james heartfield says
>
> Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher at igc.org> writes
>
> "i may have missed something. if we all want a nil emission car, then
> presumably we agree that auto emissions are sufficiently bad that they
> ought to be done away with altogether, and then i wonder, why are we
> fighting about this?"
>
> No, I am looking forward to the nil emission car because it will put the
> 'global warming' case against cars finally to bed. (I'm assuming
> incidentally that it will not put the case against cars to bed, because
> ultimately its not about global warming). Lead in petrol, on the other
> hand, was a well-established menace that was rightly dealt with.
>
on this point i was only saying that if we all want a nil emission car, does it really matter why? and there are plenty of things to worry about from auto emissions besides global warming and suffocation in garages, lead poisoning being only one.
incidentally, with respect to lead, it might be interesting to read up on the fight to get tetraethyl lead removed from gasoline, which required taking on standard oil, dupont, and GM. one of the highlights of the debate included a leading lead proponent washing his hands in the stuff in front of cameras to "prove" that it wasn't dangerous. "see! nothing happens!"
lots of junk science to go around.
remember, it was only thirty-ish years ago that we started phasing lead out, and that lead was only banned for highway vehicles in this country in 1996. indeed, it is still being used in gasoline in most of the world, africa being the worst, but malaysia and indonesia are also not good.
there's probably better out there, but this is a piece i recall reading a couple of years ago:
http://past.thenation.com/cgi-bin/framizer.cgi?url=http://past.thenation.com /issue/000320/0320kitman.shtml
if you want numbers on the above, i'll pass along the links i've got.
cheers,
jeff