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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Tourists beware – green zealots in the Hawaii legislature have just passed a bill which bans safe, effective sunscreen products. From January 2021, sunscreen products which contain potent ultraviolet blockers oxybenzone and octinoxate will be illegal, if Governor David Ige signs this bill into law.
Most sunscreens may soon be banned in Hawaii, because coral reefs are dying
USA TODAY NETWORK
Ashley May, USA TODAY Published 3:37 p.m. ET May 2, 2018
…
The bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Mike Gabbard, would prohibit the sale and distribution of sunscreen with those chemicals on the island “without prescription from a licensed healthcare provider.”
“Amazingly, this is a first-in-the-world law,” Gabbard, who introduced the bill, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “When you think about it, our island paradise, surrounded by coral reefs, is the perfect place to set the gold standard for the world to follow. This will make a huge difference in protecting our coral reefs, marine life, and human health.”
The bill would go into effect January 1, 2021 if signed by Democratic Gov. David Ige.
Critics of the bill question studies linking the chemicals to coral reef decay and say banning sunscreen could discourage people from wearing skin protection altogether, increasing skin cancer cases. Alexandra Kowcz, chief scientist with the Personal Care Products Council, said the bill rests on a “limited body of scientific research.” Henry Lim, immediate past-president of the American Academy of Dermatology Association, told USA TODAY a sunscreen ban could “create significant confusion” about why wearing sunscreen is important. Plus, there aren’t many effective sunscreen options on the market without these chemicals, he said.
…
The full text of the bill is available here.
According to the Wikipedia entry on octinoxate, both chemicals are commonly mixed with Titanium Oxide to produce an effective sunscreen.
… Often used as an active ingredient in sunscreens combined with oxybenzone and titanium oxide for its use in protection against UV-B rays. …
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octyl_methoxycinnamate
This bill in my opinion reeks of Silent Spring style activism. Thanks to questionable research presented in the book “Silent Spring”, and an over enthusiastic response from lawmakers, poor people across the world have been deprived of a safe, effective defence against mosquito borne diseases.
Since DDT was restricted worldwide, millions of people have died of Malaria who would otherwise have had an opportunity to live a healthy life.
The new Hawaiian Sunscreen law in my opinion was passed by green zealots exhibiting a comparable disregard for human health. Thanks to the sunscreen bill, tourists visiting Hawaii who conscientiously heed health warnings about skin cancer may now be at greater risk.
There may be acceptable substitutes for the restricted chemicals – but if the substitutes are better at protecting skin than the chemicals named in this new law, why haven’t they already supplanted the now restricted chemicals? How many people will now risk their health by choosing not to apply sunscreen, or be forced to choose an inferior product? How long will it be until those same green legislators attack the use of substitutes for the banned chemicals?
In 2012, 55,000 people died of skin cancer. While many skin cancers are successfully treated, some skin cancers are insidious and aggressive. Sometimes people don’t realise they are ill until it is too late.
Any rise in this cancer death toll due to misguided Hawaiian efforts to prioritise coral health ahead of human health would be an utter tragedy.
Let us hope Governor Ige has the courage and good sense not to sign this bill into law.
Correction (EW): The 55,000 death toll in 2012 is worldwide, not USA only.
Does anyone know if there is ANY valid, serious science – think of peer reviewed, published papers – behind the claim that these chemicals can, or will, ever actually cause ANY harm to existing coral? If so, precisely how much harm and at what cost in human damage (sunburn, increased skin cancers, etc)?
These days scientists rarely do serious science so I would say it would be very unlikely. A few lab studies that may of may not have any relevance in the real world is the best you could find. Only agronomists tned to do rigorous statistically valid science nowadays simply because it is way too expensive to take the required numbers of random replicated samples from a uncontrolled environment.
The short answer is to run field data past a standard sample size estimator and see how many samples are required to make 95% or 99% estimates of the standard deviation.
https://surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
As a very pale person, I sincerely hope that this does not lead to sunscreens that are less effective and/or more expensive. That is usually what happens with these kinds of bans.
