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permaculture - Fwd: [permaculture] Lead, 'lead' and trees

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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Fwd: [permaculture] Lead, 'lead' and trees
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 09:02:41 EDT


--- Begin Message ---
  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: john@eco-living.net
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Lead, 'lead' and trees
  • Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 11:14:33 EDT
In a message dated 6/16/2003 5:49:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, john@eco-living.net writes:
>I read somewhere (which puts this information in the class of hearsay
>about a hypothesis--yikes) that because leaded gasoline was used for so
>many years, significant quantities of lead were put into the air and
>soil. Long-lived plants and animals have picked up this lead and now
>hold it in their tissues...


For those of us who lived through the seventies, those significant quantities of lead (these rumors are all true) also cycled through our lungs. Any fossil lead from that period you can find-- in the air, in the soil-- is bound to be considerably less bioactive now than what we used to consider just normal life on earth. I survived it.

It's something to think about, but we have bigger problems on our plate. Old lead is a minor one.

Have you ever studied Risk Hazard Assessment? It assigns mathematical probabilities to risks, and is very useful in evaluating the modern world. For instance terrorism killed 3,000 people in September, 2001 and, in the US at least, no one since then. In that same period of time, 21 months, misadventure by gunfire (homicide, suicide and accidents) has killed approx 54,000 of us. Anthrax has killed five of us. Smallpox has killed none of us. And the common flu has killed 70,000 of us. Which ones of these are the more serious hazards?

M. Elvin


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