, there’s no question about that.”

Inside the U$ Movement to Ban Lab-Grown Meat

Across the nation, right-wing legislators have set their sights on the sale of protein cultured from animal cells.

“What’s the issue with ranching? What’s the issue with cattle? They fart and they burp and it causes too much methane.”

Wyatt Myskow

&
Lee Hedgepeth
MOTHER JONES 

Scientists work in a bioprocess lab at Eat Just in Alameda, CA making lab-grown meat. Jeff Chiu / AP

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees—those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in each state.

State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking to ban meat grown from animal cells in labs, citing a “war on our ranching” and a need to protect the agriculture industry from efforts to reduce the consumption of animal protein, thereby reducing the high volume of climate-warming methane emissions the sector emits.

Agriculture accounts for about 11 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to federal data, with livestock such as cattle making up a quarter of those emissions, predominantly from their burps, which release methane—a potent greenhouse gas that’s roughly 80 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Globally, agriculture accounts for about 37 percent of methane emissions.

For years, climate activists have been calling for more scrutiny and regulation of emissions from the agricultural sector and for nations to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy products due to their climate impacts. Last year, over 150 countries pledged to voluntarily cut emissions from food and agriculture at the United Nations’ annual climate summit.

But the industry has avoided increased regulation and pushed back against efforts to decrease the consumption of meat, with help from local and state governments across the U.S.

Bills in Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Tennessee are just the latest legislation passed in statehouses across the U.S. that have targeted cell-cultured meat, which is produced by taking a sample of an animal’s muscle cells and growing them into edible products in a lab. Sixteen states—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming—have passed laws addressing the use of the word “meat” in such products’ packaging, according to the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas, with some prohibiting cell-cultured, plant-based or insect-based food products from being labeled as meat. “Organizations like the FDA and the World Economic Forum, also Bill Gates and others, who have openly declared war on our ranching.”

“Cell-cultured meat products are so new that there’s not really a framework for how state and federal labeling will work together,” said Rusty Rumley, a senior staff attorney with the National Agricultural Law Center, resulting in no standardized requirements for how to label the products, though legislation has been proposed that could change that.

At the federal level, Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) introduced the Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels Act of 2024, which would authorize the United States Department of Agriculture to regulate imitation meat products and restrict their sale if they are not properly labeled, and US Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) introduced a bill to ban schools from serving cell-cultured meat.

But while plant-based meat substitutes are widespread, cell-cultivated meats are not widely available, with none currently being sold in stores. Just last summer, federal agencies gave their first-ever approvals to two companies making cell-cultivated poultry products, which are appearing on restaurant menus. The meat substitutes have garnered the support of some significant investors, including billionaire Bill Gates, who has been the subject of attacks from supporters of some of the state legislation proposed.

“Let me start off by explaining why I drafted this bill,” said Rep. David Marshall, an Arizona Republican who proposed legislation to ban cell-cultured meat from being sold or produced in the state, during a hearing on the bill. “It’s because of organizations like the FDA and the World Economic Forum, also Bill Gates and others, who have openly declared war on our ranching.”“Many of our members call it Franken-meat. They want to know that they’re consuming real food from real farmers.”

In Alabama, an effort to ban lab-grown meat is winding its way through the State House in Montgomery.

There, state senators have already passed a bill that would make it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail and a $500 fine, to sell, manufacture or distribute what the proposed legislation labels “cultivated food products.” An earlier version of the bill called lab-grown protein “meat,” but it was quickly revised by lawmakers. The bill passed out of committee and through the Senate without opposition from any members.

Now, the bill is headed toward a vote in the Alabama House of Representatives, where the body’s health committee recently held a public hearing on the issue. Rep. Danny Crawford, who is carrying the bill in the body, told fellow lawmakers during that hearing that he’s concerned about two issues: health risks and competition for Alabama farmers.

“Lab-grown meat or whatever you want to call it—we’re not sure all of the long-term problems with that,” he said. “And it does compete with our farming industry.”

Crawford said that legislators had heard from NASA, which expressed concern about the bill’s impact on programs to develop alternative proteins for astronauts. An amendment to the bill will address that problem, Crawford said, allowing an exemption for research purposes.

Opponents of the ban have said governments shouldn’t interfere with a nascent industry because of unfounded fears over safety concerns.

