I'm currently worldbuilding a school of witchcraft/sorcery based around pollution (set in our world fyi), and I'd like to use a genuine historical figure to serve as a secret, yet exceptionally important, early practitioner. Somewhat similar to how the Wright Brothers are viewed in their contributions toward aviation. A historical figure whose actions are well-known to have significantly defiled the planet. I'd prefer that they operated during the Industrial Revolution, as I'm planning on that era being when this foul brand of sorcery really came into its own. I'll do my best to search the internet for someone. But if any of you have a suggestion on who I might use, I'd love to hear it.
This guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. He invented leaded petrol, then as an encore, invented the CFC Freon.
Ouch. I wonder if he had any idea what he was doing at the time. Does it have to be a person? I was just wondering wherever that would resonate more than, say, a company like Exxon that elicits immediate emotional response in some people.
You could always do General Mao...most of his destruction was in programs, but, other than leading to millions upon millions of deaths, he also completely destroyed ecosystems. He's kind of a monster. Might be too late though...
I'm basically looking for the equivalent of how Darwin is thought of by most biologists; so it needs to be a person. Someone who would have "wrote the book" on pollution witchcraft. Midgley nearly perfectly fits the bill, only I would prefer someone a bit further back in history — early to mid 19th century would be ideal. But I very well may use him despite that.
Found this from your link: That's the perfect description, and the time period is spot on. Now I just need a name. Maybe an Earl of Dudley? I'll need to do more research.
Well, the thing that kick-started the polluting Industrial Revolution was the steam engine, developed by James Watt, most of which burned coal. OTOH, Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine in 1884, which is used in most power stations - many of which are still coal fired.
He's interesting. I just stumbled onto John Harvey and so far he looks like a potential candidate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_(ironfounder) Looks like he had his hand in a lot of pots. Massive steam engines. Mines. Ships. I can work with those.
You could have Fritz Haber as your polluter. He received the nobel-prize for the Haber Process, which is used to synthetise ammonia for fertilizers. This invention contributed to the population boom (because it made agriculture ridiculously efficient), but now poses a great issue as artificial fertilizers seep into the ground while the Haber Process requires a ton of energy. It's also the prime reason behind the 3rd most prominent Greenhouse gas. But that's his brighter side. The darker aspect is his contribution to warfare as "the father of chemical warfare". He invented most of Imperial Germany's war gases during WW1 and advocated their use on the battlefield. He was present in person at the 2nd battle of Ypres to observe the workings of his creation. The other thing named after him is the Haber Rule, which defines the lethality of war gases (identifies that exposure to low amount over long time can lead to similar effects as short exposure to high amounts). The weapons he helped develop are weapons still used in war crimes (the recent chemical attacks in Syria were done with the chlorine gas he pioneered) and world powers struggle to get rid of them or even contain them proper. You could also go for good old John D. Rockefeller, after all, when you say "pollution" today a lot of people think about his company and its remnants (Standard Oil, Chevron & Exxon).
Joseph Stalin could get a lot of the blame for setting the trend on communism's callous attitude towards the environment. The draining of the Aral Sea started under his watch. They completely destroyed the world's fourth-biggest freshwater lake just to grow cotton. They mostly used GULAG slave labour to dig the canals until 1953. When that resource started drying up, there was serious talk of using nuclear weapons to complete some of the grand projects they had envisioned. Then there's the Chernobyl Catastrophe. A good chunk of Ukraine was rendered uninhabitable for the next few centuries, millions were forced to flee their homes, and tens of thousands are thought to have died. Plant director Viktor P. Bryukhanov, chief engineer Nikolai M. Fomin, and Fomin's deputy Anatoly S. Dyatlov were sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp after being found guilty of "gross violation of safety regulations, creating conditions that led to an explosion," though really the blame for that goat screw was largely systemic in nature.
That kind of talk stopped being funny a long time ago, to what extent it ever was. In any event, it's patently false. Cyanobacteria still has us beat by a long shot.
Was it ever funny? If anyone finds me a bigger polluter on Earth than human beings, I'd love to hear it.
