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Once there was a man

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who went searching
for the true age of the earth.

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In his struggles to discover it,

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he stumbled on a grave threat.

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Beautiful spring day, Pasadena, California.

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1966.

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Business is booming, life's good.

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Except for one man,

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a geochemist named Clair Patterson,

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known as Pat.

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He knows that everyone he sees

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is in danger from an invisible menace.

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And he's determined to put a stop to it,

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no matter what the cost.

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Synced and corrected by oykubuyuk
www.addic7ed.com

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You can't really tell Pat Patterson's story

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without going all the way back

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to the time long before the earth,

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our home, was built,

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when the stars brought forth its substance.

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Iron.

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For the planet's molten core.

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Oxygen.

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For the rocks and the water and the air.

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Carbon.

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For diamonds. And life.

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A star is born,

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ours.

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For the first few million
years, things ran smoothly

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as dust grains snowballed into
progressively larger objects.

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But once these objects grew massive enough

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to have sufficient gravity,

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they began pulling each
other into crossing orbits.

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This is how our world looked

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when it was new.

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No part of the earth's
surface could survive intact

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from that time to the present.

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So, with all its birth and
early childhood records erased,

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how could we ever hope
to know with any certainty

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the ge of our world?

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People have been wondering
about this since antiquity.

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In 1650 archbishop James Ussher of Ireland

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made a calculation that
seemed to settle the question.

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Like almost everyone else
of his time and his world,

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he accepted the biblical
account of creation as authoritative.

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But the Bible does not give exact years,

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so Ussher searched for an
event in the Old Testament

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that corresponded
to a known historical date.

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He found it in the second book of kings,

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the death of the Babylonian
ruler Nebuchadnezzar

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in 562 B.C.

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Usher added up the
generations of the prophets

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and the Patriarchs,

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the 139 "Begats" of the Old Testament,

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between Adam and
the time of Nebuchadnezzar,

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and discovered

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that the world began on October 22

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in the year 4004 B.C.

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At 6:00 P.M.

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It was a Saturday.

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Archbishop Ussher's
chronology was taken as gospel

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in the Western world.

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Until we turned to another book
to find the age of the earth,

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the one that was written
in the rocks themselves.

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Most of the rock layers
in the walls of the Grand Canyon

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are made of sediments,
deposited as fine grains

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in a time when this part
of the world was a sea.

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Over eons, the sediments
were compressed into rock

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under the weight of succeeding layers,

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with the oldest ones at the bottom.

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Pick a layer, any layer.

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How about that one?

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Once upon a time, there must
have been shallow water here.

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Back in the Precambrian period,

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about a billion years ago,

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there was only one kind of life.

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These blue-green bacteria
were busy harvesting sunlight

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and making oxygen.

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For them, it was just a waste product,

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but for the animals who
evolved later, including us,

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it was the breath of life.

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Okay. Pick another layer.

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How about that one?

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This layer is known
as the bright angel shale.

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It formed about 530 million years ago.

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These tracks were left
260 million years ago.

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So you want to know the age of the earth?

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Just figure out how long
it took to deposit each layer

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and then, instead of counting the "Begats,"

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add up all the layers.

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Easy, right?

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We know
from observing this process,

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because it still happens today

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in oceans and lakes around the world.

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That sediments can be laid
down at widely different rates.

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It usually happens very slowly,

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say a foot of sediment per 1,000 years.

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But when the's a rare catastrophic flood,

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it can happen much faster,

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as much as a foot in just a few days.

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Many geologists tried this method

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to calculate the age of the earth.

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They used the Grand Canyon

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and other sedimentary sequences
around the planet.

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But their answers ranged
too widely to be of much use,

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anywhere between three million
years and 15 billion.

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And there were other problems
with this method:

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Even the deepest layers of rock

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are not the oldest things on earth.

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Why? Because not even rocks could survive

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the earth's violent infancy.

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In space it's another story.

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Are there any mementos from
when the earth was born,

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objects that could
possibly tell us its true age?

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I know a place where the
unused bricks and mortar left over

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from the creation of
our solar system can be found.

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It lies between the
orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

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Here is the stuff of the newborn earth,

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adrift in cold storage, unchanged

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ever since that time.

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A million or so years ago,

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a large asteroid happened
to jostle a much smaller one,

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sending it on a new trajectory,

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a collision course that ended one night

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some 50,000 years ago.

