Not so one-sided, Fritz Haber [0] is another very interesting chemist. Got a Nobel prize for the process to synthesize ammonia (modern fertilizer production), but then also got side tracked with the 1st world war and became the father of chemical warfare
Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
21–30 of 154 posts
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#22Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas).
And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels.
https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#23The absolute terrible thing about leaded gasoline is that they were already aware of several other additives (including ethanol, IIRC) that have the desired anti-knocking properties. But they went with tetraethyl lead anyway because it is cheaper and provided a few cents more profit per gallon. A cent was worth more back then than it does now, but still :-(
I would also emphasize a more social issue to this. There's also a tendency for society to discount the dangers of something when the impact is sporadically distributed or long-term. Beyond the endless corporate lobbying and sold out scientists/politicians working to convince everybody that leaded fuel was 100% safe, I think there was also probably a mindset of many in society that 'Well, if leaded fuel is so poisono…
The Nation's story on it dives much deeper. There was an out and out panic about lead and leaded gasoline in the 1920s that GM and Ethyl/du Pont had to squash, which Midgely happily participated in. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lea...
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#24The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes Biggest ever? more than nuclear weapons? A bit of a stretch to say ever. I think this is disputable.
Nuclear weapons were not a mistake.
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#25Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas). And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels. https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...
This is what people really mean when they say "regulations are written in blood". If there isn't visible blood, we're usually happy to hurt people.
FAA refuses to act here. Regulations are written in blood. And no one is bleeding yet.
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#26The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes Biggest ever? more than nuclear weapons? A bit of a stretch to say ever. I think this is disputable.
Nuclear weapons were not a mistake.
Neither is leaded gasoline. As the FAA is eager to point out, it's not safe to do anything else.
Can you imagine? Most aviation would never have happened if this guy hadn't invented leaded gasoline.
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#27Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas). And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels. https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...
you picked a very bad news source. this reporting has been debunked. they failed to control for increased lead in environment. neighborhoods NOT under flight paths but in the same area also have higher lead levels. this is sponsored by land developers hoping to close KRHV
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#28Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas). And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels. https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...
you picked a very bad news source. this reporting has been debunked. they failed to control for increased lead in environment. neighborhoods NOT under flight paths but in the same area also have higher lead levels. this is sponsored by land developers hoping to close KRHV
It's not like it's a controversial topic. It's a well known, well studied, and well documented effect.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/1/pgac285/69797...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00456...
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AEAT-05-...
https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/60c74f2...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...
Avgas is unnecessarily putting more lead into the air. Any amount of lead in the air is bad.
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#29Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas). And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels. https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...
you picked a very bad news source. this reporting has been debunked. they failed to control for increased lead in environment. neighborhoods NOT under flight paths but in the same area also have higher lead levels. this is sponsored by land developers hoping to close KRHV
Do you have a citation for the debunking? The WA state legislature is trying to push through a bunch of unfunded mandates of dubious effectiveness on airports based on this study.
Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons
#30The absolute terrible thing about leaded gasoline is that they were already aware of several other additives (including ethanol, IIRC) that have the desired anti-knocking properties. But they went with tetraethyl lead anyway because it is cheaper and provided a few cents more profit per gallon. A cent was worth more back then than it does now, but still :-(
The most interesting to me is the correlation between the delinquency among children and teens, and the years of introduction of tetraethyl lead in gasoline for anti-knocking properties.
I read somewhere that Thomas Midgley Jr could be considered, in modern history, to be the organism with highest impactful on earth with his invention of Chlorofurocarbons and their impact on the ozone layers.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesi...