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Leaded Gas, CFCs, and the Dark Side of Progress (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: Leaded Gas did a great job of keeping engines from knocking thanks to tetra-ethyl lead. Unfortunately the fumes from the chemical are highly poisonous. R-12 is a refrigerant that revolutionized the cold storage of vaccines. It turned out to be the first of the chlorofluorocarbons which are well known (and now banned) for damaging the environment. Both are the creations of one inventor: Thomas Migley, Jr. Two deadly inventions seem like more than enough for one person, but his story ends with a third. Stricken with Polio, he invented a system to help him get in and out of bed on his own. A tragic accident ended his life when he was caught and strangled by the system he created.
So there is justice!
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
The summary covers all of the main points of the article, so you won't need to read TFA.
Isn't the summary just what Vsauce put in one of his videos?
Wikipedia has the most interesting quote about him in his article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
' J. R. McNeill, an environmental historian, opines that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history." '
Anyway, it's always been a bit of an unfair slam. Leaded gasoline only became an issue when the car number went from the 7.5 million that were around when TEL was being made, to the over 100 million that were around the time that leaded ramped down in the mid 70s. The miles driven per person were also way lower back then- because most people had to get around without a car, everything was set up for that. If you had it to do all over again, you'd probably STILL use leaded gasoline until about 1955 or so. However, at least everyone knew lead was bad for you back then- not so with Freon's very hard to verify environmental impact, which wasn't understood for a lot longer.
Read the article, author didn't know difference between "effect" and "affect"
Perhaps this is why he seems to forgive Midgley for being "creative"
Small airports next to elementary schools are probably creating future violent criminals.
This article sparked the memory of wondering why we had to pay more for unleaded gas... Apparently it was expensive to remove the naturally occurring lead from the refined gasoline.
Oh, wait . . .
World's first artificial sexbot, indistinguishable from the real thing, makes female humans obsolete.
The evidence is now very strong that leaded gasoline was responsible for much past violent crime. http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
to the improvement of life for millions of people? Tetraethyl lead is a small speedbump on the road to a bright future of advanced chemistry. The global car industry is a marvel. The tree huggers need to bugger off. What Henry Ford said one hundred years ago ring s truer than ever today.
"I will build a motor car for the great multitude...constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise...so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."
Henry Ford.
You should remember that Thomas Migley was foremost a scientist, and quite representative of the hubris and single-mindedness of scientists. When he advocated for the safety of leaded gasoline, he wasn't lying for financial gain, he was doing so because he believed it. The scientists protecting you from ozone holes or lead or snake oil are indistinguishable from the scientists that create the ozone holes or leaded gasoline in the first place, or the scientists that create better cancer treatments; it's only in hindsight that you know who was right.
So, when scientists tell you how to live your life or tell you that the science is settled and you should just do what they tell you, just remember how this guy died: A tragic accident ended his life when he was caught and strangled by the system he created.
This story is about a dumb, fucktarded cracker that invented poisons even when there were better alternatives. This cracker single-handedly destroyed the global environment through his week-gened based ignorance. Had it have been minorities that had made the inventions we would have renewable energy and global warming wouldn't be an issue. But since slashdot is ran by crackers then this post will get modded down cuz crackers don't want the truth heard or read, and that truth is crtackers are stupid and don't want to give up their privilege.
Every modern app apper knows that the best way to get around town or keep your perishable food chilled is with appy apps. Only LUDDITES use gasoline or freon!
Apps!
fucking polio did.
...he was indeed lying for financial gain, because he was suffering from lead poison and was quite aware of it. What he honestly believed is impossible for us to know, but if honestly believed lead was harmless he was deliberately ignoring evidence to the contrary. The fact that some scientists mislead others (and perhaps themselves) out of love for money or their pet theories, doesn't mean all scientists behave the same way.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
(and no banned)
Do some bloody editing, someone, please.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Here's another article about the guy:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/
Lets imply that inventors who invent things that are bad for the environment were somehow defective and deserved their fates.
I wouldn't exactly call it justice when the organism arguably responsible for the most environmental damage ever seen on the planet died because he screwed up and accidentally strangled himself.
Although not a planetary damage thing, I think Cal Air Resources Board Chair Jananne Sharpless (and Gov Pete Wilson that appointed her) was in the pocket of ARCO when she railroaded the mandatory addition of MTBE into the California gasoline blend, recklessly polluting ground water reserves in California for the next few decades.
In the subsequent barrage of anti-trust suits from other oil companies (texaco, unical, chevron) that followed this regulation, ARCO admitted in sworn testimony “CARB adopted reformulated gasoline specifications for all gasoline sold in California after March 1, 1996 that are equivalent to the EC-X formula.” Also, in the days after these decisions, in advertisements published in major California newspapers, ARCO claimed credit for the enactment of the regulations and it admitted that it cleared the ad copy with CARB’s executive officers in advance.
Of course now MTBE is banned from California gasoline, but it certainly shows how often scientists aren't the worst offenders, it's the politicians that enable them.
This exact fact was discussed in one of the BBC QI episodes. Either the QI elves mine such facts from Wikipedia or the author of this post is a QI fan or both!! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gZAnnvSOEmw
So, How is this news for nerdz??
It's naught discussing any tech advances, nor did this event happen recently..
Moving past all of that crap, yes if I were a chemist, alchemist, metalurgist, or (stretch) a mechanic then yes I could see how this would fit..
No wonder this cluster F*ck is up for sale again..