Paleoproterozoic-era Cyanobacterium. About 2.5 billion years ago, they flooded the earth's atmosphere with a toxic gas that resulted in the death of almost all other lifeforms on the planet. They also triggered a massive glaciation event that almost destroyed them as well, only leaving a small number of eukaryotes who could breath the toxic gas to start over in the frozen, apocalyptic hellscape. Though of course that toxic gas was oxygen and we would have never come into existence had none of this happened, so I suppose we shouldn't shed too many tears for the anaerobes. We might eventually do something like that, but we're not there yet. (Similarly, as easy as it might be to think of Ford or Rockefeller or Haber as "eco-villians," it's worth remembering that the Green Revolution would have probably never happened without their investments and innovations. Millions or billions in the Global South would have been doomed to a Malthusian die-off, and numerous developing countries would have never had a chance to industrialize and radically improve the quality of life of their citizens. Whether or not you see THAT as a good thing depends on... well, it depends on a lot of things.) Anyway, humanity as a whole shouldn't receive any special blame for pollution. While it might be true that humans are the only species to have such a pronounced negative affect on their own ecosystem, it's also true that we're the only species to actively give a shit about their own ecosystem. I've never seen a plague of locusts or a heard of white-tail trying to avoid damaging the environment, or worrying about where their next meal is going to come from. Most animals simply eat and breed and eat and breed until there's nothing left to eat, then they starve and die. I don't see any reason why any other species, if given the level of intelligence and technological advancement that we have, would use it any more or less wisely than we do. I know we could do better, but this idea that humans are somehow uniquely "bad" because of our environmental record is counterproductive and does a lot to advance the popular misconception of environmentalism as a thinly-veiled form of misanthropy. Not quite an image that real environmentalists want to have. Not quite an image that real misanthropes want to have either, truth be told.
Ah. Let me guess, you're a climate change denier? Cool. I'm all excited and such as you're the first one that I've ever met. Hope you're not an angry one. You don't think the human race is the biggest polluter? Cyanobacterium? You mean, bacteria? So, you're saying that bacteria, a microorganism, can possible be attributed with the same blame as human beings, who, allegedly have a fully working brain stem? That's not really a justified argument. You label all the billionaires of hearts of gold that can helped to save mankind. Really? That's where you're going with this? You're holding up the 1% that own more than half of the world's wealth as moral bearers? Yeah. I can see your point of view. I.5 million people die each year through poverty and hunger. A child under 15 dies each 5 seconds around the world, and you're suggesting that the multi billionaires that you cited are the Avengers for mankind? Wow... Ok. Off topic. But that caught be for a loop. At last count Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I think it did just well before humans came around and littered the planet, bombed the crap out of, poked a hole through the ozone layer, drilled it for all of it's natural resources and pretty much turning a paradise into a wasteland. Human activities have caused the world's wildlife populations to plummet by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund. A 2020 report drew on wildlife monitoring of more than 4,300 different vertebrate species - mammals, fish, birds and amphibians - from around the world. It found that population sizes for those monitored species declined by an average of 68 percent from 1970 to 2016. Forest clearing for agricultural space was the predominant cause of the decline, the report says, noting that one-third of the planet's land is currently being used for food production. Human-caused climate change is another growing driver. Academic worldwide research and international reports warning that human activities are causing a steep decline in global biodiversity. Will the Earth still be habitable in 50 years? Probably. 100? Extremely doubtful. But sure, if you want to take all blame away from human beings, please do so. Why not full right-wing and blame the eukaryotes that helped form humans. Sure. Why not. It wasn't us that raped planet earth and killed off most of our neighbouring friends, it was those darn eukaryotes. Bang goes the neighbourhood! And if you really want to know what contributes to the health of planet Earth, number one on the list has to be the humble Bee: One-third of the world’s food depends on pollination by Bees. 30% of the world's crops and 90% of wild flowers depend on Bees. As far as the ecosystem goes, I think pollinators are more important than a species who created an iPhone. Not quite an image that real right-wing deniers want to have either, truth be told.
I don't think anybody denies the climate is changing, that's always happening. But Al Gore's predictions never came true, did they? He claimed all the coastal cities would be underwater within a few years. That was in the 90's. Funny how politicians make these fearmongering cataclysmic predictions in order to accomplish whatever their real goals are, and somehow the cataclysmic part never actually happens. The '97% consensus' was disproved as massively distorted. But we're getting into debate room territory here, I'm bailing on this.
Well, me being a lifelong socialist with the literal scars to prove it? Yeah kid, I think this conversation is over.
Take it to the debate room, fellas. Or better yet, Twitter. Nobody cares about your climate change opinions or political orientation.
Don't overlook Thomas Crapper, an English business man who developed and held patents for flush toilets in late 19th century. Well, with a name like that.......
I think he actually was single-handedly responsible for cleaning up English streets and ending a lot of horrible diseases. But yeah, the name...
Thomas Crapper invented the device known as a ballcock, possibly named in an attempt to deflect attention from his own name.