Jaakko Hutchings portrays Dr. Midgley in Orange Alert’s short play Global Burning. His character, however, is not entirely fictitious and is based on the very real Dr. Thomas Midgley, who is (half-) jokingly dubbed by the scientific community as “the single organism in Earth's history with the most detrimental impact on the atmosphere.”

If you're wondering whether Dr. Midgley really deserves such fame, just consider the following: in the 1920s, he introduced lead to gasoline, with the very practical aim of reducing engine noise. Cars became much quieter and lead poisoning much more frequent. Way to go Midgley!

Our doctor doesn’t stop there. A decade later, he has a leading role in the team that discovers freon, amongst other similar compounds. You have to give credit where credit’s due – very few people can boast that they contributed to literally punching a hole in the sky.

Through the years, Dr. Midgley tirelessly continues to make the world a better place, with inventions and other personal contributions. For example, he was a fervent proponent for women to take up smoking.

I’ll leave to you to find out about how he dies. If nothing else, at least there is some small measure of poetic justice there. Geez, that man….

Tex: Vladislav Nenchev
Jaakko portrait: Jaakko Hutchings
Midgley portrait: wikipedia.org

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