An early warning in 1904 from an Australian doctor about the hazard to children from lead in paint and the need for regulation was greeted with derision by both medical professionals and those with commercial interests in lead compounds. By the 1920s, the Australian Medical Congress passed a resolution seeking a ban on lead in paint.
The regulation of lead in paint did not begin in North America until 50 years later.
Also in the 1920s, warnings about the public health consequences of allowing lead in gasoline were largely dismissed. Again, it was not until nearly 50 years later, when worldwide automotive lead pollution had reached 350,000 tons/year, that regulating the level of lead in gasoline was
contemplated. In North America, it was to be a twenty year battle that was not decided in favour of banning lead in gasoline until scientists were able to clearly show that millions of children were already affected
R-12 is a refrigerant that revolutionized the cold storage of vaccines
That barely scratches the surface of the thing.
Charles Kettering, vice president of General Motors Research Corporation, was seeking a refrigerant replacement that would be colorless, odorless, tasteless, nontoxic, and nonflammable.
Dichlorodifluoromethane
The refrigerant of choice for the 19th century ice machine was ammonia, which has the drawbacks of being highly toxic, corrosive, and difficult to compress. The net result is that the ice machines were massive (as big as a typical kitchen), steam powered (the best source of energy in the 19th century for large equipment. needing constant boiler attendance), required a lot of maintenance and were the source of industrial accidents.
Sulfur dioxide is compressed readily and has a good latent heat of 25 kJ/mol. Chemists and physicists were able to put a kitchen sized version of the refrigerator on the market after World War One. Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide isn't the most pleasant refrigerant: Early refrigerators leaked and if they didn't, sulfur dioxide is corrosive, so they soon would.
Dichlorodifluoromethane
The first refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator introduced in 1927, so-called because of its resemblance to the gun turret on the ironclad warship USS Monitor of the 1860s.
As the refrigerating medium, these refrigerators used either sulfur dioxide, which is corrosive to the eyes and may cause loss of vision, painful skin burns and lesions, or methyl formate, which is highly flammable, harmful to the eyes, and toxic if inhaled or ingested.
Refrigerator
"Refrigerator Day is the Dinosaurs analogue to Christmas and the titular celebration...Refrigerator Day, or Fridge Day for short, celebrates the development of the greatest boon to modern dinosaur, the refrigerator. Thanks to the development of this magical cold box, dinosaurs could store food and no longer had to continually roam, and thus were able to settle down and start families. Fridge Day is traditionally marked with gift-giving, a pageant recalling the first Refrigerator Day, festive decorations, a Fridge Day bonus, and jolly Refrigerator Day carols. Muppet Wiki - Refrigerator Day
Henson was on to something here.
I don't think the geek has any clear picture of what life was like before modern refrigeration and air conditioning.
The ideal refrigerant would have favorable thermodynamic properties, be noncorrosive to mechanical components, and be safe, including free from toxicity and flammability. It would not cause ozone depletion or climate change.
Refrigerant
That ideal refrigerant doesn't exist in 2015 ---
but if you look honestly at the problem from the point of view of someone living in 1935, Freon comes pretty damn close.
because people working in the factories kept getting sick and started acting crazy? Kinda like how they found out nitrates are carcinogenic: a farmer's cows kept dying of liver cancer and they traced it back to massive amounts of canned herring he was feeding them because he got it cheap from a factory after it couldn't be sold.
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and cancers, asthmas and other diseases it causes. How about our wars for oil fought to support the car industry (which couldn't exist without cheap gas) and the horrors wrought to support it. How about the death of public transportation and the stress and misery caused when those masses are forced to struggle to obtain costly transportation better suited for an idle rich? How about fuck you Henry Ford. You were an asshole and I want my clean air and cheap transportation back.
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Everyone knows that mercury is poisonous. Pregnant women are told to avoid larger fish because of the higher mercury concentrations (from eating smaller fish). People freak out when they break a CFC (which contains less mercury than a can of tuna) and spend inordinates amount of money to clean it up.
But then when people to go to the dentist with cavities, what do they do? Fill them with a gold and silver amalgam dissolved in MERCURY. They tell you that it all evaporates away quickly, but it doesn’t. Years later, people end up with measurable quantities of mercury in hair samples, compromised immune systems, and arthritis.
This finally went to court in 2014, the FDA is starting to change how it classifies mercury. So bascally, dentists have been poisoning us for as long as there have been amalgam fillings.
I knew a man like this - a boss of mine at a summer job - who was oblivious to safety concerns whether that meant ancient gas stoves he cavalierly over-rode the safety valves on, canoes, or anything else (he was an avid tinkerer and jerry-rigger, but in his case not truly inventive.) He was more than a bit of a bully in everything, and felt certain he could bully nature, too. I left that summer job glad to still have my skin (after one very close call in one of his boats.) Just a couple years later I read that he had managed to kill both himself and his grown daughter on a ski slope, going where he was clearly warned he shouldn't go (but he knew better.) Believe me, when I read that news story, I didn't say "Gosh, that was a freak accident."
Nature bullied back, in the end.
As for myself, my inventions and clever thoughts have only killed one person, that I know of. (It was years before - looking back - I realized what had caused his death: the incident above happened in between.) One can't always avoid unintended consequences, but one can have more forethought than Midgley, I or my late boss did! Please do. Software kills, too, in many ways - the recent change to Facebook's notification algorithm broke many medical support groups on FB, making it much harder for people to get help quickly or reliably, and hasn't been fixed.