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Dark Waters.

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  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    Dark Waters review: Mark Ruffalo in horrifying account of corporate skulduggery
    Mark Ruffalo uses his intelligence, understated charm, and ability to project decency and integrity as lawyer Robert Bilott who takes on one of the world’s largest chemical companies, DuPont



    He stars as Robert Bilott, a lawyer who spends the best part of two decades working on an environmental lawsuit against one of the world’s largest chemical companies, DuPont, after he discovers it has been dumping toxic waste into the water, air and land of his home town, where one of its major factories is based.


    It’s a by-product of Teflon, used not just in nonstick pans but in cars, carpets, make-up and lots of other everyday household products.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/film/dark-waters-review-mark-ruffalo-21592077
  • pompeynicpompeynic Member Posts: 2,834
    Saw this film recently, how many companies have built massive profits and empires, whilst covering up how they know their products and practices are unbelievably harmful to people and the environment.
    The fines were minuscule in comparison to the profits they made. Fines and prison sentences have to be huge so as to make companies and the people that run them think twice before continuing when they know the damage they are causing.
  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    pompeynic said:

    Saw this film recently, how many companies have built massive profits and empires, whilst covering up how they know their products and practices are unbelievably harmful to people and the environment.
    The fines were minuscule in comparison to the profits they made. Fines and prison sentences have to be huge so as to make companies and the people that run them think twice before continuing when they know the damage they are causing.

    The punishment rarely seems to fit the crime.
  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    What ‘Dark Waters’ Reveals About Corporate Science
    A new film shows how dodgy research puts communities at risk.





    A new movie, “Dark Waters,” shines a bright light on a group of dangerous chemicals that are likely in your bloodstream right now. It tells the true story of a polluter that manipulated research and kept evidence hidden from the public – and shows just how crucial it is that scientific evidence be produced by researchers free of conflicts of interest.

    The chemicals that drive the film’s drama, known as PFAS, are remarkably effective at repelling water and oil. They’re used to make familiar products such as Teflon, Scotchgard and Gore-Tex, and are found in the coating of pizza boxes and microwave-popcorn bags. Unfortunately, in recent years, they’ve also gained attention for their links to cancer, liver and thyroid disease, increased cholesterol, and depressed fertility. They’ve been found in the blood of almost every American ever tested, and they contaminate the water in communities across the U.S.


    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/what-dark-waters-reveals-about-pfas-and-corporate-science
  • HENDRIK62HENDRIK62 Member Posts: 3,202
    @HAYSIE Great movie, watched it tonight
    Just goes to show, totally shocked I never knew any of this
  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    HENDRIK62 said:

    @HAYSIE Great movie, watched it tonight
    Just goes to show, totally shocked I never knew any of this

    Everybody knows about Teflon, but very few about this.
  • HENDRIK62HENDRIK62 Member Posts: 3,202
    the bit about Dupont giving their workers cigarettes laced with C8 to see if it was poison.....among all the other shady things they did
  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    edited December 2020
    HENDRIK62 said:

    the bit about Dupont giving their workers cigarettes laced with C8 to see if it was poison.....among all the other shady things they did

    Yes shocking.

    Although probably not quite as bad as successive governments telling us that smoking cigarettes didnt damage our health, over many years, in this country.

    The stat at the very end of the film got me.

    PFOA is believed to be in the blood of every living creature on the plant.

    Including 99% of humans.
  • HAYSIEHAYSIE Member Posts: 35,847
    Dark Waters has already situated itself as one of the scariest movies of 2019. Not because there are ghosts or demons or paranormal activity involved. No — the only "monster" in the movie is something we can't see or touch, though we could be coming into contact with it every day: PFOA.
    The film, based on the 2016 New York Times feature by Nathanial Rich, follows Mark Ruffalo as he plays Rob Billott, the lawyer behind the decades-long pollution case involving DuPont, an American chemical company. As the movie describes, DuPont knowingly has been dumping a damaging compound known as PFOA, short for perfluorooctanoic acid, into our environment since 1951.





    While the movie brings to light all of the harm done by DuPont (and other companies like it that produce PFOA) we've only just scratched the surface of the acid's long-term effects on our bodies and our ecosystem.



    Ok, so what exactly is PFOA?
    According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, PFOA — also known as C8 by DuPont — is a man-made chemical used in the production of stain-resistant carpets and fabrics, and nonstick cookware.
    While PFOA has been phased out by its primary manufacturer, 3M, it doesn't break down naturally. That means in the U.S., the chemical is still around, in the soil, in groundwater, and in the air. It can also enter the U.S. via imported goods from countries that also use PFOA, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

    Where can PFOA be found?
    Well... it's kind of everywhere — and it's extremely likely that it's already in your blood, your family's blood, and will be in your children's blood.
    The most common form of exposure to PFOA is through contaminated drinking water, but you can also be exposed by using products that contain PFOA.
    "Where scientists have tested for the presence of PFOA in the world, they have found it," the New York Times article that inspired Dark Waters says. "PFOA is in the blood or vital organs of Atlantic salmon, swordfish, striped mullet, gray seals, common cormorants, Alaskan polar bears, brown pelicans, sea turtles, sea eagles, Midwestern bald eagles, California sea lions and Laysan albatrosses on Sand Island, a wildlife refuge on Midway Atoll, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, about halfway between North America and Asia."

    https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/11/8858023/what-is-pfoa-teflon-c8-chemical-health-effects-dark-waters
  • RinkhalsRinkhals Member Posts: 212
    I'll have to watch this.

    As some of you may know I love astrophyics, cosmology and quantum mechanics. I was only thinking the other day how, on a cosmological scale, utterly insignificant we are. It also struck me how paradoxically our tiny planet is at the same time the most significant little piece of rock in the universe. To date science has failed to detect any signs of intelligent life anywhere in the universe and yet we seem **** bent on destroying this little blue oasis.

    Bit of an oxymoron then to say we are the most intelligent species on the planet don't you think?
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