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As someone who flies GA aircraft out of Boeing field (KBFI) I also welcome this change. I don't want more leaded fuel on my hands. The lead can be absorbed by s

by verst 4y ago

As someone who flies GA aircraft out of Boeing field (KBFI) I also welcome this change. I don't want more leaded fuel on my hands. The lead can be absorbed by skin.

scoot 4y ago
- Justin_K 4y ago
  Are you asking them to list off every concern so you are satisfied their list meets your standards?
  - scoot 4y ago
    - djohnston 4y ago
      Are you alluding that he has blood on his hands because he flies GA?
      - btilly 4y ago
        Figures from https://journalistsresource.org/environment/plane-lead-fuel-emissions-economic-impact/ https://journalistsresource.org/environment/plane-lead-fuel-... In 2008 there were 167,000 small planes. The discounted present cost of future lost productivity due to the lead in their gas in any given year is $1.63 billion. That's about $9760 of lost productivity per year you choose to fly that plane. Some models put the cost of lost productivity due to lowered IQ much higher, for about $11.3 billion. That's about $67,700 per plane per year of damage caused to others (mostly poor and often minorities). Do you think this qualifies as "blood on his hands"? People will differ in their opinions on that. Certainly if he was breaking into poor people's houses and trashing them, everyone will condemn him. But he clearly had no intention to do harm, and probably had no idea of the full extent of the harm that he has been doing. There is also room for people to argue with the assumptions in the scientific model. But the range of defensible opinions ABSOLUTELY includes his having the blood of poor people on his hands.
        outworlder 4y ago
        That is just one article. It certainly provides a good model for follow up discussions, but take the absolute values with a grain of salt. For starters, they didn't actually measure the impact, they developed a model. It may be accurate, or it may be wildly off. Specially because it uses a bunch of other models. There are other issues. For example, they say that for children, the main exposure is through ingestion. How exactly are they ingesting the lead particulates? Unclear. They do say it's difficult to determine and they try to account for that (they spend several paragraphs discussing this). They also say that the contributions from planes in flight (as opposed to takeoff/landing) may be indistinguishable from background concentrations or lower than monitor resolution detection limits(!!!). So more modelling is used. > Research suggests that forest fires and lead re-emissions from soil are increasingly important sources of lead to the atmosphere.58,59 These sources, like aviation, were an insignificant source of airborne lead during the peak of leaded gasoline, but now may be a principal source of emissions in certain regions. Further, leaded paint and paint dust is expected to be the largest contributor to childhood lead exposure, with exposure risk being spatially and demographically heterogeneous. Lead paint is STILL the largest contributor. We need to get rid of lead as much as we can, true. But to go so far as say "blood of poor people" it's a step too much. Specially based on a single paper full of "models" (aka educated guesses).
        btilly 4y ago
        You have demonstrated the truth of my statement that there is room to argue with the assumptions of the scientific model. But IF the model is correct, the impacts are severe. Doubly so if the upper range is correct. And so we have the ethical question of how we should progress in the event of uncertainty. On this question some hold the perfectly defensible position is that, when faced with such uncertainty, we should assume the worst until we have more information. That a person who is aware of the potential for harm and fails to act merely because they are not certain of it deserves the full blame for the harm that they are aware might have happened. For someone who takes this position, "blood of poor people" is definitely not a step too far. Note: I am very carefully not saying that this is a correct or universally accepted position. I'm merely saying that this is a position that some hold for reasonable reasons, and can be defended.