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It must have shattered
the peace of the Grand Canyon

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as it sailed overhead...

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to blast out this crater

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in what would one day be known as Arizona.

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Fragments of the iron
asteroid that made this crater

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have survived intact.

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If we just knew how long ago
that iron was forged,

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we'd know the age of the solar system.

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Including the earth.

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But how could we know that?

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Pick a rock.

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Any rock.

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How about that one?

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Some atoms in this
rock could be radioactive,

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which means they spontaneously disintegrate

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and become other elements.

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A uranium atom first
becomes a thorium atom.

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On average, it takes a few billion years.

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The thorium is much more unstable.

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In less than a month
it turns into protactinium.

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A minute later, protactinium
becomes something else.

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The atom undergoes ten more
nuclear transmutations...

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Until it reaches the last
stop on the decay chain:

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A stable atom of lead.

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And lead it will remain...

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For eternity.

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In the 20th century there was
a huge effort, lasting decades,

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to measure the time it takes
for each radioactive element

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to transmute into another element.

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Physicists discovered that the
atoms of each unstable element

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decay at a constant rate.

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The nucleus of an atom
is a kind of sanctuary,

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immune to the shocks and
upheavals of its environment.

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Hit it with a hammer.

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Boil it in oil.

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Vaporize it.

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The nuclear clock goes on ticking,

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keeping an absolute standard of time

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that does not look
to the sun and the stars.

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What better way to find
the true age of the earth

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than with the uranium atom?

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If you knew what fraction
of the uranium in a rock

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had turned into lead,

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you could calculate
how much time had passed

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since the rock was formed.

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But there's a problem.

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The rocks in the earth that
were present when it was formed

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are no more.

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They've all been crushed, melted, remade.

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There is a way to
calculate the amount of lead

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that was present from the beginning.

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It's a gift from the heavens:

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Meteorites.

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This one... A fragment of the one

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that made this giant crater... Was ideal.

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The amount of lead
deep inside this meteorite

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is exactly the same as when earth formed.

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Since you know the
constant rate of uranium decay,

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that should give you
the age of the meteorite,

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which was made
at the same time as the earth.

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All you had to do was measure

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the amount of lead in meteorites.

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Easy, right?

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A scientist named Harrison Brown,

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at the University of Chicago,

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first understood this in 1947.

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He chose a young graduate student,
Clair Patterson, to do the work.

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Patterson couldn't possibly
know how this assignment

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would alter the course of his life...

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And ours.

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What seemed like pure scientific research

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turned out to be so much more.

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Clair Patterson, son of a
letter carrier from Iowa,

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was rebellious by nature
and not very good in school.

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But he was a natural born scientist.

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A geologist named Harrison Brown

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gave Patterson what seemed
like a straightforward

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scientific assignment.

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First off, Pat...

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You mind if I call you Pat?

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Now, I know you're no geologist...

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probably couldn't tell
granite from feldspar...

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but I hear you really know your way

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around a mass spectrometer, Pat.

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Good. You married, Pat?

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Yeah, Laurie. Yeah,
she-she's a chemist, too.

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Uh, we worked on the
Manhattan Project together,

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at Oak Ridge.

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Good. Okay, well, first
thing you need to know:

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There are these tiny
crystals called zircons.

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Real small, size of a pinhead,
tight as a drum and tough.

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Nothing gets in or out of 'em.

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And I'm talking for billions of years.

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We know how old these grains
are because we've already

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dated the rocks they came from.

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Each little zircon has only
a few parts per million

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of uranium inside, and that
uranium is decaying

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to even tinier amounts of lead.

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Now, you figure out how
to measure that lead,

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and you'll know how to
do it for a meteorite.

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You think you can do that, Pat?

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Yeah. Yeah, I... I don't see why not.

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Good, because when you
do, you'll be the first man

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to know the age of the earth.

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And you'll be famous.

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It'll be easy.

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Duck soup.

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While Patterson tried to measure

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the trace amounts of
lead in the zircon grains,

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another grad student, George Tilton,

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was measuring the amount
of uranium in the same grains.

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All Patterson had to do

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was measure the amount
of lead with equal accuracy.

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She's all yours, Pat.

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Measured it six times. Same result:

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3.2 parts per million.

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Yeah, nice going, George, thanks.