Pepin Tuma with the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit think tank that works to advance alternative proteins in the food system, spoke at the hearing in opposition to the ban, though he said he’s a “proud meat eater.” The ban will not advance health or safety goals and would stifle innovation, he argued.

“This bill would treat cultivated meat differently than traditional meat without any actual basis in the science and any actual basis in health and safety regulations,” he said.

Tuma also took issue with Crawford’s claim that the potential health effects of meat alternatives justify regulation, arguing that other food products have serious long-term negative health impacts yet have not faced bans.

“There are plenty of foods that are not healthy for us that aren’t banned,” Tuma said. “The question is: Should government be the one to come in and tell us what we can or can’t eat?”

Justin Kolbeck, CEO of cultivated seafood company Wild Type, which is working to produce seafood alternatives, told lawmakers that a ban like the one proposed in Alabama would halt the company in its tracks.

“I’m not here to convince you all to buy our products,” he told the committee. “We have our work cut out for us as making seafood that is as delicious and affordable as the best wild-caught seafood is difficult. However, I am here to ask the government to not take away our freedom to decide what to feed ourselves and our families.”

Kolbeck also argued that the ban would advantage foreign businesses over American ones. Unlike beef and chicken, a vast majority of U.S. consumed seafood is imported, deepening U.S. reliance on foreign food products, he said

“This ban will create Chinese jobs at the expense of small American businesses like mine,” he said.

Even with the proposed amendment to allow research, Kolbeck said the ban could still have serious implications for NASA.

“The problem with cutting out only an exemption for research is that NASA is not going to be in the business of making food products,” Kolbeck said. “We need American companies to make these kinds of products to feed our astronauts, and this industry will die if states like Alabama make it illegal and a criminal misdemeanor for companies like mine to sell our products.”

Only one member of the public, Stephanie Durnin, co-director of an organization called Health Freedom Alabama, spoke in support of the ban.

According to its website, Health Freedom Alabama was founded to support the passage of a bill to ban so-called “vaccine passports” in the state.

“The meat supply of Alabama is complete, whole, real, true, natural. Our membership is very concerned about lab-grown meat,” she said. “Many of our members call it Franken-meat. They want to know that they’re consuming real food from real farmers.”“What’s the issue with ranching? What’s the issue with cattle? They fart and they burp and it causes too much methane.”

In Arizona, two bills related to the regulation of cell-cultured meat have passed through the State House of Representatives.

HB 2244 has had more bipartisan support, proposing to prohibit substitute meat products—like those grown in a lab or that are made of plants—from being labeled just as meat

Another bill, HB 2121, would go a step further by prohibiting residents from selling or producing cell-cultured meat in the state and allowing people and businesses harmed by its sale to sue for up to $100,000. The bill passed through the Arizona House of Representatives last month on a party-line vote, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition, and now awaits action in the state Senate.

Critics have said the bill would go too far in restricting what people and businesses can buy or sell. “People should have the right, if they choose to, to buy that here in Arizona,” said Rep. Keith Seaman, a Democrat, at the hearing.

Marshall, the legislator who introduced the bill, said he’s a free-market capitalist, but something must be done to protect the agricultural industry from others “seeking to eradicate ranching.”

“This act is necessary to protect this state’s sovereign interests, history, economy, and food heritage,” the legislators wrote at the bottom of the bill, which was co-sponsored by Reps. Selina Bliss, David Cook, John Gillette, and Laurin Hendrix.

Arizona school children for decades were taught the five Cs: Copper, Cotton, Citrus, Climate, and, of course, Cattle. At one point, the state had nearly two million head of cattle. That figure has now dropped by half, but cattle farms and ranches are still found throughout the state and generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Maintaining the viability of ranchers, supporters said, is a key aspect of HB 2121.

“What’s the issue with ranching? What’s the issue with cattle?” Marshall asked during a hearing for the bill. “They fart and they burp and it causes too much methane.”

‘Been there before’: Haitian community leaders urge caution as Florida deploys troops to halt potential migrant surge

By Ray Sanchez, CNN
, Sun March 17, 2024

People flee their homes as police confront armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on February 29. Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters
CNN —

Eliantes Jean Jacques, a Haitian immigrant who has lived in Florida for more than three decades, is long familiar with the political instability, economic turmoil, and natural disasters that have left his homeland teetering on the precipice of collapse.