I was under the impression that chemical sunscreens like oxybenzone were absorbed into the skin. I would be interested to know how many studies have coated subjects with sunscreen, tossed them in a pool, and measured the actual “emission” of sunscreen chemicals. This stuff is supposed to be water resistant.
Just wait. Titanium and zinc oxides are next. The nanoparticles!!!
I think NOAH (albinism.org) should react on this. White skins matter.
And yes, red-haired albinism is the most prone to UV damage. Xeroderma pigmentosum is from a different planet.
I don’t know about the ocean but the stuff floats around on the surface of our pool and has to cleaned off with some seriously strong cleansers.
Interesting. If it (i.e. the sunscreen) floats and the targeted chemicals don’t dissolve into the water then it shouldn’t affect the coral. If it does dissolve out then it might. I thought there was some kind of study done in Australia a couple of years ago but I can’t find it.
Just do what most people flying into Hawaii do. Buy your sunscreen where you live, before you go there. This is just politician grandstanding/phony virtue-signalling to get votes. They must have run out of places to put new traffic lights.
But but but! The corals are killed by man made global warming???
Apparently, that research was mistaken. It’s really evil sunscreen.
Coral is going to be “bleached” anyway. Might as well flood the water with coral poison.
dunno but i wonder what ongoing lava flows into oceans round hawaii does to corals?
lets send some of the “researchers” out now seeing as theres a good chance to experience real life events as i write:-)
and zinc creams ugly tacky and works and doesnt wash off in the sea
Good point! I’m sure the brilliant local politicians are already working on a law banning any new volcanic eruptions.
If it saves just one polyp, it’s worth it.
Yeah, where are the “secret science” studies, tests and papers’ data?
How many part per million molecules of water is required to cause coral problems?
We need some clinical trials involving people with sunsceen gobbed on and swimming around a reef and a the same number of “unscreened” people swimming around the “control” reef. Then, with the grant money flowing in conduct more tests to determine if there’s a safe limit on number of people swimming about the reef. That way we could simply limit the number of people near the reef or even at Waikiki Beach, huh? Better yet, limit the number of tourists.
Gums ponders…
Here’s a study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00244-015-0227-7
Here’s some of the information used in Hawaii to support the ban: http://www.haereticus-lab.org/oxybenzone-2/ There are several references of other scientific studies included.
However, now that the science has been politicized, sorting out all the causes of coral mortality is problematic.
Thanks for the data. I’ve been curious about the issue since the two minute sniff test rules out “global warming”. I’m fascinated by the pristine reefs in Cuba. Something is damaging the reefs.
As for me, I usually avoid sunscreen. Loading up my body’s biggest organ with a cocktail of chemicals seem like a dubious idea. I try to get modest doses of sun but use clothing as protection against too much. Only when over-esposure is likely do I reach for the sunscreen.
It’s racist. They hate gingers.
Known in Hawaii as haoles, and, yes, the locals do hate them. Except that their economy relies upon those from the contiguous states. Japanese tourists used to be big, too, but not so much since the Nikkei 225 crash after October 1989:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EN225?p=^N225
Another anagram for haoles is A Holes
As a once and future kamaaina, I resemble that remark!
I grew up as a haole on a sugar plantation on a remote part of the Big Island. Holy crap, people have NO IDEA how violently racist locals can be. I thought it was completely normal to be physically and verbally attacked every day. When I moved to California as a teen it was a shock to discover that that was not normal. Now when I hear people talk about non-existent racism and micro-aggressions, I just want to slap them. Hard.
And yet, despite being a childhood victim of vicious, violent racism, you seem to have developed a sense of humor and enjoy a lack of hatred.
Good on ya, mayt!
‘Holy crap, people have NO IDEA how violently racist locals can be. ‘
Use the definition of racism from the newly late African-American pseudo scientist Francis Welsing and you see how, with a short strike of a pen, your experience of persecution stops being racism. I congratulate on, you Americans, the amount of double standard you have surrounding the concept of racism. It’s not only like rednecks and redheads who face persecution, it’s a freaking fight on whose experience matters and when.