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Tilton's results were always the same.

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But Patterson's results on the
lead content of the same grains

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were wildly inconsistent.

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This made no sense.

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Could the lab have been contaminated

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by previous experiments with lead?

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Maybe it was the naturally high amounts

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of lead in the environment
that were messing up his results.

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Patterson did everything he could

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to cleanse the lab of any lead.

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There was still 100 times too much lead.

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He had been at it for more than two years.

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Duck soup, my ass.

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Patterson realized he would
have to boil his containers

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and tools in acid and
purify all his chemicals

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to further reduce the lead in his lab.

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00:18:20,836 --> 00:18:22,303
Hey, you... Oh, I...

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00:18:22,337 --> 00:18:23,538
No! I'm new here.

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00:18:23,572 --> 00:18:24,772
Uh, where's the men's room?

262
00:18:24,806 --> 00:18:27,508
Ugh, damn it.

263
00:18:27,543 --> 00:18:32,180
All of Patterson's obsessive
scouring and sterilizing

264
00:18:32,214 --> 00:18:34,715
had still not solved the problem.

265
00:18:34,750 --> 00:18:37,885
He would need to design his own
lab and build it from scratch.

266
00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:41,255
The opportunity arose
when Harrison Brown moved

267
00:18:41,290 --> 00:18:44,392
to the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena

268
00:18:44,426 --> 00:18:47,528
and invited Patterson to join him.

269
00:19:00,209 --> 00:19:01,642
Okay, Tom, that's enough.

270
00:19:01,677 --> 00:19:04,378
We can move through the interlock, now.

271
00:19:04,413 --> 00:19:08,015
Patterson had now been at it for six years,

272
00:19:08,050 --> 00:19:09,884
doggedly tracking down and eliminating

273
00:19:09,918 --> 00:19:11,385
the many sources of lead

274
00:19:11,420 --> 00:19:13,855
that were compromising his instruments.

275
00:19:13,889 --> 00:19:18,025
He had built the world's
first ultra-clean room.

276
00:19:18,060 --> 00:19:20,361
He was finally able
to measure how much lead

277
00:19:20,395 --> 00:19:22,363
was actually in the rock.

278
00:19:22,397 --> 00:19:25,199
One whose age had already been established.

279
00:19:25,234 --> 00:19:28,603
Now, at last, Patterson was ready

280
00:19:28,637 --> 00:19:31,305
to tackle the iron meteorite,

281
00:19:31,340 --> 00:19:36,210
to find the true age of the earth.

282
00:19:36,245 --> 00:19:38,012
He brought his meteorite specimen

283
00:19:38,046 --> 00:19:41,582
back to the Argonne National Laboratory...

284
00:19:41,617 --> 00:19:44,352
Where the world's most
accurate mass spectrometer

285
00:19:44,386 --> 00:19:46,287
had just become operational.

286
00:19:49,158 --> 00:19:51,893
Doc, this can't wait till tomorrow?

287
00:20:08,844 --> 00:20:13,414
Okay, little buddy, we're
gonna have to vaporize you.

288
00:20:23,292 --> 00:20:26,761
A mass spectrometer uses magnets

289
00:20:26,795 --> 00:20:29,130
to separate the elements
contained in a sample,

290
00:20:29,164 --> 00:20:32,433
so that the amounts of each
element can be quantified.

291
00:20:32,467 --> 00:20:35,136
This would provide the last missing piece

292
00:20:35,170 --> 00:20:37,638
in the puzzle of the earth's true age.

293
00:20:41,877 --> 00:20:45,613
Now I'm gonna ionize you, yeah.

294
00:20:45,647 --> 00:20:47,782
Sounds worse than it is.

295
00:20:47,816 --> 00:20:50,151
What's an electron between friends?

296
00:20:50,185 --> 00:20:55,323
Having isolated the sample from
any outside lead contamination,

297
00:20:55,357 --> 00:20:58,759
Patterson was, at last,
ready to measure the amount

298
00:20:58,794 --> 00:21:01,462
of lead and uranium in the sample

299
00:21:01,497 --> 00:21:05,533
and calculate how many
years before it had formed.

300
00:21:05,567 --> 00:21:08,102
The true age of the earth.

301
00:21:08,137 --> 00:21:13,441
Thank you to all the
scientists who came before.

