[Deputy Barnes]

Up until fairly recently, lead was a beneficial component of our Nation's fuel supply. Unfortunately this came to an end in the 1970s, due to a worldwide campaign which blamed lead for all the problems in the world, from crime to illiteracy to births out of wedlock. 40 years afterwards our society is no better off, and we are still living without the many advantages of lead in our environment.

Leaded gasoline served a purpose

Corporations did not put lead in gasoline for shits and giggles, nor did they do it with the ulterior motive of harming the public. After a series of many trials and studies in the early 20th century it was found that leaded gasoline significantly increased fuel performance in motor vehicles.

The "high octane" formulas sold at today's gas stations do not even compare to the regular leaded fuels sold in the 1960s. Anyone who was alive in those times remembers the potency of the fuel. I have had the pleasure of obtaining surplus gas from that era, and I must say that for the first time in my life I truly enjoyed the experience of driving. My car was not just powerful on lead, it was graceful. I could feel the smoothness. And it was clean.

Lead had the added benefit of lubrication. The lead created a protective "film" within the inner workings of the machine, and the exhaust pipe, too. This served to prevent corrosion, reduced interior friction and collision and, generally speaking, cut down on repairs. You may have heard the saying that they "don't make cars like they used to", but the truth is that the fabled durability of old cars really had a lot to do with the fact that they were powered by leaded fuel.

The hazards of lead have been greatly exagerrated

Leftwing academics used to blame lead for the downfall of the Roman Empire, because the old Roman sewer system used to be piped by lead. Recent studies have refuted that myth. It turns out that even though the level of lead in Roman tap water was 100 times above normal limits, they still managed to avoid harm.

Indeed one must really wonder how Romans were able to build one of the greatest civilizations that ever existed if lead really was so dangerous for your health.

In Japan, applying lead powder to the face as makeup was taken to such extremes that the bones of ancient Samurai are literally packed with accumulated lead when viewed via xray. Somehow this did not prevent them from creating a prosperous society.

It is a common tactic of Leftists to demonize a certain chemical or behavior and to charge it with having caused ancient extinctions, the destruction of empires, health consequences, etc. Leftists have a fetish for this. They have to get certain things banned or criminalized in order to get a feeling of power, because without such bans they feel powerless.

Overlooked and understudied are the positive health benefits of heavy metals. It is already well known that they have antimicrobial and chemical neutralizing effects. KDF media has been used for over 30 years as a water filtration compliment but is prohibitively expensive and an inefficient use of rare metals that have electronic value. Lead pipes and indeed ionized lead in the water supply may be capable of taking up the task of tomorrow's water recycling needs. Anyone who has ever worked with lead knows it stops mold dead in its tracks, and should have excellent filtration properties.

Is it possible that the purifying powers of leaded sewers and drinking vessels of the ancient Romans enabled them to evade the consequences monstrously polluted waters of the time? There is only one way to find out for sure - - tests should be conducted on this issue.

In the mean time gasoline restrictions must be lifted immediately. There is no scientific evidence exposure to 1960s levels air supplies have any consequences for human health. The old Leftists were every bit as scheming and wrong about this issue as they are on global warming. And while we're at it, let's put it back in paint, as well. It is a waste to substitute titanium dioxide for lead when lead is cheaper, less precious and a superior pigment with unparalled brilliancy. The time has come to embrace lead after a long and very painful abstinence.

[MD]

wow!

onionesque at its best!

[americandream]

Many of these so called leftists he berates would probably buy and sell him a few times over. He wouldn't know his left from his right.

[dohboi]

This is obviously a troll taking over this forum with inane inflammatory dreck for whatever twisted jollies he gets out of it. I've put him on ignore (first time since shortly after starting here these many years ago) and I suggest people do the same rather than feeding him/her.

I'm going to mostly stop posting (on the env threads at least) till this one gets bored and goes away or is banned.