      - tffcccdredf 4y ago
    - verst 4y ago
      Of course I also don't want to spray aerosolized lead all over low income (especially) neighborhoods. I have always felt very conflicted about this. I think that point was adequately covered by other comments however.
    - rocqua 4y ago
      Given the toxicity of tetraethyl lead, and the (apparent) risk of spilling it all over you when refuling, I wouldn't be surprised if the personal risk to a pilot was comparable to the marginal risk to the wider public of whether one person flies with leaded gas or not.
- tadfisher 4y ago
  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... From those figures, the entire civil aviation sector accounts for 13% of European transport emissions and 8% of US transport emissions. I can't find a breakdown of GA vs. airline, but I highly suspect GA to be a small fraction of civil aviation emissions relative to airline. Be concerned about activities that make up the majority of emissions: passenger vehicles, electricity generation, and industry. Eliminating GA tomorrow would barely make a dent.
  - disillusioned 4y ago
    This article is specifically about _lead_, which is used (up until now, with very few exceptions like Mogas) exclusively in GA piston aircraft. In fact, leaded aviation fuel is the largest source of lead emitted to the atmosphere in the US. Eliminating GA tomorrow _would_ make a dent on the lead exposure of those who live near GA facilities. See this study that attempts to quantify the damage done to IQ because of this additional lead: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338738/#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20formulation%20of,tons%20of%20lead%20in%202008 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338738/#:~:tex....
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I'm a bit skeptical of that claim, although I do agree it's a good change. It will prevent further lead emissions, but if it's as bad as they say, then it's likely they'll still feel the effects from the soil. I live in the flight path for a small field that had been a round for a long time. Soil lead levels are very low here. I have no concerns about the atmospheric amount either. The biggest source of exposure for most people is likely food.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - 4y ago
- smaddox 4y ago
  This isn't elemental lead. It's tetraethyl lead. Unlike elemental lead, it's readily absorbed through the skin.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    It's not tetraethyl lead after the fuel has been burned, that's only the delivery mechanism to get it into the combustion chamber. It'd end up as some sort of lead oxide particulate after combustion.
Klonoar 4y ago
Every time I hang out in Georgetown and a plane flies overhead I have this same thought. (ish)
tffcccdredf 4y ago
blensor 4y ago
Have you seen this Veritasium video about the man who came up with adding tetraethyllead to gasonline and it's negative impact on humanity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA Given how dangerous lead is in even the tiniest quantities it is really surprising that there has not been more pressure to change that.
- flyinghamster 4y ago
  Don't have time for the video, but if that was Thomas Midgley, he was quite the one-man environmental catastrophe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
  - obituary_latte 4y ago
    It is indeed. The video (which I just happened upon yesterday) does a great job of describing his impact on humanity and it was interesting to learn that prop planes were still allowed to use leaded gasoline--I had no idea. Ironic he died by strangulating himself in one of his own inventions.