302
00:21:13,475 --> 00:21:17,211
Thank you, geologists.

303
00:21:17,246 --> 00:21:20,715
Thank you, Charles Lyell.

304
00:21:23,018 --> 00:21:25,386
Thank you, Michael Faraday.

305
00:21:32,194 --> 00:21:34,562
J.J. Thomson.

306
00:21:40,569 --> 00:21:42,703
Ernest Rutherford.

307
00:21:51,079 --> 00:21:54,849
Thank you, Harrison Brown.

308
00:22:00,589 --> 00:22:06,394
The world is four and
a half billion years old.

309
00:22:06,428 --> 00:22:09,931
We did it.

310
00:22:20,409 --> 00:22:22,343
Mom?

311
00:22:22,377 --> 00:22:24,178
Mom.

312
00:22:24,213 --> 00:22:25,880
Patterson wanted his mother to be

313
00:22:25,914 --> 00:22:27,748
the first person to know
what he had struggled

314
00:22:30,786 --> 00:22:33,287
The true age of the earth.

315
00:22:36,658 --> 00:22:38,593
His reward for this discovery?

316
00:22:38,627 --> 00:22:40,695
A world of trouble.

317
00:22:40,729 --> 00:22:44,365
He didn't know it, but he
was on a collision course

318
00:22:44,399 --> 00:22:48,436
with some of the most
powerful people on the planet.

319
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,608
To the ancient Romans,

320
00:23:15,643 --> 00:23:18,611
the majestic ringed planet
Saturn was not a real place,

321
00:23:18,646 --> 00:23:21,447
not a world, but a God King,

322
00:23:21,482 --> 00:23:24,450
a son of the marriage of heaven and earth,

323
00:23:24,485 --> 00:23:28,755
the God of lead.

324
00:23:28,789 --> 00:23:32,125
These columns are all that remain

325
00:23:32,159 --> 00:23:34,561
of this oldest temple in the Roman forum,

326
00:23:34,595 --> 00:23:38,131
first consecrated to
Saturn 2,500 years ago.

327
00:23:38,165 --> 00:23:40,800
It also served as Rome's treasury

328
00:23:40,834 --> 00:23:43,303
and its bureau of weights and measures.

329
00:23:45,739 --> 00:23:48,741
Tonight is Saturnalia,

330
00:23:48,776 --> 00:23:51,144
the wild december
holiday in Saturn's honor.

331
00:23:51,178 --> 00:23:53,580
And everyday life
will be turned upside down.

332
00:23:53,614 --> 00:23:55,915
The masters will serve the slaves,

333
00:23:55,950 --> 00:23:58,384
no wars or executions will be allowed,

334
00:23:58,419 --> 00:24:00,286
and gifts will be exchanged.

335
00:24:00,321 --> 00:24:01,988
A couple of hundred years from now,

336
00:24:02,022 --> 00:24:04,224
when the early church
fathers look for a way

337
00:24:04,258 --> 00:24:05,925
to attract more pagans,

338
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:08,962
they'll decide to turn
Saturnalia into Christmas,

339
00:24:08,996 --> 00:24:10,997
making it the latest in a long line

340
00:24:11,031 --> 00:24:13,166
of winter solstice
holidays to be re-purposed.

341
00:24:21,141 --> 00:24:24,811
This towering wooden
statue of Saturn was dressed

342
00:24:24,845 --> 00:24:28,648
in red woolen underwear
on only one night of the year.

343
00:24:28,682 --> 00:24:33,519
But in ancient Rome, this God
had another, darker side.

344
00:24:33,554 --> 00:24:38,625
That other Saturn is a cold
and sullen, sluggish ghoul,

345
00:24:38,659 --> 00:24:41,694
given to irrational bouts of rage.

346
00:24:41,729 --> 00:24:45,798
He committed an unspeakable act
of violence against his father,

347
00:24:45,833 --> 00:24:48,334
and devoured his own children.

348
00:24:48,369 --> 00:24:50,203
Of all the planets visible

349
00:24:50,237 --> 00:24:52,539
to the unaided eyes of the ancients,

350
00:24:52,573 --> 00:24:55,008
Saturn is the slowest,

351
00:24:55,042 --> 00:24:57,210
which could explain why it's named

352
00:24:57,244 --> 00:24:59,245
after the God of lead.