Max Photon
It seems that as a fat, bald, ageing, white, heterosexual, middle class male, any objection of mine to overt racism and/or bigotry falls on deaf ears. The fact I’m a Kilt wearing (not every day) Jock as well just makes casual derogatory remarks all the more acceptable to people.
My only redeeming feature, it seems, is that I’m not ginger, other than that, it’s a full house.
Max, I made the mistake of walking into a “locals” supermarket on Kauai during one trip. I was lucky to get my wife and I out of there alive. Yea, the natives don’t appreciate anyone but their own kind on the islands … but leave your $$ !!!
This will soon be reversed when the tourist dollar is spent elsewhere.
May 20th, 2018.
The date *IS* fast approaching.
http://www.kick-a-ginger-day.com/
Not funny, dude.
Well, gingers are not known for having a pacifist approach, and a spot of percussive therapy might do the Greens a power of good.
What are we protecting, humans or fish or coral? sounds like a bunch of carp to me
Sunscreen does hurt corals, but not as much as the many mass and minor extinction events which they’ve survived during the past 500 million years.
The Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was about six degrees C hotter than now. for instance, and it was paradise for reef-building corals.
What’s your research? Blanket mouth diarrhea discharges not allowed here.
when someone answers with a comment like that I suggest that they do the research. You obviously have a computer.
Bigfoot,
It would take you just seconds to find out all you need to know about the PETM. I’ve posted links to that effect elsewhere.
But since you’re either lazy or disabled, please note that the relevant citation occurs in the very first paragraph of the Wiki entry on the PETM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
As for the effects of some sunscreens on corals, links abound in this comment thread, some more persuasive than others.
Actually, first sentence.
And the Wiki article says eight degrees C, rather than the six I stated.
It does however lack a citation. But looking at the graph presented next to the sentence confirms that amount of heat.
Hawaii should ban tourism.
Tourism is the number one reason for energy use (got to fly – too far to walk – from the cold place to the warm place, think of all those hotels that were/are constructed, cruise ships, and so on) which translate into the number one use of primordial carbon.
Banning tourism would also stop the use of the pesky sunscreen.
Oh for those IPCC types. One of the largest IPCC calculate ‘loss’ for global warming is less tourism. The IPCC though is that is the cold places get warm, then they won’t want to go to the warm places.
“too far to walk”
What about a bicycle?
There it is … save the planet, kill the people.
+1
If the lawmakers are knowingly causing death through skin cancer it should be possible to hold them to account for it. In my view such actions are skirting with murder. The full implications should be considered before any laws are changed or implemented.
They knew this back in the 1970s !!!
Haha, another rube falls for the myth about DDT. Never banned for use on insect disease vectors anyplace in the world where it was needed and certainly not even in the USA. The real reason DDT use declined was the universal evolution of DDT resistance in populations with long term exposure to DDT. This myth is easily debunked and DDT continues to be used all over the world if it works, which is rare.
It’s hard to understand how so many people who realize that antibiotic resistance has evolved in numerous bacteria (like MRSA) but fail to understand the same process universally occurs in insect disease vectors.
Where can I buy some DDT, BioBob? I’m serious, I want to buy some. I promise that I’ll use it responsibly. (I live in North Carolina.)
+97.
I’ve got a real use for DDT if it were available, a moderately nasty mosquito borne disease called Ross River Fever is endemic in my area. I’d happily spray a few strategic areas around my house to reduce the risk.
Apply for a permit from the EPA like normal Public Health Services do. You won’t have much luck since DDT, like other regulated chemicals is available by permit only. Permit have been repeatedly given to local PHS to control Bubonic Plague outbreaks. If you were going to produce DDT for export, you would also get a permit according to the original withdrawal of permits for use on crops.
Read it and weep: https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/ddt-ban-takes-effect.html
” Public health, quarantine, and a few minor crop uses were excepted, as well as export of the material”
Public health, quarantine = insect vector control
Apply for a permit, like everybody else does. Numerous PHS dept have gotten them to control plague in western US
Eric, agree.