[GHung]

timmac is back.

[MD]

timmac is back.

don't think so, but now that you mention it I will have a look at that.

[GHung]

MD- While you're at it, take a look at his misquoting me over here:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=70397
I don't appreciate having racial quotes assigned to me, nor do I appreciate the moderators letting this sort of thing stand. In my State it constitutes liable.

Edit: Looks like it's been handled. Thanks!

I submit that it's time to take the lead out of this guy's pencil.

[Paulo1]

I flew bush planes for almost 20 years. My favourite, the DHC-2 (Beaver) sports a PW 985, developing 450 hp (super charged.) I have 10,000 hrs flying them. The engine was developed in 1929 and they are still being rebuilt and in service. They were designed to run on leaded 80/87. I have run them on 100/130, low lead 100, auto gas, marine (93 octane) and unleaded auto.

When my company switched to unleaded auto we simply put in a different additive for the same lubrication that lead used to supply, without the harmful effects of lead. The only side effect was the old 'seal' around the plunge primer. It would stiffen up and specific require lubrication.

Only an idiot would post nonsense about returning to leaded gas.

My life and passengers depended on the success of running unleaded fuel in older engines. In those many years flying I had one cylinder failure, the other 8 kept chugging along. I lost 300 rpm and simply flew home. This was being run on leaded fuel at the time. Go figure.

Deputy, I had an old teacher who used to say to the chatty girls in our french class, "empty carts make the most noise". It might help your credibilty to remember this before posting any more shite.

paulo

[jedrider]

Deputy, I had an old teacher who used to say to the chatty girls in our french class, "empty carts make the most noise". It might help your credibilty to remember this before posting any more shite.
paulo

That's a good one. Nice story about flying old planes.

[dissident]

Yes Paulo, thanks for that. Stories for the bush.

However reasonable skepticism is appropriate even as phrased by the douche, and that includes environmental dogma. I've only just learned about weaknesses in the the linear no-threshold model (LNT) model of radiation protection, currently used to quantify radiation exposition and set regulatory limits. See the wolves of Chernobyl.

Perhaps lead is also tolerated at levels far above which we accept? As with radiation, just because a substance causes cellular/nuclear damage at high concentrations does not mean it will do so at low. And even if it does cause damage at low concentrations, it doesn't necessarily follow that the cell and nucleic materials are not repaired. Evidence suggests otherwise.

Perhaps the douche-bag has a point? Maybe we need to revisit LNT for lead and other pollutants? Perhaps lead-paint removal laws are onerous? The douche-bag did present a reasonable case? I just don't like his racism.

Stringent environmental controls are a myth. There is lots of fluff about a few contaminants (e.g. lead, mercury, PCBs) but f*ck all gets done about the thousands of carcinogenic VOCs spewed out by among other things cars. When you buy laminate furniture you are breathing nasty stuff and if you move into a new house you are inhaling fresh plywood glue. For sure no analogue of LNT is applied to these chemicals when it really should be. Too much money and BAU is involved to do anything.

[ROCKMAN]

Not arguing for or against putting the lead back in. But years ago I read an amazing story about lead contamination. Especially harmful to early childhood development. Rather easy to flush the lead out of a kid's blood but you have to first discover the necessity. The story goes back to the days of banning lead from paint so kids eating peeling paint chips wouldn't get lead poisoning. That wasn't the source in the vast majority of cases. It came directly from the dust in backyards and school playgrounds. The researcher simply analyzed soil samples along old roads (which existed during leaded fuel days) and newer roads post lead ban days. A various obvious correlation. He then researched a number of children that has been treated for lead poisoning. In many cases no correlation to paint exposure. But a perfect correlation when he could ID and test the soils where the kids spent a lot of time. Very simply they inhaled minor amounts of dust with lead attached.