353
00:25:01,882 --> 00:25:03,550
But there's no denying

354
00:25:03,584 --> 00:25:05,852
that the more negative
aspects of Saturn's personality

355
00:25:05,686 --> 00:25:09,656
reflect the age-old knowledge of
the symptoms of lead poisoning.

356
00:25:09,690 --> 00:25:11,157
Funny thing about the Romans.

357
00:25:11,192 --> 00:25:12,792
Even though they knew

358
00:25:12,827 --> 00:25:15,295
that contact with lead
inevitably poisoned people,

359
00:25:15,329 --> 00:25:17,697
rendered them sterile and drove them mad,

360
00:25:17,732 --> 00:25:19,866
what metal did they use to make the pipes

361
00:25:19,900 --> 00:25:22,435
that carried the water through
their legendary aqueducts?

362
00:25:22,470 --> 00:25:24,437
I'll give you a hint.

363
00:25:24,472 --> 00:25:26,239
The word "plumbing" comes

364
00:25:26,273 --> 00:25:30,176
from the Latin word for lead, "plumbum."

365
00:25:41,088 --> 00:25:44,657
What metal did they use
to line their famous baths?

366
00:25:44,692 --> 00:25:48,662
And how did they sweeten their
wines when they were too sour?

367
00:25:48,696 --> 00:25:52,198
What did they use to line
their vats and cooking pots?

368
00:25:52,233 --> 00:25:54,334
There are some historians who believe

369
00:25:54,368 --> 00:25:57,704
that the widespread use
of lead was a major cause

370
00:25:57,738 --> 00:26:00,507
in the decline and fall
of the Roman Empire.

371
00:26:00,541 --> 00:26:02,909
Why did they continue to use lead

372
00:26:02,943 --> 00:26:05,178
long after they knew it was toxic?

373
00:26:06,781 --> 00:26:11,184
It was cheap, very
malleable, easy to work with,

374
00:26:11,218 --> 00:26:14,254
and the ones who were exposed
to it at its most lethal levels...

375
00:26:14,288 --> 00:26:16,656
the miners and workers
who processed the lead...

376
00:26:16,691 --> 00:26:18,692
were considered expendable.

377
00:26:18,726 --> 00:26:20,694
Their lives didn't matter.

378
00:26:20,728 --> 00:26:22,562
They were slaves.

379
00:26:22,596 --> 00:26:25,532
Most of the earth's lead
started off at a safe distance

380
00:26:25,566 --> 00:26:28,168
from living things, down below the surface,

381
00:26:28,202 --> 00:26:30,537
but about 8,500 years ago,

382
00:26:30,571 --> 00:26:33,673
humans began figuring
out how to dig into the earth

383
00:26:33,708 --> 00:26:35,275
and extract metals from rock.

384
00:26:35,309 --> 00:26:37,444
By the time this villa was new,

385
00:26:37,478 --> 00:26:39,746
just a couple of thousand years ago,

386
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:44,184
the romans were producing
80,000 tons of lead a year.

387
00:26:44,218 --> 00:26:49,022
Why is lead so poisonous to us?

388
00:26:49,056 --> 00:26:51,691
Because when it gets into our bodies,

389
00:26:51,726 --> 00:26:55,395
lead mimics other
metals, like zinc and iron,

390
00:26:55,429 --> 00:26:59,299
the ones our cells actually
need to grow and flourish.

391
00:27:02,003 --> 00:27:05,038
Enzymes in the cell are fooled
by the lead's masquerade,

392
00:27:05,072 --> 00:27:07,374
and they begin to dance.

393
00:27:07,408 --> 00:27:10,910
But it's a dance of death,
because the lead is an imposter

394
00:27:10,945 --> 00:27:13,646
that can't fulfill the cell's vital needs.

395
00:27:13,681 --> 00:27:17,317
Lead also blocks neurotransmitters,

396
00:27:17,351 --> 00:27:20,320
the communication
network between the cells.

397
00:27:22,523 --> 00:27:24,958
It interferes with the molecular receptors

398
00:27:24,992 --> 00:27:27,093
that are vital to memory and learning.

399
00:27:27,128 --> 00:27:30,063
This is especially damaging to children,

400
00:27:30,097 --> 00:27:33,633
but lead poisoning spares no one.

