One man poisoned the entire planet. Twice.

Thomas Midgley Jr. An American chemical engineer. Science historian John McNeill called him "the single organism who has had the greatest impact on the Earth's atmosphere of any who has ever lived."

In 1921, Midgley discovered that adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline eliminated engine knock. Cars ran more quietly and powerfully. General Motors began mass production.

Midgley knew that lead was toxic. At a press presentation in 1924, he demonstratively washed his hands in tetraethyl lead and inhaled its vapors for 60 seconds—to show that it was safe. A year later, he took several months off to be treated for severe lead poisoning.

Workers at the plants were dying. It was called "gasoline madness"—hallucinations, convulsions, death. The company hid the statistics.

Leaded gasoline was used for 60 years. From the 1920s to the 1980s, the whole world breathed lead from exhaust fumes. Scientists link this to a decline in average IQ, rising crime, and neurological problems in an entire generation.

But Midgley did not stop there.

In 1930, he invented chlorofluorocarbons—freons. A safe refrigerant for refrigerators instead of toxic ammonia. A revolution in the food industry. He was not given the Nobel Prize, but he might have been.

Forty years after his death, it was discovered that freons destroy the ozone layer. The hole over Antarctica. Rising skin cancer rates. The 1987 Montreal Protocol banned them worldwide.

Two of one man's greatest inventions—and both poisoned the planet for decades.

And here is the irony that makes you uneasy.

At 51, Midgley contracted polio and lost the ability to walk. He designed a system of cables and pulleys so he could get out of bed by himself. In 1944, he became entangled in this system and strangled himself.

Killed by his own invention. For the third time.

I don't know of another person whose biography so perfectly illustrated the phrase: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The exact image of modern civilization. /from the internet/