Ross River doesn’t kill you it just makes you feel like you’ve got rigor-mortis. It knocked me out of action for 6 weeks, then 4 months to recover. Badly affected my business. I got it on a mountain top in thick rainforest. I drove there so I know that’s where I got bitten by multiple mozzies about three days earlier. It’s far more widely distributed in Australia than people realise so not much chance of eliminating it.
According ncagr, it is banned. So BioBob just trolls. This is a typical left wing fake news. DDT was banned in 1972, and that cost lives. Of course, continuing unlimited use would also have been bad.
Plus Nixon was a moron.
http://www.ncagr.gov/oep/oneMedicine/documents/Shea_Ecological_Risks_of_Pesticides_final.pdf
Thanks, Hugs. That’s what I figured, but I wish I’d been wrong. I really would like to buy some DDT.
https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/ddt-brief-history-and-status
“(T)he Stockholm Convention on POPs (persistent organic pollutants),,,includes a limited exemption for the use of DDT to control mosquitoes that transmit the microbe that causes malaria – a disease that still kills millions of people worldwide.”
“In September 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its support for the indoor use of DDT in African countries where malaria remains a major health problem, citing that benefits of the pesticide outweigh the health and environmental risks. The WHO position is consistent with the Stockholm Convention on POPs, which bans DDT for all uses except for malaria control.”
However, it’s still banned for use against the vectors of typhus, yellow fever and other diseases spread by arthropods. And its general use against malaria mosquitoes is strictly curtailed.
@ur momisugly Felix, false. A permit is issued for any vector control program merely by stating you are proceeding with the use. Ethiopia now manufactures it’s own DDT by ‘permit’ and uses it on Malaria vector. Nonsignatories to the stockholm convention like the USA do as they please.
But the exemption for malaria already exists, so Ethiopia could use foreign DDT if it wanted to do so.
BioBob – you are wrong. DDT was effectively banned in 1972 and re-introduced in 2002. Malaria deaths doubled due to the ban. Your blatant BS is shameful.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/16/draft-un-climate-report-poor-people-will-be-hit-worst/comment-page-1/#comment-2746222
Below is a graph that quantifies the number of DEATHS EACH YEAR FROM MALARIA – between one and two million.
Note how malaria deaths increased steadily since 1980 (or earlier), after the banning of DDT in 1972, and how malaria deaths declined after DDT was re-introduced.
See the red area of the graph – that is CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OF AGE – FOUR AND UNDER – JUST BABIES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! Yes I am upset. This holocaust was preventable, and easily so.
I want to personally recognize the radical environmental movement for the key role it played in the banning of DDT and the resulting deaths of millions of people from malaria, especially children under five years of age. After this holocaust became fully apparent, many enviros continued to oppose DDT, based on flimsy evidence and unsupported allegations.
DDT was only re-introduced circa year 2002. Malaria deaths declined after that. The battle against malaria continues.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1566107003466856&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
More evidence is here of the DDT ban:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/07/remember-when-global-warming-was-going-to-increase-malaria-never-mind/comment-page-1/#comment-2737825
Malaria and the DDT Story
The Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 2000
Thanks Allan. Look at the scale, it is not half a million climate refugees, but half a million dead babies a year. The drop after 2002 is considerable.
Yes Hugs – 30+ years of many more dead babies from malaria due to the criminal banning of DDT – almost a million dead babies per year at the peak circa 2005. Too painful to contemplate.
Are there any greater crimes against humanity?
Troll
BioBob, you are so wrong. Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the EPA pointedly banned DDT unilaterally after two weeks of hearings had cleared DDT—he attended none of the hearings. He refused to explain his reasoning, but he purposely gave the environmentalists a huge win and a boost in power. Then, the rest of the world followed suit.
Years later, Ruckelshaus would explain his decision. He freely acknowledged that the science did not support the ban, as was demonstrated at the hearings held prior to the ban decision.
He went on to explain that the motivation for the ban was, in fact, political.