But Haiti’s recent descent into gang-fueled lawlessness and chaos, Jean Jacques said, seems more ominous. The gangs appear to have more guns than the police, who have all but disappeared. Armed groups control ports and major roads. Inmates have been freed from jails. Gangs have shut down the airport. They run rampant as kidnappings and murders spread rapidly beyond the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Jean Jacques, 66, said in a phone interview that since February his 55-year-old brother and a 36-year-old cousin have been killed by the armed groups. He has not heard from his brother’s children or two cousins in Haiti since last week.

“I’m afraid gangs will kill them. They don’t care,” said Jean Jacques, a cook in North Miami. “I cry and cry. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Inside Haiti: A lucky few escape, while millions face gang rule, hunger and chaos

See what happened after CNN crew arrives in Haiti
05:34 - Source: CNN

In Florida, home to more than 270,000 people born in Haiti, residents with ties to the impoverished nation spend hours checking on friends and loved ones coping with homelessness, dwindling food supplies, violence and uncertainty. Community leaders and some elected officials question the decision of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, to deploy more than 250 law enforcement officers and soldiers to the Florida Keys to “protect our state” and stop a possible surge of Haitian migrants fleeing the violence.

Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition and a native of Haiti, criticized the state’s attempt to respond to the long evolving Haiti crisis with “more violence and militarization.”

“I have family members who have had to leave Haiti and moved to the Dominican Republic,” said Petit, whose coalition is part of a vast network of organizations providing services to the Florida’s Haitian community. “It gets worse day after a day. People are dying. More and more businesses are being burned to the ground. Whatever was left is being completely destroyed.”

No increase in Haitian migrants seen

A migrant surge has yet to materialize, though previous crises have forced Haitians to risk their lives by taking to the sea in hopes of reaching Florida.

“We have always been on high alert knowing that the way Haiti has been that people will take to the sea,” Petit said. “We do know that when a country is closed, the borders are closed, the airports are closed, and people are trying to flee to safety, then they’re going to do whatever they can. To think that people would rather risk dying in high seas than staying home is just a confirmation of how dangerous Haiti is.”

On Wednesday, DeSantis announced that he was sending additional personnel – including more than 130 soldiers – to the Keys, along with more than a dozen aircraft and boats, to stop what his office called the “possibility of invasion” by Haitian migrants. The deployment includes officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, and members of the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard.

The US Coast Guard said Tuesday that it had repatriated 65 migrants to Haiti after they were picked up on a boat near the Bahamas. Since October 1, the Coast Guard said, it has repatriated 131 migrants to Haiti.

The Coast Guard said it has not seen an increase in migrants from Haiti in recent weeks.

RELATED VIDEO  Why Americans should pay attention to what’s happening in Haiti

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We’ve sort of been there before,” said Gepsie Metellus, executive director of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in North Miami, referring to previous crisis-fueled surges in migration from Haiti.

“And we always in the end harness the community resources to be able to to assist with any influx. So, are we expecting more people? Well, you know, people have been trickling in before things erupted to where we are today. Are there more people coming? It’s very likely.”
‘It’s hard to live with so much stress’

A public van passes burning tires left on a road Tuesday during a demonstration in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Images

The situation in Haiti deteriorates by the day. Beleaguered Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his decision to step aside, but it is not clear who will fill the void or when. A transitional government has yet to materialize, and plans for a Kenyan-led stabilization force have stalled.

Residents leave their homes only rarely in Port-au-Prince as daily gun battles between police and gangs break out in the streets. The United Nations is planning an air bridge between Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, in the neighboring Dominican Republic, in an effort to bring vital supplies to the city.

Eighty percent of Port-au-Prince is now controlled by gangs, according to UN estimates. Haiti was thrown into crisis at the start of March, as gangs called for the resignation of Henry and his government.

The country is facing its most crippling security crisis in years, with some 5.5 million people – about half the population – in need of humanitarian assistance.

RELATED ARTICLE  Only Henry can sign off on Haiti’s transitional council, embattled PM’s office tells CNN

Henry came to power unelected in 2021 after the assassination of Haiti’s then-President Jovenel Moïse. Henry’s tenure has been marred by spiraling gang violence, which intensified after he failed to hold elections last month, saying the country’s insecurity would compromise the vote. On Monday, amid enormous pressure to staunch the violence, Henry stepped down.

“Everybody who has friends or family in Haiti, we wake up every day, and we check our phones to make sure whether or not we hear the news of a friend or family member who’s been attacked, whose house has been completely destroyed, who has died,” Petit said. “It’s hard to live with so much stress on a daily basis.”

Haitian community leaders and elected officials in Florida accuse DeSantis of playing politics with the plight of vulnerable refugees.

“Rather than harass refugees who are literally fleeing for their lives, to make it look like he’s doing something with a show of force at the southern end of the state, we can focus state law enforcement resources on working with federal partners to make sure shipments from Florida are throughly screened for illegal arms and munitions,” said Florida state Rep. Dotie Joseph, a Democrat who represents North Miami and was born in Haiti.

“We need to treat those fleeing violence with dignity and compassion, rather than manipulating the situation for political gain.”

CNN’s Caitlin Stephen Hu, David Culver, Evelio Contreras, Tara John, Carlos Suarez and Denise Royal contributed to this report.

Gen Z teens label American Pie ‘deeply problematic’ after watching it for first time
‘It’s bordering on incel attitudes’

 by Charlie Herbert
2024-03-11
in Entertainment


Teenagers have been sharing their thoughts on American Pie after watching the iconic 90s movie for the first time.

The genre of 90s teen comedies is a much-loved one, with films such as American Pie, Clueless and Dude, Where’s My Car? still enjoyed by many to this day, reminding them of simpler high school times before adult life kicked in.

But on repeat viewing – and through a modern-day lens – it’s safe to say they probably wouldn’t get made nowadays.

And today’s teenagers seem to back up this view.

When Vice showed a group of ‘woke teens’ American Pie for the first time, they labelled it “deeply problematic” and said it was “bordering on incel attitudes.”

The 1999 teen comedy is perhaps the height of raunchy coming-of-age (pardon the pun) American movies. For those of you who have never seen it, it tells the story of five high school seniors who make a pact to lose their virginity by graduation.

What follows is a predictably awkward and disastrous series of encounters and one particularly famous encounter with a pie.

The film was a huge hit and made $235m at the box office off a budget of just $11m.


But when shown to a group of 16 to 19-year-olds today, the reaction couldn’t have been much different


One reviewer, 16-year-old Taylor, said the movie was “completely ridiculous”, and that she believes “men treat women with a lot more respect and equality now”.

Another, 17-year-old Hannah, said the scene where the male characters film a foreign exchange student getting changed in her room is “deeply problematic.” She criticised the film for not “even questioning the morality of doing this,” adding that there is “no way a teen film made now would allow it.”

Meanwhile, Olivia, 18, said that the way the male characters “think they deserve sex” was “bordering on incel attitudes.”

She said a teenage boy watching the film would “basically feel entitled to behave however you wanted to towards women.”

It’s not just these teens who had issues with the movie.

Author and columnist Sophia Benoit said the scene involving the student being filmed without their knowledge was “genuinely gross to watch.”

And even one of the stars of the film Shannon Elizabeth admitted the film would “be a problem” if it was made today.

Speaking on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum earlier this year, she said: “If this had come out after the #MeToo movement, there would definitely be a problem.”

Referencing the scene where she is being streamed while undressing, she added: “I think that it would have gone down differently.”

MARX AND MUSK: STARSHIP FREE ENTERPRISE

Workers take a break while removing rocks and debris from the surrounding area as SpaceX's Starship spacecraft atop a Super Heavy rocket is prepared for a third launch on an uncrewed test flight from the company's Boca Chica launchpad near Brownsville, Texas, March 13, 2024. (Cheney Orr/Reuters)

By ANDREW STUTTAFORD
NATIONAL REVIEW

March 17, 2024


As a quick glance at The Communist Manifesto will (not unsurprisingly) reveal, Karl Marx was not exactly an admirer of (most) of the personal qualities of those he referred to as the bourgeoisie (“the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor”). After tearing down the old feudal order, for which Marx shed no tears, the bourgeoisie had


left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

And so on and so on.

But he could not help but be impressed by what the wicked bourgeoisie had achieved:


It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

I suspect that he would have been similarly impressed by the latest launch of a SpaceX Starship.

