They actually can't if they wanted to. It would very quickly destroy modern fuel injection systems and completely clog catalytic converters. They'd almost instantly cripple most of the US by-
Wait, fuck. I gotta stop typing or else they'll think this is a good idea!!!
They’ll just keep rebuilding engines. They’ll use old cars. It’s not going to end cars. People are too dependent on cars. The earth (as we know it) is dead. Nothing will stop it.
On the up side, once humanity is wiped out of existence, the earth will eventually bounce back.
Not enough people are aware that the compound added to gasoline, tetraethyl lead (TEL), was understood to be potently toxic before it was used as a gasoline additive. Effective alternatives to TEL existed, but TEL had the advantage that its use could be patented. It could make some very rich companies even richer.
...in February 1923, a filling station sold the first tank of leaded gasoline. [TEL developer] Midgley wasn’t there: he was in bed with severe lead poisoning, writes History.com. The next year, there was serious backlash against leaded gasoline after five workers died from TEL exposure at the Standard Oil Refinery in New Jersey, writes Deborah Blum for Wired, but still, the gasoline went into general sale later that decade.
In March 1922, Pierre du Pont wrote to his brother Irénée du Pont, Du Pont company chairman, that TEL is “a colorless liquid of sweetish odor, very poisonous if absorbed through the skin, resulting in lead poisoning almost immediately.” This statement of early factual knowledge of TEL’s supreme deadliness is noteworthy, for it is knowledge that will be denied repeatedly by the principals in coming years as well as in the Ethyl Corporation’s authorized history, released almost sixty years later. Underscoring the deep and implicit coziness between GM and Du Pont at this time, Pierre informed Irénée about TEL before GM had even filed its patent application for it.
1923: GM partners with Standard Oil (now Exxon) and DuPont to form Ethyl Gasoline Corporation. They market the product as “Ethyl,” deliberately avoiding the word “lead” despite known toxicity.
I worked at a gas station at the time that leaded gasoline was discontinued. I was a teen.
I don't think I've ever seen so many angry rednecks, some nearly in tears from anger. When I'd ask what gas they wanted as a response to "fill er up" or "put in 10" or whatever...many would say they wanted leaded. And I'd have to point out that leaded was no longer a thing.
Well, if it was the first time they had been since the leaded gas pump was swapped out, they'd go apoplectic. If "PC" was a thing back then, or like now, "woke", they would have surely used that in their tirade. Typically they'd drop in something about the ozone layer, LOL.
The additives at the time didn't work well; and simply removing the lead would lead to premature detonation, destroying engines. It wasn't until the health effects were proven to be a big issue there was enough demand to change engine designs to be compatible with unleaded gas. That pressure was required as operating an additional set of incompatible fuel and engine types isn't easy.
We still haven't completely removed leaded gas from daily use. Namely small aircraft still use it for the same reasons cars used to use it.
“Leaded fuel bans successful based on hair analyses”
Straightforward, albeit somehow clunky.
“HTMA shows success in leaded fuel bans”
That does leave an acronym to be deciphered, so maybe not the best.
“Hair records leaded fuel ban effectiveness”
Almost as pithy, and creatively accurate. Because hair does act as something of a record of what happened to the body.
I think the entire speed bump of the original could have been removed by replacing “shows” with “demonstrates”. A longer word, yes, so less ideal in our brevity-obsessed media, but one that dramatically prunes away other possible misinterpretations. And replacing “lead in fuel” with “leaded fuel” would have definitely reduced clunkiness as well.
35 Comments
whereIsTamara@lemmy.org · 57 pts · 201d
Next week the US fascists will celebrate putting lead back into gas
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 34 pts · 201d
They actually can't if they wanted to. It would very quickly destroy modern fuel injection systems and completely clog catalytic converters. They'd almost instantly cripple most of the US by-
Wait, fuck. I gotta stop typing or else they'll think this is a good idea!!!
whereIsTamara@lemmy.org · 10 pts · 201d
I mean… destroying cars means you buy more cars. CAPITALISM.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 201d
Or it means less pollution if you also crash the economy so no one can afford more cars.
whereIsTamara@lemmy.org · 0 pts · 201d
Sadly, I don’t think that’s how it works.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 201d
I'm interested in hearing your logic behind this.
If all of the modern engines are bricked and people can't afford to buy new cars, then there will be less cars generating pollution.
whereIsTamara@lemmy.org · 0 pts · 201d
They’ll just keep rebuilding engines. They’ll use old cars. It’s not going to end cars. People are too dependent on cars. The earth (as we know it) is dead. Nothing will stop it.
