Though the dangers of leaded gasoline and CFCs are now well-known, their inventor, Thomas Midgley Jr. — the subject of a film under development — was once lauded as a hero. But even he couldn’t escape the impact of his creations.
Midgley’s legacy is the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley “had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”, and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed “an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny”. Fred Pearce, writing for New Scientist, described Midgley as a “one-man environmental disaster”
Time magazine included both leaded gasoline and CFCs on its list of “The 50 Worst Inventions”.
From the Wikipedia article: