> Pounds weight is a terrible way to measure toxins.
But it is one thing: undeniably objective. The alternative would include a "rating" system which the industry can use to say "yeah we emit x hundred tons per year of chemical y but it is next to harmless, better go after company z and their waste"... leading to inevitable chains of lawsuits dragged over years.
For what its worth for many industrial processes there exist technical means of greatly reducing emissions (e.g. for smoke stacks: gas washers, desulfurization technologies, fine-dust retainers), but as long as environmental costs don't get billed to companies or required by the state, companies have no incentive to reduce emissions, as every dollar spent is a dollar less profit.
Maybe it's time to introduce legislations that allow the government to hold the shareholders accountable e.g. for Superfund sites, that would at least provide a decent incentive for companies to clean up or to provide enough cash to compensate for environmental damages after closure - right now companies can simply close/be liquidated and the taxpayers have to foot the cleanup bill.
Millions of tonnes of any waste released into the environment, no matter how "harmless", are too much. Humanity needs to tackle its waste problem, and that soon, or we are going to drown our kids in trash. Or, given that nitrates (which aren't that toxic per se) are the 3rd position in weight are perfect food for algae, we're drowning them in algae and without fish.
Not to mention that much of the stuff that gets released in huge quantities can actually be used as a natural resource. Instead of capturing and using it we're throwing all the stuff away.
Therefore, any way of looking at the environmental issues is good - anything that can be tackled should be tackled.
This is a terrible idea. People have repeatedly shown they are willing to give up very little to address environmental problems. That makes it even more important that when we use limited social capital to address a problem, it's the most important problem that can be addressed.
> when we use limited social capital to address a problem
Let an actual free and fair market solve it. When externalities have to be included in pricings (be it insurance premiums for superfund cleanup, earmarked money in trusts for cleanup, or simply preventing emissions in the first place) instead of having them shouldered by society, the market will by itself weed out companies doing excessive environmental damage.
That seems like a convoluted definition of "free market". For that to work there needs to be some agreed upon definition of what effects are considered "externalities" and there also needs to be an enforcement mechanism. There's no way that's going to be handled other than central planning.
I see the logic in what you are saying but I wonder if it would just lead to a situation where every problem just becomes, "not severe enough to warrant attention". I've sort of seen this with opposition to environmental regulations being opposed on the grounds that it "costs too much money".
But if you are implying that productivity is analoguous to toxicity, then in this case no statement was made on toxicity. It was left out, so it's like just counting lines of code without associating it with productivity. So maybe it's less useful on the surface, but it's also more accurate raw data that others could remix into their own solutions and conclusions.
But it is one thing: undeniably objective. The alternative would include a "rating" system which the industry can use to say "yeah we emit x hundred tons per year of chemical y but it is next to harmless, better go after company z and their waste"... leading to inevitable chains of lawsuits dragged over years.
For what its worth for many industrial processes there exist technical means of greatly reducing emissions (e.g. for smoke stacks: gas washers, desulfurization technologies, fine-dust retainers), but as long as environmental costs don't get billed to companies or required by the state, companies have no incentive to reduce emissions, as every dollar spent is a dollar less profit.
Maybe it's time to introduce legislations that allow the government to hold the shareholders accountable e.g. for Superfund sites, that would at least provide a decent incentive for companies to clean up or to provide enough cash to compensate for environmental damages after closure - right now companies can simply close/be liquidated and the taxpayers have to foot the cleanup bill.