On the up side, once humanity is wiped out of existence, the earth will eventually bounce back.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 201d
We crushed all the non collectable old cars after the 2007 cash for clunkers scam.
WesternInfidels@feddit.online · 39 pts · 201d
Not enough people are aware that the compound added to gasoline, tetraethyl lead (TEL), was understood to be potently toxic before it was used as a gasoline additive. Effective alternatives to TEL existed, but TEL had the advantage that its use could be patented. It could make some very rich companies even richer.
Short article from Smithsonian Magazine, 2016: Leaded Gas Was a Known Poison the Day It Was Invented
Long, long article from The Nation, 2000, by way of archive.org: The Secret History of Lead
A concise history in timeline format: The Rise and Fall of Leaded Gasoline: An Absurd and True Timeline
kek@discuss.tchncs.de · 14 pts · 201d
What the hell is wrong with Du Pont. Horrible track record
Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 201d
They forgot airplanes tho
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 30 pts · 201d
Don't tell the GOP, they'll insist on extra-leaded gas for all of us.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 200d
I worked at a gas station at the time that leaded gasoline was discontinued. I was a teen.
I don't think I've ever seen so many angry rednecks, some nearly in tears from anger. When I'd ask what gas they wanted as a response to "fill er up" or "put in 10" or whatever...many would say they wanted leaded. And I'd have to point out that leaded was no longer a thing.
Well, if it was the first time they had been since the leaded gas pump was swapped out, they'd go apoplectic. If "PC" was a thing back then, or like now, "woke", they would have surely used that in their tirade. Typically they'd drop in something about the ozone layer, LOL.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 201d
Of course it worked, where did they think the lead was coming from?
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 201d
They knew where it was coming from, they just wanted MORE MONEY from cheap additives to the already catastrophically destructive oil profits.
Stripping regulations like these is a core tenet of fascism. I mean republicans. Like, Reagan-deep.
RamRabbit@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 201d
The additives at the time didn't work well; and simply removing the lead would lead to premature detonation, destroying engines. It wasn't until the health effects were proven to be a big issue there was enough demand to change engine designs to be compatible with unleaded gas. That pressure was required as operating an additional set of incompatible fuel and engine types isn't easy.
We still haven't completely removed leaded gas from daily use. Namely small aircraft still use it for the same reasons cars used to use it.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 201d
Biodeisel was around, but it wasn’t sexy. Wouldn’t sell.
RamRabbit@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 201d
We do that with gasoline in the US. 10% of gas is corn ethanol.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 201d
It's "up to 10%". Who knows what the actual number is.
RamRabbit@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 201d
It's 10%.
The Renewable Fuel Standard, createdy by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates an increasing quantity of ethanol be produced and mixed into gasoline. That is now at 36 billion gallons of ethanol as of 2022.
However, it is capped at 10% to ensure engines can safely use it. So, with the US annual consumption of gasoline at 137 billion gallons, we hit the 10% cap and put 13 billion gallons of ethanol into gasoline.
It's 10%.
village604@adultswim.fan · 0 pts · 201d
The very first paragraph in your last link straight up says the actual amount varies.
yucandu@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 201d
From hair!
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 201d
Lead-headed boomers and gen-x'ers still fucking it up for the rest of us.
13igTyme@piefed.social · 5 pts · 201d
This just in: Banning something reduces the volume of it.
village604@adultswim.fan · 5 pts · 201d
The war on drugs would like a word with you.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 200d
Forcing unleaded gas on the American people was so woke.
rekabis@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 201d
Shows about hair are now banning lead?
Like, what kind of shows? Hairstyling shows?
What a strangely phrased title.
Professorozone@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 201d
WTH? Why were you downvoted for that? The Web is such a strange place. Like you, I didn't understand the title.
rekabis@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 200d
Re-phrasing it:
“Leaded fuel bans successful based on hair analyses”
Straightforward, albeit somehow clunky.
“HTMA shows success in leaded fuel bans”
That does leave an acronym to be deciphered, so maybe not the best.
“Hair records leaded fuel ban effectiveness”
Almost as pithy, and creatively accurate. Because hair does act as something of a record of what happened to the body.
I think the entire speed bump of the original could have been removed by replacing “shows” with “demonstrates”. A longer word, yes, so less ideal in our brevity-obsessed media, but one that dramatically prunes away other possible misinterpretations. And replacing “lead in fuel” with “leaded fuel” would have definitely reduced clunkiness as well.
Professorozone@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 200d
Ah, thanks. Nice clarification.
grimpy@lemmy.myserv.one · 2 pts · 201d
good ole GOP, “Let’s lead with lead!”