Do I hear my name being called?
I've gotta wonder what @kdrum thinks about the lead pipe thing... https://t.co/lTFFTiJr9i
— Jason AKA The Dove of Oneness (@j_consolidation) March 31, 2021
In real-world politics you take what you can get. Flint has put lead pipes in the news, so it's a good time to promote a plan to replace them all over the country.
In an ideal world, however, I'd spend the money on soil remediation, which is a bigger problem on the lead front. The truth is that most lead pipes are safe these days as long as you don't destroy the passivation layer that's been built up over the years by properly treated water. Poorly treated water in Flint destroyed that layer, and that's why lead leached into the drinking water.
Of course, in a super ideal world I'd replace the pipes and do soil remediation. A guy can dream, can't he?
The people who have actually reduced crime and keeping us safe are environmentalists. The group that is actually pro-life in the sense that their actions have saved the most lives are also the environmentalists. It is revealing how they are the ones praising themselves the least over these two things. Speak softly and carry a big stick, unless you lack a stick and need to cover that up with shouts.
A true environmental group want to reduce the world's population and heal the planet. Pro-life can mean many things that don't require saving individual lives.
ZPG has been around for a long time. China's one child per family policy was a serious population control measure that seems to have produced results; China's population growth didn't stop, but it slowed down a lot. India has promoted birth control for decades, with greater or lesser vigor depending on the party in power, which again has slowed its population growth rate but not stopped it. There are a steadily increasing number of countries that have zero or negative population growth rates.
In other words, the population issue is being addressed, but meaningfully quick significant reduction in the world population of humans would call for slaughter on a scale the world has never seen before. That is not a viable option.
Taking a longer view, the evidence across many nations and cultures is that prosperity is accompanied by declining birth rates. So the moral best strategy is to foster economic development in the Third World. Obviously the First World is best positioned to contribute, and would benefit from more orderly migration.
It's not prosperity. It's educating females. That often goes together, but even otherwise non prosperous countries that educate females experience decreasing fertility. Single best thing you can do if you want less people.
Right, education, healthcare and economic prosperity typically results in reduced birth rates. That is the carrot way to reduce population growth and it appears to be even more successful compared to Chinas stick approach of forcing at gun point how many children people can have.
So, to “borrow” a phrase, water districts can localize the rate revenue and externalize the maintenance costs?
Or perhaps Nevins’ (Nevin’s?)
I've cooled considerably on lead determinism recently. The rise in murder and violent crime in general to a lesser extent tells me the situation is more complicated than you suggest.
Which means you haven't really paid attention to what Kevin has been saying. Years ago, he started saying that lead doesn't explain much, if anything, current fluctuations in crime. The main lead abatement was accomplished decades ago, and produced a massive one-off drop in crime rates. Crime will still go up and down, just from a lower baseline. Kevin was always very explicit that there are many more factors involved in crime rates than just lead exposure.
For it to grow this much I think the ammount attributed to lead is too much compared to various other things that used to be done.
And no, he was not always particularly explicit on this matter.
It's good to hear that this issue was included in the plan, it's a national problem that is localized in underserved communities. Please check out this look at lead contamination in Fruitvale, Oakland in a documentary created by students across the bay: http://bit.ly/FruitvaleLead
I agree with soil remediation. But we could get double benefits from replacing windows - less lead paint for little ones to ingest, less wasted energy.
On the crime front, we should also work on lessening untreated concussions. And gun availability.
Well, soil remediation is costly. Lead pipe replacement is pocket money by comparison. If we have a budget for soil remediation we can probably include the money for the pipes with no difference in political feasibility.