Ultimately, this was a precedent setting decision, which set EPA on a new path. From that point forward, regulatory decisions could be made on a scientific basis or a political basis.
BioBob – That isn’t quite my understanding. Token banning of DDT in the US other 1st world countries (not until 1988 in Australia if memory serves) was made easier by the sporadic (not universal) rise of DDT resistance (due mostly to panacea-like over use: I remember how my grandad used to dump it on every pest) and the usual crony capitalism interaction of government and industry (DDT was too cheap and lots of less effective but more expensive chemical controls were available but not moving on the market). DDT, though, really is too broad spectrum and provokes cross-resistance in other pesticides (one reason for the resurgence of bedbugs). It is true, though, that DDT has always been ‘available’ in areas where it was needed – but that doesn’t mean it was used effectively even when the Chinese and Indians made it available in bulk and cheap. Spraying a marsh with DDT in hopes of reducing malaria vectors will lead to resistance in Anopheles as well as any other arthropods that are so lucky. Spraying the walls and ceilings of homes just lead to Anopheles that landed near the floor or avoided a house altogether (not a bad outcome, but not enough to stop malaria). Too true, though, that too many people have drunk the DDT koolaid.
“Spraying the walls and ceilings of homes just lead to Anopheles that landed near the floor or avoided a house altogether ”
That is actually quite good enough since malaria infection happens almost exclusively indoor and at night.
tty – you are correct to a degree: Anopheles avoiding houses sprayed with DDT is considered helpful in malaria control when most infections occur indoors at night, but this isn’t all Anopheles (some, for example, are crepuscular biters) and where DDT has been used longterm for control of indoor Anopheles, e.g. India, most infections are now occurring outdoors (night workers, outdoor sleeping in hot weather, partying, etc) especially in urban areas. This is an interesting overview paper of the Indian experience with DDT for vector control (they also use DDT for leishmaniasis, plague, etc.):
https://web.archive.org/web/20050518063647/http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec102003/1532.pdf
Another sophist faker making nonsense comments:
biobob; Another sophist faker making nonsense fake internet rumors:
“William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued an order finally cancelling nearly all remaining Federal registrations of DDT products” – your quote ATheoK and ‘nearly all’ does not mean all.
You do know that this 1972 ban was just the USA – where malaria had been controlled long ago. True other countries followed over the next several decades, but most kept an exception for a resurgence of malaria and most were 1st world countries that had no malaria problem at the time of banning – and still don’t, ‘airport malaria’ outbreaks excepted. My understanding was that DDT was never used extensively in SubSaharan Africa – totally impractical in the jungle and with the general lack of public health infrastructure – so DDT never had much effect on malaria there. Places like India (they make their own) have continuously and extensively used DDT since after WWII and never banned it, but are still having problems with malaria resurgence for many reasons including that DDT is not very effective in many situations. Try reading the Wiki entry for DDT – it is surprisingly informative and balanced, or at least it was this morning. DDT is no more a magic solution for malaria than CO2 is the magic control knob of climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Wiki is about as unreliable a source as one can find.
You make a false claim because of a word in the description; while ignoring the title and actual impact.
“DDT Ban Takes Effect”.
That almost, is an admission that the EPA did not, control the entire Federal Government.
Still, the DDT ban was pursued throughout all Federal Agencies, Departments and Military Branches within a very short time.
Banned!
By Ruckelshaus, based on opinions and hearsay.
Which brings one back to the proof many other commenters have mentioned. Find DDT on the shelf or for sale.
t wasn’t banned, it was just made impossible to buy.
So WHO was wrong when it recommended starting to use DDT once again back in 2006, since it was by far the safest and most effective method to fight malaria?
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/who-calls-spraying-controversial-ddt-fight-malaria
DDT is produced in India and China.
It is used in India and Africa. Maybe also in other countries.
Quite simply they learned from the abuse in the past and how to use it properly.
Not a single human died from DDT or had any long term effect from DDT!
BioBob:
So…DDT was banned because it was ineffective?