by verst 4y ago

As someone who flies GA aircraft out of Boeing field (KBFI) I also welcome this change. I don't want more leaded fuel on my hands. The lead can be absorbed by skin.

scoot 4y ago

Justin_K 4y ago
Are you asking them to list off every concern so you are satisfied their list meets your standards?
- scoot 4y ago
  - djohnston 4y ago
    Are you alluding that he has blood on his hands because he flies GA?
    - btilly 4y ago
      Figures from https://journalistsresource.org/environment/plane-lead-fuel-emissions-economic-impact/ https://journalistsresource.org/environment/plane-lead-fuel-... In 2008 there were 167,000 small planes. The discounted present cost of future lost productivity due to the lead in their gas in any given year is $1.63 billion. That's about $9760 of lost productivity per year you choose to fly that plane. Some models put the cost of lost productivity due to lowered IQ much higher, for about $11.3 billion. That's about $67,700 per plane per year of damage caused to others (mostly poor and often minorities). Do you think this qualifies as "blood on his hands"? People will differ in their opinions on that. Certainly if he was breaking into poor people's houses and trashing them, everyone will condemn him. But he clearly had no intention to do harm, and probably had no idea of the full extent of the harm that he has been doing. There is also room for people to argue with the assumptions in the scientific model. But the range of defensible opinions ABSOLUTELY includes his having the blood of poor people on his hands.
      - outworlder 4y ago
        That is just one article. It certainly provides a good model for follow up discussions, but take the absolute values with a grain of salt. For starters, they didn't actually measure the impact, they developed a model. It may be accurate, or it may be wildly off. Specially because it uses a bunch of other models. There are other issues. For example, they say that for children, the main exposure is through ingestion. How exactly are they ingesting the lead particulates? Unclear. They do say it's difficult to determine and they try to account for that (they spend several paragraphs discussing this). They also say that the contributions from planes in flight (as opposed to takeoff/landing) may be indistinguishable from background concentrations or lower than monitor resolution detection limits(!!!). So more modelling is used. > Research suggests that forest fires and lead re-emissions from soil are increasingly important sources of lead to the atmosphere.58,59 These sources, like aviation, were an insignificant source of airborne lead during the peak of leaded gasoline, but now may be a principal source of emissions in certain regions. Further, leaded paint and paint dust is expected to be the largest contributor to childhood lead exposure, with exposure risk being spatially and demographically heterogeneous. Lead paint is STILL the largest contributor. We need to get rid of lead as much as we can, true. But to go so far as say "blood of poor people" it's a step too much. Specially based on a single paper full of "models" (aka educated guesses).
        btilly 4y ago
        You have demonstrated the truth of my statement that there is room to argue with the assumptions of the scientific model. But IF the model is correct, the impacts are severe. Doubly so if the upper range is correct. And so we have the ethical question of how we should progress in the event of uncertainty. On this question some hold the perfectly defensible position is that, when faced with such uncertainty, we should assume the worst until we have more information. That a person who is aware of the potential for harm and fails to act merely because they are not certain of it deserves the full blame for the harm that they are aware might have happened. For someone who takes this position, "blood of poor people" is definitely not a step too far. Note: I am very carefully not saying that this is a correct or universally accepted position. I'm merely saying that this is a position that some hold for reasonable reasons, and can be defended.
    - tffcccdredf 4y ago
  - verst 4y ago
    Of course I also don't want to spray aerosolized lead all over low income (especially) neighborhoods. I have always felt very conflicted about this. I think that point was adequately covered by other comments however.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    Given the toxicity of tetraethyl lead, and the (apparent) risk of spilling it all over you when refuling, I wouldn't be surprised if the personal risk to a pilot was comparable to the marginal risk to the wider public of whether one person flies with leaded gas or not.
tadfisher 4y ago
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... From those figures, the entire civil aviation sector accounts for 13% of European transport emissions and 8% of US transport emissions. I can't find a breakdown of GA vs. airline, but I highly suspect GA to be a small fraction of civil aviation emissions relative to airline. Be concerned about activities that make up the majority of emissions: passenger vehicles, electricity generation, and industry. Eliminating GA tomorrow would barely make a dent.
- disillusioned 4y ago
  This article is specifically about _lead_, which is used (up until now, with very few exceptions like Mogas) exclusively in GA piston aircraft. In fact, leaded aviation fuel is the largest source of lead emitted to the atmosphere in the US. Eliminating GA tomorrow _would_ make a dent on the lead exposure of those who live near GA facilities. See this study that attempts to quantify the damage done to IQ because of this additional lead: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338738/#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20formulation%20of,tons%20of%20lead%20in%202008 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338738/#:~:tex....
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I'm a bit skeptical of that claim, although I do agree it's a good change. It will prevent further lead emissions, but if it's as bad as they say, then it's likely they'll still feel the effects from the soil. I live in the flight path for a small field that had been a round for a long time. Soil lead levels are very low here. I have no concerns about the atmospheric amount either. The biggest source of exposure for most people is likely food.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - 4y ago
smaddox 4y ago
This isn't elemental lead. It's tetraethyl lead. Unlike elemental lead, it's readily absorbed through the skin.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It's not tetraethyl lead after the fuel has been burned, that's only the delivery mechanism to get it into the combustion chamber. It'd end up as some sort of lead oxide particulate after combustion.

Klonoar 4y ago

Every time I hang out in Georgetown and a plane flies overhead I have this same thought. (ish)

tffcccdredf 4y ago

blensor 4y ago

Have you seen this Veritasium video about the man who came up with adding tetraethyllead to gasonline and it's negative impact on humanity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA Given how dangerous lead is in even the tiniest quantities it is really surprising that there has not been more pressure to change that.

flyinghamster 4y ago
Don't have time for the video, but if that was Thomas Midgley, he was quite the one-man environmental catastrophe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
- obituary_latte 4y ago
  It is indeed. The video (which I just happened upon yesterday) does a great job of describing his impact on humanity and it was interesting to learn that prop planes were still allowed to use leaded gasoline--I had no idea. Ironic he died by strangulating himself in one of his own inventions.