8 ms·
"Looking back, it seems insane. Bluntly put, we took a known poison and – for three quarters of a century – used it in machines that puffed it out in breathable
by Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
"Looking back, it seems insane. Bluntly put, we took a known poison and – for three quarters of a century – used it in machines that puffed it out in breathable form. Then we drove them millions of miles a day, all over the world, regularly dosing billions of people with the toxin."
We are still doing just that, even though we are using milder poisons now.
- sametmax 9y agoWell given that asbestos were known to be cancerous almost a century before we ban it, I'd say it's just the way we usually do things: use what's convenient until the cost is too high.
- IshKebab 9y agoAsbestos is still manufactured and sold in some countries. Crazy I know.
- karlkloss 9y agoAs it's a naturally occuring mineral, you can't avoid it completely. https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/asbestos-found-nevada-and-arizona-roadblock-and-potential-health-hazard https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/asbestos-found-nevada-...
- forgotmypw 9y agoWell then, if it's a naturally occurring mineral, we might as well just spread it around all over the place!
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago> As it's a naturally occuring mineral, you can't avoid it completely Isn't that also true of Lead?
- _emacsomancer_ 9y agoOnly until we figure out how to transmute it to gold.
- Erlangolem 9y agoWe already know how (bombard it with Calcium-48 in a particle accelerator, or stick it in a nuclear reactor), but it’s not cost effective.
- forgotmypw 9y agoActually, there is a startup that's about to make it cost-effective through blockchain-based crowdsharing:
- whyenot 9y agoSan Benito Mountain in central California has naturally occurring asbestos levels that are so high that no public access was allowed for years (historically, it was a popular off-roading area). More recently, public access is allowed, but you are only permitted to visit the site 5 times per year (the BLM keeps track).
- londons_explore 9y agoLava is naturally occurring... Yet I do a pretty good job of avoiding it.
- userbinator 9y agoChrysotile "white asbestos" is the only type still legally allowed, because various studies have found it to be far less carcinogenic than the other types --- AFAIK crocidolite ("blue asbestos"), the most carcinogenic, has been banned completely. https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos#notbanned https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos#notban...
- falcolas 9y agoWant to feel a bit concerned? Carbon fiber particulate (such as what you get from sawing or sanding it) is as bad as asbestos. We love carbon fiber these days. Most of the time it is sequestered safely away in resin, but it's absurdly simple to free it.
- ams6110 9y agoCan you point to a study backing up this claim?
- falcolas 9y agohttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-nanotube-danger/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-nanotube-d... Second link in a search containing solely "carbon fibre asbestos". It's a fairly well known problem. The problems with carbon fibre (and asbestos, for that matter) is not that it's somehow poisonous, but that the particles are so fine and long and strong that they cause problems with your lungs. They can't be absorbed, they can't be expelled; their structure makes them an irritant that can't be removed by the body's natural processes.
- jonex 9y agoWhat are the poisons of today that we allow? I general, from what I've gathered, we have been replacing substances that accumulates in nature with substances that breaks down over time. So for instance, we still do allow ozone but also watch the levels to ensure they aren't too high. I know there are issues with a lot of medication as it goes out in the sewage and there's still a big question mark on the safety of some modern materials such as nano particles. However, the overall the feeling I get is that the awareness of the dangers with allowing use of poisonous substances is a lot higher today than before. I'm interested in hearing about the exceptions.
- nothrabannosir 9y agoIn the case of exhaust fumes in particular: Nitrogen oxides.
- Angostura 9y agoThough to be fair, the latest EU standards demand diesels have ‘Ad blu’ tanks that add Urea to the catalytic converts, mitigating most NOx emissions. So at least we are doing something about it.
- jakobegger 9y agoBut it’s no good when manufacturers program their cars to inject too little urea, or turn urea injection off on the highway, etc.
- Knufen 9y agoRead up on BPA, drinking from plastic bottles and other endocrine disruptors we still allow in our food supply. As a side note, a lot of people think more quantity = more poisonous. This is not always the case as a small amount can mimic a hormone wrecking our hormone levels over time.
- alexandercrohde 9y agoBPA and other xenoestrogens scare me the most. Men's sperm counts have gone down 50% in the last 30 years, nobody knows why, but the estrogens in our products/water/air aren't out of the question. It's scary how little it scares everyone else.
- coryrc 9y agoGeneral Aviation (private planes) are STILL spewing lead into the atmosphere. It's not like they don't have the money to fix it, they just don't care about the externalities.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoIt's very hard to change anything in GA. Reliability is a much higher priority in aviation, if the engine in your car dies, you stop, if the engine in your plane dies, you fall out of the sky. GA planes also generally last a lot longer than cars, you have Cessnas from the 70's still flying with their original engines from the 70's.
- hordeallergy 9y agoNo, if the engine in your plane dies you glide.
- cptskippy 9y agoDepends on the plane and your definition of gliding.
- Ralfp 9y agoWhich means you better have somewhere you can land in range of 200 kilometers if we are talking about passenger liners.
- verelo 9y agoAnd if you’re over water, mountains or generally unfriendly land...you probably want to glide longer than you actually can.
- xapata 9y ago> from the 70s "But they still work!" is not a good excuse to pollute.
- freehunter 9y ago
- jibbit 9y agoAt least where i live (which happens to be the same place as the author of the article), a high percentage of houses have lead water pipes so i don't think it seems that crazy that it was added to petrol
- mmagin 9y agoMostly what I'm aware of in the US is lead pipes from the water main in the street to the house. A fair amount of leaded solder in copper pipe joints, but lead pipes in the house is pretty uncommon. As I would understand it, maintaining a neutral to alkaline pH in addition to the chlorine/chloramine used for disinfection of potable water generally produces a fairly durable passivization layer on lead which prevents significant lead exposure in drinking water. Responsible water utilities deliberately prevent the distribution of acidic water AND do some sort of at-the-tap water testing program as well. Needless to say, in Flint, Michigan, they screwed up at these things. (Edit, ok, there's a little more to it https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/2016-2017/december-2016/flint-water-crisis.html https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highs... )