401
00:27:33,668 --> 00:27:37,003
Starting at the turn of the 20th century,

402
00:27:37,038 --> 00:27:39,739
the makers of leaded
paint hired the fledgling

403
00:27:39,774 --> 00:27:42,609
advertising industry
to persuade the consumer

404
00:27:42,643 --> 00:27:45,145
that lead was child-friendly.

405
00:27:45,179 --> 00:27:48,314
A little toy lead soldier
once to the Dutch boy said,

406
00:27:48,349 --> 00:27:51,317
"we have some fine relations
who all contain some lead."

407
00:27:51,352 --> 00:27:54,521
"Why don't you give a party
so folks can meet and see

408
00:27:54,555 --> 00:27:57,257
the other happy members
of the great lead family?"

409
00:27:57,291 --> 00:28:00,093
The first one at the
party was gay electric light.

410
00:28:00,127 --> 00:28:01,928
"He said, " I'm very brilliant."

411
00:28:01,962 --> 00:28:03,763
"I always shine at night."

412
00:28:03,798 --> 00:28:06,833
"No little of my brilliance
is due to my glass head,"

413
00:28:06,867 --> 00:28:08,368
which gives a light much brighter

414
00:28:08,402 --> 00:28:10,437
"because it's made with lead."

415
00:28:10,471 --> 00:28:13,473
A pair or rubbers entered
and took the Dutch boy's arm.

416
00:28:13,507 --> 00:28:17,177
"They said, " we are protectors
who keep you dry and warm.

417
00:28:17,211 --> 00:28:20,113
"You knew when we were
molded, the man who made us said,"

418
00:28:20,147 --> 00:28:21,848
we're strong and tough and lively

419
00:28:21,882 --> 00:28:24,284
"because in us, there's lead."

420
00:28:24,318 --> 00:28:27,454
But lead production didn't
really shift into high gear

421
00:28:27,488 --> 00:28:29,689
until the early 1920's

422
00:28:29,724 --> 00:28:32,058
when chemist Thomas Midgley and inventor.

423
00:28:32,093 --> 00:28:34,127
Charles Kettering of General Motors

424
00:28:34,161 --> 00:28:36,863
found that tetraethyl
lead could be marketed

425
00:28:36,897 --> 00:28:40,567
as an anti-knock additive to gasoline.

426
00:28:42,536 --> 00:28:46,172
They formed a new company
called the Ethyl Corporation.

427
00:28:46,207 --> 00:28:48,975
It had once been considered for use

428
00:28:49,010 --> 00:28:52,412
as a poison gas by the U.S. war department.

429
00:28:52,446 --> 00:28:56,249
Unlike the lead in paint,
tetraethyl lead was fat soluble.

430
00:28:56,283 --> 00:28:59,386
A half a cup of it
on your skin could kill you.

431
00:28:59,420 --> 00:29:01,488
The manufacturers calculated

432
00:29:01,522 --> 00:29:04,491
that they could sell
60 million tons of it a year.

433
00:29:04,525 --> 00:29:06,760
Only problem was,

434
00:29:06,794 --> 00:29:08,895
some of the workers who processed the stuff

435
00:29:08,929 --> 00:29:13,700
in factories in Delaware and
New Jersey were going insane,

436
00:29:13,734 --> 00:29:17,437
hallucinating, jumping out of windows.

437
00:29:17,471 --> 00:29:19,339
They died screaming.

438
00:29:21,208 --> 00:29:24,077
This was a selling job
that would require a lot more

439
00:29:24,111 --> 00:29:25,578
than dancing light bulbs.

440
00:29:32,286 --> 00:29:36,389
What was needed was a man of science

441
00:29:36,424 --> 00:29:40,393
to calm the public's fears
and improve lead's image.

442
00:29:40,428 --> 00:29:43,530
They found the right man for the job.

443
00:29:43,564 --> 00:29:46,066
This was one of the first times

444
00:29:46,100 --> 00:29:48,234
that the authority of science was used

445
00:29:48,269 --> 00:29:51,271
to cloak a threat to public
health and the environment.

446
00:29:51,305 --> 00:29:54,441
Robert Kehoe, a
young doctor from Cincinnati,

447
00:29:54,475 --> 00:29:56,443
was hired by GM.

448
00:29:56,477 --> 00:29:59,312
He raised scientific
doubts in the public mind

449
00:29:59,347 --> 00:30:02,148
about the dangers of lead.

