Nuclear Revival and Leaded Gasoline

The website “Damn Interesting” has a great article on the history of Thomas Midgley and leaded gasoline, who might be considered a scientific pariah for inventing both leaded gas (health effects) and CFCs (ozone effects). In “The Ethyl Poisoned Earth” we learn that the health effects of lead were well known in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as corporate types continually lied to the public over and over and over, covered it up over and over and over, and influenced political attempts to address it over and over and over. Sound familiar? (DDT, global warming, smoking, etc)

And the Utne Reader has an article, “Atomic Dreams,” which talks about the revival of the nuclear industry in light of global warming and some arguments that it’s a necessary evil to deal with global energy needs.