06/11/2017 / By Lance D Johnson
While the mainstream media and the global elites sensationalize climate change and the impending doom caused by mankind’s “carbon footprint,” there are more serious pollution threats actually impacting human health. The element we should be more concerned about is lead.
It’s ignorant to think that an intergovernmental elite should confiscate the wealth of Nations to control levels of atmospheric gases such as carbon (which is a really a miracle molecule that makes up the basis of most all living things.)
Why aren’t we instead working together to rid the world of pollutants that take a physical and mental toll on our health? Lead contamination of soil, air and water is a serious problem, and its toxic pervasiveness today has been caused by human activity since the industrial age. Human activity such as mining and smelting have brought lead forward, into the soil, water, and air.
According to the World Health Organization, there is no safe level of lead exposure; lead exposure damages the kidneys, liver, bones, and brain. Scientists once believed that lead naturally occurred in the air, caused by earthly processes such as volcanic eruptions. However, scientists from Harvard University now provide geological evidence showing a time period in Earth’s history where lead was not present in the air. Lead has slowly become a problem since the beginning of the industrial age, when human activity began bringing this heavy metal to the forefront.
Author of the study, Alex More, climate scientist at Harvard University, told the Guardian, “We have basically been poisoning ourselves for about 2,000 years.” To make the determination, the researchers extracted an ice column from a glacier in the Swiss Alps and analyzed 43 meters of the ice core. The column of ice they studied began to form during a time period over 2,000 years ago, between 1349 and 1353 during the Black Death era. Bubbles of gas within the ice allow the scientists to analyze the composition of the air at that time in history. Using mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating, the researchers were able to analyze the air composition month to month, over 2,000 years ago to present.
Chris Loveluck, an archaeologist from the University of Nottingham, said that lead levels were practically non-existent before human mining and smelting activity in Europe. Due to the ice core’s precise geographic location in the middle of civilization, the researchers were able to determine that the lead contribution came from Europe. Even before the 19th century industrial revolution, lead pollution was correlated with human activity. “We have for the first time a lead reading of what it would look like without humans on this part of the planet,” he told the Guardian.
Comparing the data to other historical mining records, the researchers made a strong correlation between mining and smelting operations in Great Britain with the rise in atmospheric lead. The research paper, published in the journal GeoHealth, concluded that human mining and smelting activities are the reason why there is so much lead pollution on the European continent.
This is the kind of human activity and pollution that humans should be concerned about. Airborne lead and this heavy metal’s increasing presence in municipal water sources is direct threat to human brain function and overall health. Visit CWC labs to keep up with important lead testing results from municipal water samples across the U.S. and view the latest results in NaturalScienceJournal.org.
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Tagged Under: industrial revolution, Lead, mining, water