A Scientist Who Unknowingly Helped Climate Change, Killed Millions & Himself

Scientists work to find solutions to problems that humanity faces, and the world would be a vastly different and much tougher place to live, if it wasn’t for their curiosity. But like the proverbial cat that died from curiosity, sometimes scientists do the same thing, however when their curiosity unknowingly kills millions of others, it is a tragedy.

3 Lethal Inventions

It was a single scientist who created three inventions that would lead to the death of millions of people and also decrease the average intelligence of millions more.

The impact did not end there. These inventions increased crime rates and caused two separate environmental disasters that we are still fighting today.

A chemist (Clair Patterson) worked on a project called ‘The Manhattan Project.’ Now Clair was not the scientist who created the catastrophic results I am speaking about, but he helped to diagnose the problem.

Patterson worked on the decay of Uranium into lead as part of the Manhattan Project, so although his work was on nuclear weapons, which in themselves are destructive, what his work did was highlight lead concentrations in rocks.

Patterson found that lead concentrations were too high for what he would expect, so he questioned where was this lead coming from?

Patterson took to the oceans, and he noticed that lead near the surface of the oceans was in much higher concentrations than lead concentrations deeper in the ocean, so he concluded that lead was not being naturally released into the environment. He concluded that the lead concentrations were more recent. He also checked the ice cores, going back thousands of years, and noted that lead levels were much higher now than throughout history.

Other studies that Patterson undertook, was looking at fossil evidence of mummified fossils from Peru and Egypt, from 1600 years prior, and compared the lead concentrations of recently deceased people in the 20th century in the USA.

Patterson found that US citizens had 1,000 times the concentrations versus the mummies from 1600 years prior, when he analysed their bones and teeth and compared them.

Lethal Invention 1

Engine knocking in the Model 30 Cadillac in the 1930s, was a problem, but Midgley, a chemical engineer hired by Charles Kettering to solve the problem, found he could neutralise the knocking in the engine, through fuel mixture changes. They found lead was the solution.

In discovering this, Midgley had unknowingly just increased the death and decline of society. And created a myriad of other problems with his solution.

The correlation between lead fuels being used, the decline in IQ’s of the average person and the increase in crime rates were happening worldwide.

Globally, they believed lead was responsible for 66% of all unexplained intellectual disability.

A study in 2022 shows that more than half (about 170 million US citizens, born between 1950 and 1981), were exposed to lead in their early life.

The authors of the study believe that in aggregate, lead caused the loss of 800 million IQ points.

The world has a lower intellectual ability and power today because of lead in gasoline or leaded petrol.

There is no safe level for lead in your blood. The USA also saw a steady rise in crime from the 1970s to the 1990s, then crime declined rapidly. They linked the correlation to the babies born between the 1950s and 1980s. They observed this same pattern in other countries too, like Britain, Canada and Australia.

The question was whether the increased lead in the blood caused increase crime rates. We cannot attribute all crime to lead levels in the blood, but there is a correlation between antisocial and violent behaviour and lead levels in the bones.

A study on teenagers arrested for crimes showed they were four times as likely to have elevated lead in their bones, versus control groups who didn’t commit crimes.

It does not mean that lead increased all crime levels, but it is likely that some of the crime rate increases were linked to lead.

It is difficult to get to an exact number of the death toll of lead, but one effect of lead is hardening of the arteries and heart disease.

There was a study done in 2018, which showed that 250,000 heart disease deaths per year were likely caused by lead in the USA. Extrapolate that over 100 years and that gives us 25 million deaths in the USA.

If we look globally, the number could be closer to 100million or greater. Most of those deaths are because Midgley put lead into gasoline, which he knew was poisonous. He did it to increase earnings.

Currently, estimated death rates for lead are around 500,000 to 900,000 per year.

There are also about 800 million children worldwide with lead levels that are detrimental because of batteries, and leaded gasoline.

Lethal Invention 2

Midgley then received another project, that of refrigeration, and he solved that one with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which, as we know, depletes the Ozone layer. The incidence of skin cancers worldwide sped up. CFCs are also one of the most powerful greenhouse gases.

Midgley had more impact on the planet than any other person or organism in the history of the Earth, according to historian John Mc Neil.

The ozone layer now is showing signs of recovery after the banning of CFC’s.

Lethal Invention 3

Midgley suffered from polio, he was 51, and he became physically disabled, so being the inventor and man of solutions that he was, he designed a bed with ropes and pulleys to help him get up.

This was his last achievement, and this one killed him as he became entangled in the ropes of his mechanical bed system, and he died in November 1944. His system had strangled him.

Thanks to Clair Patterson for his discovery that lead was a pollutant and not naturally occurring.

Midgley unknowingly caused death and destruction by using lead in gasoline, then CFC’s in refrigeration and then unfortuntately killed himself with his own mechanical contraption.