On February 3rd, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, spilling dangerous chemicals on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Responding crews carried out a controlled ignition of the chemicals to prevent further ground contamination, but this released the highly carcinogenic gas, vinyl chloride, into the atmosphere. Reports suggest that chronic underinvestment in the railway infrastructure and Trump-era deregulation of the chemical transportation industry were both significant contributory factors in the accident.
This is also not the first time that an incidental event on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has had devastating environmental consequences which captured the attention of the nation and the world at large. In nearby Beaver Falls, Thomas Midgley, Jr. was born, a man infamous for creating some of the deadliest environmental inventions in human history. His story, with its perils and corrective responses, serves as a cautionary tale for the East Palestine recovery.
Born on May 18, 1889, near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, Thomas Midgley, Jr. was a prolific scientist and inventor, securing over 100 patents throughout his career, two of which would earn him a reputation as one of the most dangerous men ever to live.
In his first disastrous invention, Midgley developed chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which were initially hailed for solving common problems within air conditioning and refrigeration systems—namely that they produced toxic gases, were flammable, and often prone to explosion. Inert and less susceptible to combustion, Midgley correctly deduced that CFCs would be less prone to eruption. What Midgley was unaware of was CFCs devastating effect on the earth’s Ozone Layer. Only in 1989 were regulations introduced at the Montreal Protocol to phase out and eventually ban their use, thereby saving humanity from self-inflicted extinction.
Unaware of the deadly extent of his work with CFCs, Midgley soon went one better, and invented leaded gasoline to solve the problem of “engine knock,” a bothersome “knocking” that damaged a car’s engine. Leaded gasoline is one of the most poisonous substances to ever have been released into the atmosphere, creating an incalculable effect on the health and quality of life of billions of people worldwide. Studies have indicated that leaded gasoline lowered global IQ by 2.6 points per person. Midgley could have used ethyl alcohol, a cheaper and cleaner alternative which could be produced by farmers from grain. But by developing tetraethyl lead – leaded gasoline – Midgley pounced on an opportunity to patent a new product and monetize his new invention. Having suffered lead poisoning himself, Midgley was well aware of the risks, but in pursuit of profits, the production of an unregulated product proved too much of a draw for the hapless inventor.
The last of Midgley’s inventions was his most self-inflictedly perilous: a set of pulleys to allow him to move about his home unassisted after contracting polio. Midgley was discovered strangled to death by his own contraption, thus sparing the world of any more of his inventions.
Historians and critics are unequivocal in their evaluations of Midgley’s legacy. Fred Pearce, writing in the New Scientist characterized Midgley as a “one-man environmental disaster.” J.R. McNeill, an environmental historian, went further, labelling Midgley as having had a “more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history.”
As generations of people around the globe have suffered from the free-hand Midgley had to create a series of environmental disasters, we must come together and pass binding regulations to prevent further calamity—as humanity did to rectify the mistakes wrought by Midgley’s inventions. Considering the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has a deep history begetting global environmental catastrophe, let the Norfolk Southern Rail Disaster become a beacon to illustrate how far we’ve come in the 100 years since Midgley’s unintentional disasters.
What made Thomas Midgley, Jr. so dangerous is precisely what made the Norfolk Southern freight train derailment so dangerous—good intentions which allowed profits to cloud foresight. If we do not heed these lessons born on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, we may befall Midgley’s ultimate fate and become unintentionally killed by our own design.
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