That is just one article. It certainly provides a good model for follow up discussions, but take the absolute values with a grain of salt. For starters, they didn't actually measure the impact, they developed a model. It may be accurate, or it may be wildly off. Specially because it uses a bunch of other models.
There are other issues. For example, they say that for children, the main exposure is through ingestion. How exactly are they ingesting the lead particulates? Unclear. They do say it's difficult to determine and they try to account for that (they spend several paragraphs discussing this).
They also say that the contributions from planes in flight (as opposed to takeoff/landing) may be indistinguishable from background concentrations or lower than monitor resolution detection limits(!!!). So more modelling is used.
> Research suggests that forest fires and lead re-emissions from soil are increasingly important sources of lead to the atmosphere.58,59 These sources, like aviation, were an insignificant source of airborne lead during the peak of leaded gasoline, but now may be a principal source of emissions in certain regions. Further, leaded paint and paint dust is expected to be the largest contributor to childhood lead exposure, with exposure risk being spatially and demographically heterogeneous.
Lead paint is STILL the largest contributor.
We need to get rid of lead as much as we can, true. But to go so far as say "blood of poor people" it's a step too much. Specially based on a single paper full of "models" (aka educated guesses).
You have demonstrated the truth of my statement that there is room to argue with the assumptions of the scientific model.
But IF the model is correct, the impacts are severe. Doubly so if the upper range is correct. And so we have the ethical question of how we should progress in the event of uncertainty.
On this question some hold the perfectly defensible position is that, when faced with such uncertainty, we should assume the worst until we have more information. That a person who is aware of the potential for harm and fails to act merely because they are not certain of it deserves the full blame for the harm that they are aware might have happened.
For someone who takes this position, "blood of poor people" is definitely not a step too far.
Note: I am very carefully not saying that this is a correct or universally accepted position. I'm merely saying that this is a position that some hold for reasonable reasons, and can be defended.
even without the lead, the CO2 impact of general aviation is pretty high. General Aviation is a rich-mans activity which the rest of society bears the brunt of. If you want to fly a plan for fun great, go to the countryside and do it and payoff the land-owners for the nuisance
The CO2 impact of GA doesn't even rise to the level of "in the noise" compared to that of cars. This doesn't make it good, but it does make the problem low priority.
There's a social justice angle on that - cars are an essential tool for almost everyone to live in the US, while GA is an impractical rich person's hobby. Keeping GA convenient at the expense of the environment and public health should also be low priority.
There are other issues. For example, they say that for children, the main exposure is through ingestion. How exactly are they ingesting the lead particulates? Unclear. They do say it's difficult to determine and they try to account for that (they spend several paragraphs discussing this).
They also say that the contributions from planes in flight (as opposed to takeoff/landing) may be indistinguishable from background concentrations or lower than monitor resolution detection limits(!!!). So more modelling is used.
> Research suggests that forest fires and lead re-emissions from soil are increasingly important sources of lead to the atmosphere.58,59 These sources, like aviation, were an insignificant source of airborne lead during the peak of leaded gasoline, but now may be a principal source of emissions in certain regions. Further, leaded paint and paint dust is expected to be the largest contributor to childhood lead exposure, with exposure risk being spatially and demographically heterogeneous.
Lead paint is STILL the largest contributor.
We need to get rid of lead as much as we can, true. But to go so far as say "blood of poor people" it's a step too much. Specially based on a single paper full of "models" (aka educated guesses).