Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair
attheu.utah.edu94 points by geox 8 hours ago
94 points by geox 8 hours ago
Hopefully next we can help fix mercury in fish, the number one contributor right now is burning coal. Seems like it would be a easy decision.
Coal is mostly sticking around in the US because of federal overreach to keep unprofitable and ancient coal generators going long after anybody wants to pay for the high maintenance.
Last week, a Colorado utility was "respectfully" asking to be able to close a plant:
> TTri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration ordering them to keep Craig’s Unit 1 coal-fired plant open past the New Year:
> They don’t need it, they don’t want it, and their inflation-strapped consumers can’t afford the higher bills. Plus, the federal order is unconstitutional.
https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/30/craig-tri-state-petition-...
TVA has also been begging to close a money losing coal plant for a while now, writing letters to FERC about it, but I can't find the link now.
New coal is far too expensive to build anymore too. Handling big amounts of solid material is expensive, and big old unresponsive baseload is undesirable for achieving economic efficiency.
Even China, which is still building new coal plants, is lessening their coal usage. Personally I think they'll keep some around to continue economic influence on Australia, which is one their primary countries for experimenting with methods to increase their soft power.
There is no technical or economic reason to want coal power today.
We live in opposite-world where the way it is, is the exact opposite of how it should be
Burning coal is a huge and easy win. Artisinal and small scale gold mining should be high on the list too, even though it's a much harder problem:
https://www.unep.org/globalmercurypartnership/what-we-do/art...
I remember going to LA in the late 80's and my eyes watering (I also remember the pants-less man on the side of the strode but that is a different story). Environmental regulations are a win. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that doesn't believe something until it happens to them directly. That makes it a challenge to maintain environmental, or any regulations for that matter, over generations. It isn't practical, but it would be interesting to create 'pollution cities' where the regulations were loose so long as the entire company drew its workforce (including management) from the local population (like within a mile) and a significant portion of their drinking water and foods must also be sourced locally. Go ahead, pollute your own drinking water. I bet cities like this would be cleaner than ones with stricter regulations.
The punchline being:
The findings, which appear in PNAS, underscore the vital role of environmental regulations in protecting public health.
The study notes lead rules are now being weakened by the Trump administration in a wide-ranging move to ease environmental protections.
“We should not forget the lessons of history. And the lesson is those regulations have been very important,”> The Utah part of this is so interesting because of the way people keep track of their family history.
Definitively interesting that they could get so many old hair samples with good provenance.
Explains a great deal, honestly.
like what? are there more intelligent people? I've anecdotally heard this is a cause for crime reduction as people are less impulsive than they were, in conflict resolution? overall?
don't really know what takeaway I'm supposed to know about
Are you really calling into question the well documented developmental effects of lead in human cognition and behavior
No, he’s asking for someone to expand on their five word sentence that is so generic it can be interpreted to support almost any thesis you want.