POISONED PET FOOD AND TAINTED TOOTHPASTE TOO:

ETHYLENE GLYCOL VERSUS PROPYLENE GLYCOL:

There is a product on the market that advertises itself as "safe" for animals, being as antifreeze toxicity is a major cause of death amongst domestic pets in North America. Because of its sweet taste it is also an occasional cause of poisoning and even death amongst children. The basic difference is that "animal friendly" antifreeze uses propylene glycol rather than ethylene glycol as the major component. Propylene glycol has a slightly higher freezing point and a slightly lower boiling point than ethylene glycol, and thus it is not as ideal as a motor vehicle additive. Yet, the safety factor of the different compounds is such that many European countries such as Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Denmark either restrict or ban the use of ethylene glycol in antifreeze. In the USA various jurisdictions demand the addition of a "bittering agent" to ethylene glycol based antifreeze, and many producers have instituted the use of warning labels, child proof containers (useless as far as Molly can see) and consumer propaganda campaigns.

Molly has recently come upon an interesting online paper from the University of Michigan written from a chemistry economic point of view. The title is 'Case Study: Comparison of Ethylene Glycol Versus Propylene Glycol-Based Antifreeze Solutions'. What the paper demonstrates is the 'complexity" of different chemical processes and their associated economic and environmental "cost". The paper takes a "life cycle" approach to the chemical engineering problems looking at not just the cost (economic/environmental) of production but also that of use, byproducts and disposal. The whole point of the paper is to argue against the idea propagated by the likes of Union Carbide who say that the use of chemicals such as propylene glycol as totally more inefficient both economically and environmentally. If you go through the paper carefully you will see that the actual pluses and minuses can fall on different sides depending upon what parameter you are looking at.

Molly is all in favour of replacing ethylene glycol, the compound that has been added to the tainted toothpaste from China, with the less toxic propylene glycol for antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. If the economic and environmental cost is higher- so be it. Factor the environmental cost into the final product cost as a "charged externality" rather than an "uncharged externality".

What Molly would like to point out here is that this tiny little matter of the position of one carbon side chain on a molecule ends up with an extremely complex situation, as can be seen from reading the paper. Molly can only wish that "social reformers" of either the left or right could see that the "solutions" they propose for "social problems" have complexities that are 5 or six orders of magnitude greater than what is discussed in the paper cited. Neither good true believer social workers from the left or moral crusaders from the right can ever admit that their proposals can have (always do have) unforeseen undesirable consequences. Both sides are under the magical thinking delusion that the illusionary purity of their motives guarantees the purity of the results. The way that political discourse is conducted is to the complexities discussed in this paper about two compounds as the grunting of neanderthals is to discussions of quantum mechanics. No recourse to private languages of post modernism or dialectics can hide this crudity. They merely bring the word "liar" upper in the mind of an independent observer.

The idea of a "scientific socialism" is a far away dream despite the pretensions of a dieing modern religion to same. The best that can be said is today that a "humble socialism" is the best alternative, one that recognizes its limitations. Many pronouncements of the left- let alone the even more mendacious right- should be seen in this light. 100% confidence in things that are 1/100th of a percent certain !!!! The more dramatic the pronouncement the less likely it is to be true.