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Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#181

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #162
paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

PFAS and phthalates are 2 of the biggest things. An working federal government would have banned these decades ago. Also, plastics touching food ever. "Food grade" plastic is a myth sold to us by the plastics industry. This one is going to take longer though.

Re. "food grade": I think maybe some plastics might be ok, but, when I've recently done some projects involving plastic parts, I've been shocked to learn how little is food-grade. Like, almost nothing with any dye, especially any black dye. Yet how often does one see black plastic cutlery and plates, or microwave dinner trays? Then they have this legalese on them like "do not reheat". WTF? Rubbermaid containers don't seem to be food-grade either.

I'd bet that some small minority of plastic really is food grade, that the rest hides behind legalese, that consumers can't tell one from the other, and that both are routinely used for food, certainly within the home, and probably also commercially.

Also: There are a bunch of dirty political tricks that industry could pull to "problematize" concern about endocrine disruptors. Think of the famous "crying Indian" ad that started the recycling scam, but with hip 2021 sensibilities. I think we're going to have to be ready for that trick. "Those right-wingers! It's like that scene in Dr. Strangelove -- always concerned with their precious bodily fluids." You can see how it'll work.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#182

Post by nate_meurer »

jabl wrote: post #158
Neil44 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, not to mention the lubricant properties of the lead for the valve seats and guides.

Hardened materials for poppet valves and seats, like stellite, were invented and used before TEL. It was only after leaded gas became ubiquitous after WWII that manufacturers started saving a buck and stopped using them.

Hardened valve seats are useful in racing engines and diesels, but car makers stopped using them in gasoline-fueled road cars simply because they weren't worth the cost regardless of whether the fuel was leaded. Reports of excessive valve seat recession after the phaseout of TEL were all anecdotal, and for every mechanic who swears there was a a rash of worn seats, there are others who say there wasn't.

The theory that leaded gas prevents micro-weld induced valve abrasion has not been verified in controlled tests. The final report from the EPA's Valve Seat Recession Working Group found no evidence that leaded gas reduces engine wear under any but the most extreme operating conditions:

https://archive.epa.gov/international/air/web/pdf/vsr-finald...

"In real world conditions, virtually no evidence of excessive valve wear has been found in vehicle or engine operation in normal everyday use, and several studies that monitored vehicles in actual daily service in countries that eliminated lead found no excessive valve wear."

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#183

Post by rsync »

paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

"What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today?"

I have a suspicion that slathering typical consumer sunblock agents (and spraying the out of aerosol cans, and breathing the sunblock, etc.) is going to seem unwise to future us.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#184

Post by nofinator »

DenisM wrote: post #179
paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

- Sugar. - Social networks. - The coddling of the mind. I think you will find that all three have vicious cycles built into them.

Sugar is an excellent example.

In fact, the sugar industry has been behind the effort to deflect blame to fat for the last 50 years.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#185

Post by [deleted] »

jvanderbot wrote: post #137
3grdlurker wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only wish that more people realized that we didn’t have to start with something so destructive before we could “get better eventually”.

Implying we would know about all possible destructiveness at time of invention.

[deleted]

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#186

Post by 3grdlurker »

jvanderbot wrote: post #137
3grdlurker wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only wish that more people realized that we didn’t have to start with something so destructive before we could “get better eventually”.

Implying we would know about all possible destructiveness at time of invention.

I think that that’s just an excuse, considering how we didn’t stop when we finally knew.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#187

Post by ngvrnd »

paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

"Forever chemicals" perhaps?

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#188

Post by baobabKoodaa »

DangitBobby wrote: post #174
BurningFrog wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that proves he really believed what he was saying!

Or that he was willing to risk his health for wealth at everyone's expense.

Nah. It's much more plausible that he sincerely believed lead wasn't that dangerous.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#189

Post by WalterBright »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #181
JohnWhigham wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PFAS and phthalates are 2 of the biggest things. An working federal government would have banned these decades ago. Also, plastics touching food ever. "Food grade" plastic is a myth sold to us by the plastics industry. This one is going to take longer though.

Re. "food grade": I think maybe some plastics might be ok, but, when I've recently done some projects involving plastic parts, I've been shocked to learn how little is food-grade. Like, almost nothing with any dye, especially any black dye. Yet how often does one see black plastic cutlery and plates, or microwave dinner trays? Then they have this legalese on them like "do not reheat". WTF? Rubbermaid containers don't…

When I was a kid I never liked plastic cups and glasses because it made the drink taste "plasticy".

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#190

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #26
warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

America has two radically different concepts of freedom that travel under the same name. Both start with "I should be free to do as I want". One ends with "as long as I don't harm others". The other ends with "regardless of harm to others". You were dealing with the latter. It of course sounds insane when you say it baldly like this, which is why it rarely gets stated openly. But a lot of traditional societal structu…

That's a strawman. There's literally no-one on earth saying "I should be free to do as I want regardless of harm to others".
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