One scientist caused two environmental disasters and the deaths of millions. A part of this video is sponsored by Wren. Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: https://www.wren.co/start/veritasium. For the first 100 people who sign up, I will personally pay for the first month of your subscription!
Massive thanks to Prof. Francois Tissot for suggesting we make a video on the topic of isotope geochemistry. Huge thanks to Prof. Bruce Lanphear for consulting with us on lead and cardiovascular diseases. Thanks to the Caltech Archives for the audio of Patterson’s interview. Thanks to Vincent Mai for lending us your Snatoms kit. Thanks to Rayner Moss for the help with the fire-piston.
Patterson’s 1995 interview audio courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology.
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Other great resources you should check out:
Bill Bryson has a chapter in his fantastic “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Radiolab have a wonderful podcast: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/…
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey has a wonderful episode – S1E7 which does a great job of telling the story of Clair Patterson
A fantastic Mental floss article – https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/9…
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References:
Much of the lead-crime hypothesis data is from Rick Nevin’s work – https://ricknevin.com/
WHO factsheet on lead poisoning – https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sh…
WHO press release about the end of leaded gasoline https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/…
UNICEF report – https://ve42.co/UNICEF
Needleman, H. (2004). Lead poisoning. Annu. Rev. Med., 55, 209-222. https://ve42.co/Needleman1
Needleman, H. L. (1991). Human lead exposure. CRC Press. https://ve42.co/Needleman2
Needleman, H. L. et al. (1979). Deficits in psychologic and classroom performance of children with elevated dentine lead levels. New England journal of medicine, 300(13), 689-695. – https://ve42.co/Needleman3
Needleman, H. L. et al. (1996). Bone lead levels and delinquent behavior. Jama, 275(5), 363-369. https://ve42.co/Needleman4
Kovarik, W. J. (1993). The ethyl controversy: the news media and the public health debate over leaded gasoline, 1924-1926 https://ve42.co/Kovarik2
Edelmann, F. T. (2016). The life and legacy of Thomas Midgley Jr. In Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania https://ve42.co/Edelmann
More, A. F. et al. (2017). Next‐generation ice core technology reveals true minimum natural levels of lead (Pb) in the atmosphere: Insights from the Black Death. GeoHealth, 1(4), 211-219. https://ve42.co/More1
McFarland, M. J., et al. (2022). PNAS 119(11), e2118631119. https://ve42.co/McFarland
Kovarik, W. (2005). Ethyl-leaded gasoline. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 11(4), 384-397. https://ve42.co/Kovarik3
Nevin, R. (2007). Understanding international crime trends: the legacy of preschool lead exposure. Environmental research, 104(3), 315-336. – https://ve42.co/Nevin2007
Ericson, J. E., et al. (1979). Skeletal concentrations of lead in ancient Peruvians. New England Journal of Medicine, 300(17), 946-951. – https://ve42.co/Ericson1
Patterson, Claire. The Isotopic Composition of Trace Quantities of Lead and Calcium https://ve42.co/Patterson1
Boutron, C. F., & Patterson, C. C. (1986). Lead concentration changes in Antarctic ice during the Wisconsin/Holocene transition. Nature, 323(6085), 222-225. – https://ve42.co/Boulton1
Patterson, C. (1956). Age of meteorites and the earth. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 10(4), 230-237. – https://ve42.co/Patterson2
Lanphear, B. P. et al (2018). Low-level lead exposure and mortality in US adults: a population-based cohort study. The Lancet Public Health, 3(4), e177-e184. – https://ve42.co/Lanphear1
Schaule, B. K., & Patterson, C. C. (1981). Lead concentrations in the northeast Pacific: evidence for global anthropogenic perturbations. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 54(1), 97-116. – https://ve42.co/Schaule1
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Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Inconcision, Kelly Snook, TTST, Ross McCawley, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, Avi Yashchin, John H. Austin, Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Dmitry Kuzmichev, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, john kiehl, Anton Ragin, Diffbot, Micah Mangione, MJP, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, jim buckmaster, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Clayton Greenwell, Michael Krugman, Cy ‘kkm’ K’Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal
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Written by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, Chris Stewart, and Katie Barnshaw
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Filmed by Petr Lebedev
Animation by Fabio Albertelli, Jakub Misiek, Iván Tello, Mike Radjabov, and Caleb Worcester
SFX by Shaun Clifford
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang
source
Happy Earth Day! If you want to offset your carbon emissions I will personally cover the first month of your subscription at https://ve42.co/wren (for the first 100 people to sign up)
So to sum up the video cover: senator Armstrong poisons people with nanomachines-fluid
Together with the digital computer and this mobile telephone we all today are close to total deadhead 😠
Idiots all over 😠
Fauci?
ok so he made an entire generation get lead poisoning and now a lot of those stupider people are in power so its HIS fault for the downfall of humanity
Brutal. Thanks.
The people who invented junk food because it tasted good:
3rd place
Its so sad knowing that companies only care about gaining every cent they can and completely disregard human health 🙁
I've read this before in "The Alien Hand Syndrome". Nice collection if such stories.
Isn't this animation from cosmos ?
Wow this guy is worst than Hitler, he killed, disabled and god knows what not just for “Millions”.
"accidentally"? no. he did so with full knowledge, and malicious intent. greed has destroyed our planet.
That explains a lot.
So…..I could have been born smarter but this guy had other plans aye.
💚🏜️
18:07 Jarvis, pull up when forced integration was implemented
This was a truck load of important information. Thank you
I thought the video was going to be about chairman Mao
Purposefully done.. 1000%
Did you know that Standard Oil was the only manufacturer in the world to provide this chemical for piston engines during the World War II? They could've stopped Hitler by cutting off supplies of fuel useable by Luftwaffe to fly at high altitudes. They didn't because "deep state" of that times, wanted the war. It was good for business. Just like today.
so this man made tiktok popular ?
Derek, your videos are just so dang good. Awesome production value and the way you get the information across is so easy to listen to and understand!
“The world is less intelligent today because of lead gasoline”- well we can tell, we can certainly tell
Bro is a walking L
Dang 😬
An early application of Midgley’s CFC/Freon was as a spray can propellant for (wait for it) DDT. An environmental disaster three-fer!
We are such a moronic and selfish race. Smh
Explains republicans.
So the problem is Lead not cholesterol nor fat
THW WYTE ROACH KILLS AGAIN
All this for some fancy paper lol
cap its the guy who invested a gun
So you could say his invention
puts on sunglasses
lead to tragedy.
YEAAAAAAAAAAH
Great video. I learned a lot.
But CO2. This is BS. You just explained, how CFCs did the harm.
So, after that, please think a little, how the CO2 can do so many harm in the ATMOSPHERE, if it is HEAVIER than air?
The rest of CO2 impact on global warming is just a wild misconception.
so he LITERALLY made the earth a thousand times worse 🤦🏻♂️
the more I think about it the more I realize the word "accidentally" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. the man clearly understood the danger, but was profit motivated and didn't care
Now the same thing is happening with plastic, the corporations don't want to get rid of it no matter how much damage it does to the planet.
i feel much better about myself now that i get to use the excuse of potential lead poisoning to explain why i’m such a fkin misfit 😀