Thursday, January 3, 2013

Environmental Regulations, Crime and Lead

Yesterday I ran into an old associate in geology. We did a rapid catch up on what we were up to and then got to talking about lead testing. I have on occasion worked on lead contamination in soils. My business partner Kim has done some recent lead testing work. Environmental regulations impact our landscape and our life. They also very well might reduce crime. Saving pain and suffering and tax dollars.

"Experts often suggest that crime resembles an epidemic. But what kind? Karl Smith, a professor of public economics and government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has a good rule of thumb for categorizing epidemics: If it spreads along lines of communication, he says, the cause is information. Think Bieber Fever. If it travels along major transportation routes, the cause is microbial. Think influenza. If it spreads out like a fan, the cause is an insect. Think malaria. But if it's everywhere, all at once—as both the rise of crime in the '60s and '70s and the fall of crime in the '90s seemed to be—the cause is a molecule."

A very interesting read motherjones: lead-crime-link-gasoline.
 

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