450
00:30:02,183 --> 00:30:05,618
Lead was naturally occurring
in the environment, he said.

451
00:30:05,653 --> 00:30:08,054
Yes, there might be occupational hazards

452
00:30:08,089 --> 00:30:10,957
for the people who worked with lead, but

453
00:30:10,992 --> 00:30:14,627
that could be best handled
by industry self-regulation.

454
00:30:14,662 --> 00:30:16,896
And there was no evidence to suggest

455
00:30:16,931 --> 00:30:20,133
that lead posed any threat to the consumer.

456
00:30:20,167 --> 00:30:24,070
For decades no one challenged him...

457
00:30:24,105 --> 00:30:28,141
Until Clair Patterson went searching

458
00:30:28,175 --> 00:30:31,544
for the age of the earth.

459
00:30:33,539 --> 00:30:36,007
Claire Patterson's research
on the age of the earth

460
00:30:36,041 --> 00:30:37,809
had made him the world's leading expert

461
00:30:37,843 --> 00:30:39,611
on measuring trace amounts of lead.

462
00:30:39,645 --> 00:30:41,546
And like everyone else at the time,

463
00:30:41,580 --> 00:30:44,782
he assumed the prevalence
of lead occurred naturally.

464
00:30:47,820 --> 00:30:51,055
True scientist that he was, he set out

465
00:30:51,090 --> 00:30:52,857
to discover everything he could

466
00:30:52,892 --> 00:30:56,694
about how lead circulates
through the environment.

467
00:30:56,729 --> 00:30:59,097
On a grant from the American
Petroleum Institute,

468
00:30:59,131 --> 00:31:02,033
he carefully measured
the concentrations of lead

469
00:31:02,067 --> 00:31:04,102
in deep and shallow seawater.

470
00:31:04,136 --> 00:31:06,604
Once again, Patterson found

471
00:31:06,639 --> 00:31:08,740
that his initial data made no sense.

472
00:31:08,774 --> 00:31:11,542
There were only minuscule
concentrations of lead

473
00:31:11,577 --> 00:31:13,211
in the deep ocean water.

474
00:31:13,245 --> 00:31:15,747
But in shallow waters and at the surface,

475
00:31:15,781 --> 00:31:19,484
the concentrations of lead
were hundreds of times greater.

476
00:31:19,518 --> 00:31:21,953
In any ocean, it takes a few hundred years

477
00:31:21,987 --> 00:31:23,955
for the shallow waters
to mix with the deep.

478
00:31:23,989 --> 00:31:27,058
This told Patterson
that the large amount of lead

479
00:31:27,092 --> 00:31:30,161
in the surface waters had arrived recently.

480
00:31:30,195 --> 00:31:33,131
Otherwise it would have
been more evenly distributed.

481
00:31:33,165 --> 00:31:35,600
Knowing the quantity
of lead in the shallow seas

482
00:31:35,634 --> 00:31:38,570
and the time needed to
mix it into the deeper layers,

483
00:31:38,604 --> 00:31:43,608
he was able to estimate the rate of
lead contamination at the surface.

484
00:31:43,642 --> 00:31:46,477
Patterson asked himself

485
00:31:46,512 --> 00:31:51,716
what could possibly supply lead to
the world's oceans at such a rate.

486
00:32:11,921 --> 00:32:14,756
Where's all that lead coming from?

487
00:32:14,791 --> 00:32:16,625
I think I know, Harrison.

488
00:32:16,659 --> 00:32:19,795
It's from leaded gasoline.

489
00:32:19,829 --> 00:32:22,698
Well, then we've got a problem, Pat,

490
00:32:22,732 --> 00:32:26,935
because that's the same
place the money comes from.

491
00:32:27,276 --> 00:32:30,945
But Patterson would not give in.

492
00:32:30,979 --> 00:32:34,015
He went right to work on
publishing the scientific paper

493
00:32:34,049 --> 00:32:37,952
that would make the case
against leaded gasoline.

494
00:32:37,986 --> 00:32:41,122
When he sent the paper to the
prestigious scientific journal

495
00:32:41,156 --> 00:32:44,125
Nature, Patterson put his own name second.

496
00:32:44,159 --> 00:32:46,127
He often did that with his students

497
00:32:46,161 --> 00:32:48,096
to advance their reputations.

