{"id":11368,"date":"2012-03-29T06:08:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T11:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=11368"},"modified":"2012-03-29T06:08:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T11:08:41","slug":"everything-old-is-new-again-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/11368","title":{"rendered":"Everything Old is New Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/pollution\/get-the-lead-out-have-we-already-forgotten-this-lesson\/\">Get the lead out: Have we already forgotten this lesson?<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[R]egardless, the analysis has been done; lead remediation is still a screamingly good deal. Lead remains one of the most common and harmful pollutants in the country; it\u2019s often present in old paint and settles into soil, particularly in urban areas. One comprehensive study concluded that \u201ceach dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17\u2013$221.\u201d And that study focused on current, laborious methods of lead remediation. As it happens, scientists have developed a new, cheaper method \u2014 mixing fish bones into soil (!) \u2014 to absorb lead and render it nontoxic. Pretty cool stuff. Imagine what more research and funding could do.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, federal funding for lead-poisoning prevention programs has been brutally slashed<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m hoping the anti-spending reflex can be excised from our politics and replaced by the recognition that <em>investment<\/em> is a good idea.  When the return on the spending exceeds the spending, it is a wise thing to do.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The elimination of lead from gasoline is a paradigmatic triumph of American environmentalism. A danger to health was discovered by scientists. Public-health advocates and greens pushed and pushed for decades, often futilely, to get the government to take action. When EPA finally cranked up efforts to do something about it, the agency was viciously attacked. Industry shills said it was an agenda to control Americans\u2019 lives, driven by scientists who wanted research money and a cabal of extreme environmentalists. They said there were no viable alternatives to lead and the regulations would raise gas prices and destroy the economy. They paid their own scientists to produce counter-evidence. They flooded politicians with money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gosh, sound familiar?  The EPA prevailed, but these tactics no doubt delayed the result and increased the damage done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get the lead out: Have we already forgotten this lesson? [R]egardless, the analysis has been done; lead remediation is still a screamingly good deal. Lead remains one of the most common and harmful pollutants in the country; it\u2019s often present &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/11368\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16,35,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body","category-environment","category-other-science","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}