>I don't expect "An Instinct for the Regrettable" to be everybody's cup of tea,
>but some of you may enjoy it. I've been told my academic work is pretty readable.

Oh, it's certainly readable, and not really any harder to understand than a typical science magazine article. Of course it might be a little bit easier for me because have two terms of Atmospheric Chemistry courses.

In the case of chlorofluorocarbons, I probably would have brought up a couple more points. The first is that safe refrigeration has saved thousands if not millions of lives, both in preventing starvation and in transport of vaccines and drugs safely into the tropics. That alone outweighs most of the damage caused by increased UV exposure -- and we were lucky enough to have cooperation from the chemical companies for the replacement.

What bothers me about Midgley as an environmental scientist, is that it doesn't ever seem to have thought about the end fate of the products he made. And is that simply a product of being a man of his time? Modernist culture sure talked a lot about changing the whole world for the better -- was it without ever really considering that the world wasn't so big that it couldn't be changed by accident? Or did he have that imagination, but it was just covered by showmanship and profiteering?

Also fluorides are known to be fairly stable, like the calcium fluoride in your tooth enamel.

Anyway, your paper was a good read for me, thanks for sharing. 💯

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