Scientific American:


Neither the Starship vehicle nor its Super Heavy booster survived all the way through to their intended splashdown, but SpaceX officials said the test flight achieved several of its key goals during the flight . . .

“This flight pretty much just started, but we’re farther than we’ve ever been before,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said just after liftoff in a livestream. “We’ve got a starship, not just in space, but on its coast phase into space.”

[Starship’s latest] launch, designated Integrated Flight Test-3 (IFT-3), was the third test mission for the fully stacked Starship. The first and second Starship launches both ended explosively last year, with the vehicles detonating before the completion of each flight’s mission objectives. However, data collected during those first flights helped SpaceX engineers get Starship ready for success down the road . . .

Starship’s upper stage continued flying after separation, but didn’t attempt to go into a full orbit. Instead, the spacecraft entered a suborbital coast phase.

Marx would probably have found Musk’s Martian ambitions bewilderingly romantic, but he would not have been surprised to see the expansion of commerce into space, once technology permitted.

The Communist Manifesto:


The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The idea that “the bourgeoisie” would have stopped at the surface of the globe would have struck him as ridiculous.

Ramin Skibba is an astrophysicist turned writer and something (I would guess) of a Starship skeptic.

Here he tweets ahead of the launch:


So the FAA now gave SpaceX approval to test launch Starship for the 3rd time. The pressure’s on! I suppose if the rocket lasts more than 10 minutes and doesn’t destroy the pad or the neighboring wildlife refuge, that’ll be considered a success.

This time the flight lasted nearly 50 minutes.

Oh well.

Back in 2021, Skibba wrote an article for Aeon in which he wrote that:


[T]he Moon is only a foothold, a first step on the edge of a vast landscape. Humanity stands on the brink of a new era of exploration, in which brief, intermittent and tentative space jaunts could be replaced by a multitude of cosmic activities conducted by many competing interests. Within 20 or 30 years, crewed missions could make giant leaps toward Mars – 500 times further away than the Moon – to map out the terrain and even establish colonies. Asteroids and other distant destinations will be next. With this new age dawning, we face a collective responsibility to consider the moral challenges before us . . .

Well (and Skibba talks about this at some length) there is certainly a discussion to be had at about the clutter humanity has left in orbit, and about what we see in the night sky in future. There is also a case to be made that the Moon (as a satellite of the Earth) ought to be subject to a more extensive terrestrial treaty than it now is, although no such treaty should be allowed to limit either commercial development or the ability to use the Moon as a jumping-off point for journeys deeper into space. It is one thing to preserve wilderness on Earth, but different considerations should apply when it comes to a place some 240,000 miles away

Skibba maintains that “no one wants the next few decades of space activities to result in a Moon pockmarked with excavations, or Mars littered with abandoned dwellings and ice miners.” Really? Despite the distinctly bleak way in which Skibba paints that picture, evidence of our species’ progress deeper into space is something to celebrate, not mourn. And last time I checked, the universe is not short of barren rocks. The position Skibba takes is yet another reminder that the ideology of “sustainability” owes more to an aversion to technological progress than to anything else.

Moreover, it’s hard to see — at least as a general principle — why the writ of some sort of terrestrial authority should extend beyond the Moon and Earth’s immediate vicinity. That said, it could clearly be useful to have agreements struck between voluntarily contracting nations to provide a mechanism to avoid quarrels about who, say, can mine a certain asteroid causing trouble back on Earth.

And then (of course!) there are questions about how to deal with any contact with alien life. I’ve seen enough movies to realize that bringing any of it (or anything potentially contaminated by it) can give rise to . . . difficulties. While I doubt that we will encounter any little green men any time soon, even deciding how to deal with a planet inhabited by some sort of alien lichen poses issues that will require some thought.

Skibba, however, wants far more constraints:


A new regime that preserves the beauty of space for everyone will need to prioritise scientific research and public access to its benefits. International agreements could demarcate limited space zones for particular kinds of commercial activity. Sustainable, egalitarian operations in space would focus on social equity, environmental conservation, workers’ rights and balanced economic benefits. Many more people would have access to the benefits of space, not dependent on the beneficence of a few billionaires; decisions would be similarly democratic and consultative.

Taking that sort of approach would mean that humanity’s advance into space will not get very far.




ANDREW STUTTAFORD is the editor of National Review's Capital Matters.

https://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf

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Academia.edu

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