(If it didn’t still work, the market would have taken care of phasing it out.)
If DDT wasn’t banned, then why can’t I buy it?
Why can’t I choose to to buy it and waste my money on something that doesn’t still work?
The only myths the rubes have fallen for about DDT are in “Silent Spring”.
How exactly will this be enforced? Time to start smuggling sun screen into the beach for 5x profit, may get hard to find cocain since all the money is in spf
No doubt, TSA will check luggage for flights to Hawaii, and confiscate when found.
TSA already confiscates suntan lotion from carry-on bags.
TSA will confiscate any liquid container over 3.4 ounces. They took away my Gold Bond foot lotion bottle of 4 ounces!
Going to make a ‘huge’ difference. No. It. Won’t. Like all claims about global warming, it’s is immeasurable, unfounded and shameless posturing by those who should know better.
I lived in Queensland Australia, Melanoma capital of the world when I was young, maybe still is (I have not checked.) Scary thing is while most skin cancers are in older people I lost a number of friends in their 20s to melanoma 30 years ago. I don’t want to sue the Hawaiian people through their government . After all why should they pay. But if there is an increase in the skin cancer rate in Hawaii and in Hawaiian visitors over the next few years, I would seriously like these idiots to be charged with criminal offences for putting lives at risk. A manslaughter conviction or two might make a few loons think twice about their ill informed stupid acts. And reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef generally seem to be doing pretty well except where there is significant land pollution, mostly in developing nations. And even they understand the benefit of tourism so places like the Maldives actually have pretty health reefs too.
The thought of government being held accountable for deaths resetting from policy decisions is cute. Pure fantasy, but cute.
How would they even enforce this ban?
I mean, they can restrict what the local stores sell, but they cannot restrict what people bring in their luggage, and the majority of their beach visitors are tourists. And I doubt police walking along the boardwalk will be able to tell whether a sunscreen brand is illegal or not – given just how many hundreds of varieties there are and how similar many of the bottles look.
It comes across as more of a feel-good law that will have little actual impact.
Stop-and-search with on-the-spot fines? Could be a good money-maker for 5-0.
How could you even restrict sales in Hawaii? Many, many people use it without ever gonna g to the beach. You can’t simply ban sales because people working in the hot sun need to have access to it.
In socialism, the ban comes first. Then come fines. In the end, the fines are institutional, so hotel owners are at risk of being coerced to follow and educate their customers.
TSA automatically will confiscate any liquid container above 3.4 ounces. Don’t try it.
Only on carry on, check baggage not problem, we flew to Texas last month has large bottles of lotion in check baggage no problems.
I think this is a good idea.
Why is this being lambasted now? This was covered on WUWT in 2015… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/20/oops-it-may-not-be-ocean-acidification-killing-coral-after-all-common-chemical-found-in-sunscreen-is-poisonous-to-coral-reefs/
Our coral reefs are pretty hammered here in Hawai`i for many reasons . If a simple switch to a non Oxybenzone sunscreen can help sustain them , I am all for it . Let’s educate more tourists and locals about using other products and see if it helps . It’s a shame to watch our coral suffer .
You can validate that sunscreen is the problem? Please do Climate Yogi….
This bill in my opinion reeks of Silent Spring style activism. Thanks to questionable research presented in the book “Silent Spring”, and an over enthusiastic response from lawmakers, poor people across the world have been deprived of a safe, effective defence against mosquito borne diseases.
Since DDT was restricted worldwide, millions of people have died of Malaria who would otherwise have had an opportunity to live a healthy life
,……………..
Blimy mate
DDT is not banned for malaria. And has never been.
Overuse kills needed insects and eventually created resistant mosquitoes.
There is plenty of documentation proving this.
It is very sad to see such untruths still being stated
If DDT has never been banned, why did the UN revise it’s ban a few years ago? How is that even possible?
I remember in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, expanding and maintaining the DDT bans worldwide was a major cause for all the environmental organizations.
The environmental movement has the blood of 40 million on it’s hands, making them one of the largest mass murderers in history.