The bad news: humans ingesting lead isn't healthy. The good news: lead has very low mobility. Once it's deposited in the soil it doesn't tend to leave. It remains in place virtually forever in the human time frame. I passed this on to an environmental geologist friend many years ago. He thought he could offer evaluation services to folks where kids had close contact with soil near old roads. Got one door after another slammed in his face. Even got a physical threat from a private daycare provider in S. La. The only way to mitigate the problem is to remove the surface soil or put a protective seal over it. The state regulators didn't want to discuss the matter either: think about the huge amount of public lands the state and municipalities would be responsible for.

I haven't followed the lead story for many years. But I haven't stumbled across any follow up to the lead contaminated soil story.

[GHung]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity

Lead exposure affects the intelligence quotient (IQ) such that a blood lead level of 30 μg/dL is associated with a 6.9-point reduction of IQ, with most reduction (3.9 points) occurring below 10 μg/dL.[35]

Reductions in the average blood lead level is believed to have been a major cause for falling violent crime rates in the United States[36] and South Africa.[37] Economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes of Amherst College found that declining exposure to lead is responsible for up to a 56% decline in crime from 1992 to 2002. Including other factors that are believed to have increased crime rates over that period Reyes found that this led to an actual decline of 34% over that period.[38]

A statistically significant correlation has been found between the usage rate of leaded gasoline and violent crime: taking into account a 22-year time lag, the violent crime curve virtually tracks the lead exposure curve.[34][39] After the ban on TEL, blood lead levels in US children dramatically decreased.[34

Early exposure to lead and juvenile delinquency:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 6201001842

The Impact Of Childohood Lead Exposure On Crime:
http://www3.amherst.edu/~jwreyes/papers ... P13097.pdf

Low-level lead-induced neurotoxicity in children: an update on central nervous system effects:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7398000113

Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/

I could do this all day. I'm sure someone will insist that correlation doesn't prove causation,, but really? This issue has been studied ad infintum. Of course, we can test these conclusions by simply exposing our children to constant doses of lead. Maybe we should also bring back DDT and asbestos, revisit the health benefits of smoking, just to make sure about them as well. Tetracycline for pregnant women? Maybe Deputy Dog should jump off of a ten story building, just to make sure about gravity. Have they ever really figured gravity out? ... and I know the world is flat because I've been to Texas.

[ROCKMAN]

Ghung - And then the possible correlation between crime and intercity kids (like the Rockman) who spent a lot of their childhood playing in the streets. Streets where huge amount of lead contaminated dust was inhaled.

Might explain why the Rockman was lured into geology: it wasn't his fault... the lead made him do it.

[Peak_Yeast]

I remember a study here in Denmark concerning lead.

The study showed that kids living their childhood next to trafficked roads had 6% lower I.Q. on the average. Also there was 1/14th as many with high I.Q. but 14 times as many with very low I.Q. compared to people living in remote/less trafficked areas.

IMHO 6% is a LOT - and the conversion of geniuses to idiots must have cost the society billions.

Also they examined the roadsides: Many of them had "mining" grade concentrations of lead. I.e. as much or more content than the active mines.

So no.. Lead is NOT a good idea to put into the air and food supply.

[KingM]

Deputy Barnes only joined PO eleven days ago and already has 100 whackadoodle posts. We attract some nutters, but this guy is the chief squirrel in the forest.

[Keith_McClary]

Overlooked and understudied are the positive health benefits of heavy metals. It is already well known that they have antimicrobial and chemical neutralizing effects.
...
Anyone who has ever worked with lead knows it stops mold dead in its tracks, and should have excellent filtration properties.

Are you "eating your own dog food" - taking lead and heavy metal diet supplement pills, perhaps?

And what about the positive health benefits of mold, microbes and chemicals - why do you want to filter those out?

[Deputy Barnes]

And what about the positive health benefits of mold, microbes and chemicals - why do you want to filter those out?

You know what, you make an excellent point and I'm going to have to make a thread about that later this afternoon.