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Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

nytimes.com

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Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#71

Post by eternityforest »

Weneedlead wrote: post #53
versteegen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/ says > There is no such level of lead that appears to be necessary or beneficial to the body and no “safe” level of exposure to lead has been found. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poison... says > There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects. > The body stores lead in the teeth and bones…

It's a lie. The effects are always beneficial except in extreme doses. No dose that makes no difference is exactly what you would expect from a nutrient. Lead activates the proteins it supoosedly poisons: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12425341_Inorganic_... Yes, teeth and bones use most of the lead that you consume. But why is there lead in the teeth of neandethals? https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroo…

Where's the evidence that those proteins need "activating"? The body has plenty of functions that are best left on their default settings or minimized.

For that matter, activating and poisoning aren't even mutually exclusive, you can run an engine too fast and burn it, work out till you get rhabdo and your P looks like T, etc.

To show it's healthy you'd need studies showing better health of exposed people, or at least some theoretical reason you'd want lead to make it even plausible.

The neanderthals probably ate stuff from lead rich soil or something, that doesn't prove it wasn't harmful. Lots of stuff is just mildly bad, it kills some people, sickens others, but not enough to affect population growth so Darwin continues not caring while people die and suffer.

Maybe they had some lead containing tools or medicines or something, of the sort we can avoid now because of safety standards.

Our ancestors were exposed to lots of unhealthy stuff, including battle axes, most of us would prefer to minimize it to below that level, and continually improve things.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#72

Post by kergonath »

Ekaros wrote: post #35
nradov wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear weapons were not a mistake.

Mistake was anti-proliferation. If every country had nukes wold would be much more peaceful place. Would Iraq or Afganistan got involved if they had capability to deliver nuke to fight enemy combatants in NYC or DC?

> If every country had nukes wold would be much more peaceful place.

It does not work. Countries would still fight conventional wars, because not everything is worth escalating. Even in your example. They are being invaded and are at risk of losing their country (well, they were at some point anyway). Do you reckon they’d throw a nuke at the US and so be absolutely certain to lose everything they have rather than fight a conventional war and having a chance at taking their country back?

On the other hand, proliferation has real risks in terms of radionuclides ending up in things like terrorist groups.

Overall, it makes as much sense as the “if teachers had guns schools would be safer” talking points.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#73

Post by twarge »

prennert wrote: post #45

This Cautionary Tales podcast episode talks about him [0]. Both were invented in the service of DuPont. CFC at least helped making refrigeration safer and helped getting it to the masses. Leaded gasoline on the other hand was always known as a bad idea. In both cases though, DuPont fought back hard to prevent bans of these solutions. They rather kill the planet than their profits. Suitably enough he killed himself wi…

Propane is a shockingly better refrigerant. Sure, it's flammable, but is it really unsafe? It's widely used in commercial units.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#74

Post by crote »

lysozyme wrote: post #67

There’s a line of thought that connects the use of leaded gasoline with US crime rates. [1] The idea is that exposure to lead causes people to have problems that lead to violent behavior later in life. The evidence presented includes the correlation observed between the removal of lead from gasoline and a sharp fall in crime rates 20 years later. 1. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

A similar link has been suggested for abortion. The drop in crime rate starting in 1993 happened pretty much exactly 20 years after Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. It is called the "Donohue–Levitt hypothesis".

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#75

Post by eternityforest »

awestroke wrote: post #40

If you had a time machine, would you go back in time to kill Hitler or this guy?

Some people think WW2 would have happened anyway.

He was horrible... but the fact anyone actually listened to him is what really creeps me out.

One evil man I can understand, you ignore him or put him in jail if he does a crime, it doesn't keep people up at night the same way, although it's disgusting.

That same tendency just kind of lurking dormant in millions, means even democracy might not stop it.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#76

Post by Ekaros »

kergonath wrote: post #72
Ekaros wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mistake was anti-proliferation. If every country had nukes wold would be much more peaceful place. Would Iraq or Afganistan got involved if they had capability to deliver nuke to fight enemy combatants in NYC or DC?

> If every country had nukes wold would be much more peaceful place. It does not work. Countries would still fight conventional wars, because not everything is worth escalating. Even in your example. They are being invaded and are at risk of losing their country (well, they were at some point anyway). Do you reckon they’d throw a nuke at the US and so be absolutely certain to lose everything they have rather than fig…

Question is would USA risk direct conflict with a country if they could actually suffer some actual losses of combatants on their own soil? They might, but I think it would substantially lower the risk.

Same applies to most current conflicts.

And about non traditional fights, maybe there would be less of those as big countries would be more careful about their actions.

Also I believe that if every school kid had a gun there would be lot less bullying. As they would be able to instantly produce credible self-defence when the society entirely fails to protect them. And they would be fully in moral right to answer with reasonable force to such actions.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#77

Post by crote »

Weneedlead wrote: post #47
olliej wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also knew it was toxic, but deliberately put on displays claiming that it wasn’t, even midgley would pour it over his hands despite knowing the danger and intentionally avoiding it in all other cases. They also used medical testing to mislead: showing people could consume it and lead wouldn’t be detected in their urine. Apparently that showed it was safe, and no one said “then where did the lead go?”. Happily he…

[flagged]

Your body will also hold on to DDT, nicotine, or even radioactive iodine. The only thing that shows is that it is quite bad at getting rid of harmful substances.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#78

Post by jabl »

renewiltord wrote: post #26
nradov wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Most aviation would never have happened if this guy hadn't invented leaded gasoline.

Duh, of course it would. Aviation gasoline would have used other methods of increasing octane, and/or then we'd have made do with slightly lower octane avgas. And engines would have been designed accordingly.

The only reason why getting rid of leaded avgas has been a 40 year saga is that they have been chasing the dream of a 1:1 replacement that would require no changes to 100% of existing aircraft. Now it seems they finally have such a fuel in G100UL, we'll see if and how quickly usage of it expands to replace leaded avgas.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#79

Post by scns »

whatshisface wrote: post #12
DamnInteresting wrote: post #10

I wrote about this fellow back in 2007[1]. In 1935 he was asked to make predictions about what chemistry/science will accomplish by 2035. Some are pretty wild, but others are spot-on, such as: • Interplanetary travel, involving the production of a substance that will produce more energy per pound than is required to lift that pound out of the Earth’s gravitational field. • The end of visiting; people will stay at hom…

That substance: ordinary methane.

Hkw bout hydrogen
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