When Notre Dame burned a lotta lead spread through the air.
Meh. It wasn't good. But it also wasn't panic inducing bad the NYTimes make it out as.
Same exposure, how many weeks do you think you'd get the same levels breathing in air in a city in the 1930-1980 era, with all the leaded gas? When a city was bombed and fires broke out in WWII, the paint and roofs and pipes then were as leaded as anything.
Lead is bad, yes, but humans are just awful at judging risk factors. Don't get stampeded by the Leftists running the NYTimes. I mean, they want you to believe Trump is more racist than George Wallace and Bull Connor and Woodrow Wilson put together. But before 2014? Not a hint.
No, not that George Wallace. The other one.
No, don't eat old paint chips, lick bullets, advocate for a return to leaded gasoline engines, or seek out lead vapor to inhale. Switch the solder on your copper pipes to lead again. But don't assume Paris is doomed because one big building had a fire either.
Much of the panic over environmental contaminants these days is because we can reliably measure them to much lower levels than in the past.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason that this isn't the hazard that people think it is is because they don't differentiate between the different lead compounds. They hear 'lead' and think bad - but it is really organic lead compounds that are the problem.
ReplyDeleteIf metallic lead (only lead, nothing else) was that bad, they wouldn't leave bullets in shooting victims.
When I first heard about the fire, I predicted that the French equivalent of the EPA would delay repairs by two years AT LEAST, to allow remediation of the site from the contamination of all that melted roofing lead.
ReplyDeleteWas I right?