[mindways]

Yeah, those thresholds got set way too low. But worse, they don't really provide much in the way of actual _information_, as several people above have noted.

An article I read about this whole coffee thing mentioned that

"The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment adopted new regulations last year that will require more specific warnings that list the chemical consumers may be exposed to and list a website with more information. Parking garages, for example, will have to post that breathing air there exposes drivers to carbon monoxide and gas and diesel exhaust and warns people not to linger longer than necessary."

(From: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/coffee-sold-in-california-co...)

...which should hopefully make the warnings more useful - though I've no idea whether their overall usefulness will outweigh their overall cost.

[smsm42]

How would it make them any more useful? It's not like hanging out parking garages and breathing in exhaust are a favorite pastimes for Californians now (though this impression can easily be made if one considers the results of California lawmaking, I admit). People know exhaust gases are not a healthy thing, and there's no reason to hang out in parking garage anyway. However, since being in parking garages, when parking, is unavoidable, putting useless warnings there desensitizes people to all sort of such warnings, and makes them ignore any kind - including those kinds that might have been useful (such as in a facility where actual dangerous chemicals are present) - but now, nobody would even notice those warnings anymore, just as nobody reads what's on Windows warnings, people just click 'OK', whatever it is.