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this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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I know it looks like this sometimes, but it's really not all that bad.
I'm a chemist, I work mostly in (workplace) safety, hazardous materials and waste, so I sorta-kinda know what I'm talking about. I'm also a random internet stranger, so definitely check my data for yourself.
Compared to 50 or 60 years ago, when we had leased gasoline, asbestos carpets, ashtrays at macdonalds, trash burning in cities, indoor gas/oil lamps, coal heaters and pewter/lead cups (well ok, not those last ones but you get the idea), we're doing SO much better.
If we didn't ban all those things, you literally wouldn't be able to spot the problems coming from BPA. It would be lost in the noise from how bad all those other things are for your health.
That's not to say we should ignore microplastics, or that they're healthy, or that modern people are whiny babies. Absolutely not. BPA is absolutely bad for you, but it's more of a "dog biting your hand" type of bad, as opposed to the "bear mauling your face" level of bad we had in the 60s and 70s. Both can kill you, but you'll barely notice the dog while having your face mauled.
You are ignoring three factors in this asessment:
Increased exposition due to the population having increased drastically as well as the amount of products causing exposition
Increased accumulation of long living and "eternity" chemicals in the biosphere, in the food chain and ultimately in the human bodies.
Higher vulnerability of the biosphere and humans due to stress from climate change, land conversion and competition, diseases, stress from traffic, work etc.
When we look at the measurable effects we still see effects like a loss in fertility over the past 50 years, more problems with endocrine (hormone like) substances, cancer rates etc.
Would it be worse, if we still had leaded gasoline, asbestos and co? Yes it would. But it is not better now to the extent that these are considered less of an issue. The deterioation of the biosphere and humans continues, just at a slower pace. Although in many categories it even accelerated, e.g. loss of insect biomass.
Oh absolutely, in the grand scheme of how fucked humanity is, most chemicals are barely a blip compared to ecosystem collapse and global warming.
They do play a major role in that collapse though. While most single compounds would play a role that seems like a blip, the effects of thousands and thousands of different compunds are cumulating into huge problems. In particular the loss of insects and biodiversity due to herbicides and pesticides, as well as the deterioation of surface and ground water bodies due to toxic chemicals and nutrients like Nitrate and Phosphates reduced the ability of these biotopes to recover and provide ecological "services". It is getting worse because of climate change, but the abundant use of problematic chemical compounds is just as harmful.
It might be much better nowadays, however a few things that have been in the news lately: Cancer in younger people is significantly on the rise, and fertility is going down according to the WHO. And the amount of auto-immune diseases, allergies and asthma are staggering - in my lay opinion. In certain regions in the world, the amount of pesticides and herbicides is high and not every country has strict regulations in their use, and it takes decades to debate whether some of those chemicals should be banned or not. Also, we have so many possible combinations of chemicals in our environment that it is impossible to know if some combinations are more hazardous for our health then expected. It's not only the short term, but also the long term that should be regarded.
I'm not one to easily panic, but i am concerned, also for the generations after mine.
A lot of the issues you mention are, at least in part, caused by not dying. For example, I've got asthma, but without bronchodialators I wouldn't be an asthma patient, I'd just be dead. Another is better diagnosis, melanoma are much easier to identify nowadays, and we actually do diagnosis. If you look at old death reports, they contain a LOT of "sickness of the X" or "natural causes" for people in their early 60s.
That is certainly a valid point