Consequences

I've been around a long time, as some of my readers know. I've seen America change in a lot of ways. I can't speak of other countries that I haven't seen, but I suspect they've changed, too.

These changes take many forms, but one example that is quite obvious to me and many older Americans is that, to put it bluntly, people are getting dumber. People in Congress are a lot dumber than the Congresspersons of my younger years. I once had a cop tell me, "People are getting dumber and dumber."

Passengers fight on passenger jets. People shoot up their streets and workplaces. People walk into a store and shoot customers they don't know. And so on. I'm tempted to say, "For no reason." But, there is a reason. There is always a reason.

Many years ago I read about an experiment that scientists performed on rats. Scientists put a small number of rats into a very large cage. The rats had plenty of room and were friendly with each other. But the population of rats grew without restraint, and the cage became crowded. As the rats became more crowded, they became more aggressive. They began attacking each other for "no reason," rather like some people who are trapped in crowded, inner-city environments with no escape. Violence goes up. Compassion goes down.

But what about people getting dumber? Is that true? Yes, it is. Worldwide, many decades of IQ tests prove that people are getting dumber. There's a reason. The reason is "tetraethyl lead."

Tetraethyl lead was added to gasoline beginning in 1922 to help engines run better. But lead is poisonous. Exposure can cause severe neurological damage, something that was known the entire time that leaded gasoline was in use.

Lead takes the place of calcium in the body. It gets into bones, nerves, and the brain. Falling IQ scores correlate with increased usage of leaded gasoline over the decades. We're getting dumber and we (as a species) did it to ourselves. When lead gets into our bodies, it is extremely difficult to remove. A process called chelation can remove some of it, but chelation comes with its own dangers. In children, chelation therapy can cause serious complications including permanent kidney damage or even death. The treatment is often reserved for only those children with very high lead levels. The person with lead poisoning is permanently damaged.

We've polluted our land and oceans, and we're still polluting them. We've turned Eden into a Dystopia, and now we are living in it. From overcrowding our habitable places to poisoning our planet, human activity is among the biggest disasters to hit Earth. Quoting Wikipedia,

"The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity." 

And now, Earth is hitting back. Today's humans are more dumb, more aggressive, and more sick, in more ways, than their ancestors. It is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Incidentally, there is an article about the history of tetraethyl lead on the YouTube channel Veritasium. Quoting Veritasium, "One scientist caused two environmental disasters and the deaths of millions." It's a story worth knowing. The title of the video is "The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History." You can watch the video here.