Men Who Changed the World - Thomas Midgley

...the world today wishes he hadn't!!!

An engineer by profession, Thomas Midgley took deep interest in chemistry. In 1921, while working for GM Research institute, he found that tetraethyl lead can help get over the problem of engine knocking.
The automobile industry lapped it up and by 1923 the world was beginning to get used to leaded petrol - this in spite the fact that lead was known to be poisonous.
Lead is a neuro toxin and if it gets into the system in sufficient quantities can wreck havoc on the nervous system. But it was many decades later that leaded petrol was finally banned. So what was once found only in traces in the atmosphere is now easily available to breathe in and since lead hardly de-generates, it will be around more or less forever.

Buoyed by this success, Thomas Midgley decided to devote his energies to killer refrigerators - which at that time used poisonous gases. He decided to develop a gas that was non-flammable, stable and safe to breathe - tada we have the CFCs (Chloro-Fluoro Carbons). CFCs don't like Ozone too much - basically annihilating it as it comes in contact. To add to their reputation, CFCs are amongst the worst green house gases out there...
So together these two inventions can compete for the prize of the "Worst inventions of all time".

Hmm, I wonder how many of the inventions being made today will be looked at by contempt in the coming generations...