What is the Left’s response to the cold, hard facts?
“It never happened.”
Absolutely disgusting!
The justice warriors deny they killed half a million children a year. Just so.
Then produce the documentation.
Ruckelshaus, newly formed EPA Administrator, banned DDT June 14th, 1972.
Ruckelshaus did not ban DDT because of “insecticide resistance”.
Ruckelshaus did not ban DDT for “overeffectiveness”.
Ruckelshaus banned DDT because eco-alarmists were frothing over “Silent Spring”.
Ghafrunt, is spreading untruths.
Um, Eric, you’re embarrassing yourself. This is nothing like the DDT ban due to politicized science. Not all sunscreens contain oxybenzone and octinoxate. These are not essential ingredients and they aren’t what protect you from UV radiation. And they do actually kill coral. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a state or country with coral reefs to get around to banning it.
Yes, there are many alternatives. These two compounds do absorb UV, however, are generally waterproof and are compatible with many different formulations. The law will be very difficult to enforce. But there is evidence that they are toxic to coral (although sewage and untreated runoff are bigger problems).
Nevertheless, a ban is probably worth a try so long as there is monitoring in place that attempts to quantify effects. Run the experiment.
Alternatives: Back to the Future!
https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/07/do-chemicals-your-sunscreen-damage-fragile-coral-reefs#.WuvUo9QrLGg
“If sunscreen must be used, EWG agrees with the recommendations of the Professional Association of Underwater Instructors and the National Park Service that you should use sunscreens that use ZINC OXIDE or titanium dioxide. Avoid sunscreens that contain oxybenzone, octocrylene, 4MBC, butylparaben and octinoxate.”
Emphasis mine. All those 1940s pics of sunbathers with white stuff on their noses could recur in the 2040s.
Nothing embarrassing at all! Eric is absolutely correct about oxybenzone & octinoxate. These 2 materials are indeed active sunscreens used to protect against UV-B, which is generally the sort that gives you sunburn.
Maybe you should check the facts first! Banning useful chemicals on very limited evidence of environmental impact is a hallmark of the “green” movement since Rachel’s infamous book!
You really need a law against sunscreens?
Welcome, you are almost Germans, who have a law agains almost anything, except premature ejaculation.
That’s coming.
+100
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/002/144/fry.jpg
DDT has been maligned and the WHO has asked for it to be reintroduced. Another shoot, ready, aim from our “environmental friends” masquerading as Marxist useful idiots.
So coral polyps are more important than human lives. I’m lost for words yet again.
I snorkel on a restricted coral reef in New Caledonia. All that they ask there is that you don’t use sunscreen for the snorkel period.
Olive oil with iodine best sunscreen ever.
With the added advantage that coral reefs are often depleted in iodine.
Do you have citations, Felix ? Seawater is rich in iodine … think table salt … but it can also be toxic to corals.
No idea if sunscreen actually damages coral. It is conceivable. Done a fair bit of snorkeling and scuba on Maui. Without sunscreen. I refuse to slime myself with the stuff. I swim with spf clothing cover.
The corals have not been doing well. Seemingly covered with alga and silt. The alga seems likely NPK nutrient pollution from all that beautiful landscaping.
I see a great black market opportunity developing:
Super-fast cigarette boats landing sunscreen under cover of darkness – cops paid to look the other way, prosecutors, judges and politicians corrupted, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Do it the way it has always been done.
Pack the suntan lotion into big crates labeled with the ubiquitous “Farm Machinery” label.
Customs inspectors will see the labels, and assume that it is a terrorist arms shipment and that somebody has been paid off. So they will allow the shipment through unhindered.
One person sees an unfortunate government intrusion.
I see economic opportunity.
The sunscreen cartel will be a formidable force. Fast boats… low flying airplanes… coming in from the Solomons loaded to gills with SPF30 and 50 contraband.
Themz iz miltary-grade SPFs.
Like, “full semi auto sunscreen”?
The heading should read:
Good Greef — Coral Before People: Hawaii Bans Polypular Sunscreen Products