498
00:32:48,130 --> 00:32:51,299
He made a lifelong point
of shunning the limelight

499
00:32:51,333 --> 00:32:53,634
and the privileges that come with it.

500
00:32:56,672 --> 00:32:58,973
Only three days after publication...

501
00:33:01,176 --> 00:33:03,644
the push-back began.

502
00:33:13,135 --> 00:33:15,636
- Hello, Dr. Patterson.
- Pleasure to meet you.

503
00:33:15,671 --> 00:33:17,238
Very impressed by your work.

504
00:33:17,272 --> 00:33:19,974
Your work is of great interest

505
00:33:20,008 --> 00:33:23,144
to us in the petroleum
and chemical industries.

506
00:33:23,178 --> 00:33:26,314
Well, it wouldn't have been
possible without your funding.

507
00:33:26,348 --> 00:33:30,318
Precisely. And there's so
much more we'd like to do for you.

508
00:33:30,352 --> 00:33:34,322
Well, I've been thinking about
measuring lead in polar ice

509
00:33:34,356 --> 00:33:37,825
to see if it shows the same kind
of pattern as the oceans.

510
00:33:37,860 --> 00:33:40,495
Lead? But you've already done that.

511
00:33:40,529 --> 00:33:44,499
We're thinking it's time you
move on to other trace elements.

512
00:33:44,533 --> 00:33:46,834
In fact, Dr. Patterson,

513
00:33:46,869 --> 00:33:51,005
our ability to fund you in
any other line of research is...

514
00:33:51,039 --> 00:33:52,774
Virtually limitless.

515
00:33:53,809 --> 00:33:56,511
Lead is a neurotoxin.

516
00:33:56,545 --> 00:34:00,248
When you ship your
tetraethyl lead from the factory...

517
00:34:00,282 --> 00:34:02,150
before you add it to the gasoline...

518
00:34:02,184 --> 00:34:04,152
it's handled just like a chemical weapon.

519
00:34:04,186 --> 00:34:05,620
There's a reason for that.

520
00:34:05,654 --> 00:34:08,156
Where do you suppose all that lead goes

521
00:34:08,190 --> 00:34:10,625
after it leaves the tailpipe?

522
00:34:10,659 --> 00:34:14,462
Think about what it might
be doing to us and our kids.

523
00:34:14,496 --> 00:34:18,099
Dr. Kehoe has shown that the level of lead

524
00:34:18,133 --> 00:34:22,437
in the environment is
as natural as snow in December.

525
00:34:22,471 --> 00:34:26,174
Then why doesn't it
show up in the deep water? Here,

526
00:34:26,208 --> 00:34:28,476
let me just show you.

527
00:34:28,510 --> 00:34:30,945
Thanks for your time.

528
00:34:30,979 --> 00:34:33,014
Wait, you're just gonna keep on putting

529
00:34:33,048 --> 00:34:35,850
millions of tons of poison
into the air we breathe?

530
00:34:35,884 --> 00:34:39,187
If my research doesn't
put you out of business,

531
00:34:39,221 --> 00:34:40,888
some future scientist will.

532
00:34:40,923 --> 00:34:43,458
Patterson's funding from the oil industry

533
00:34:43,492 --> 00:34:45,026
vanished overnight.

534
00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:48,029
In fact, they tried to get him fired.

535
00:34:48,063 --> 00:34:52,500
But the U.S. government...
The Army, the Navy,

536
00:34:52,534 --> 00:34:56,003
the atomic energy commission,
the public health service,

537
00:34:56,038 --> 00:34:59,207
and the National Science
Foundation... Stood by him,

538
00:34:59,241 --> 00:35:01,709
supporting his research on lead pollution.

539
00:35:01,744 --> 00:35:05,847
His investigations took him
from Greenland in the far north

540
00:35:05,881 --> 00:35:07,849
to Antarctica in the far south,

541
00:35:07,883 --> 00:35:11,919
and to rivers, mountains
and valleys in between.

542
00:35:14,423 --> 00:35:16,424
In even the most hostile conditions,

543
00:35:16,458 --> 00:35:18,993
Patterson and his team worked to replicate

544
00:35:19,027 --> 00:35:21,829
the immaculate environment
of the clean room.

545
00:35:21,864 --> 00:35:24,665
Their plastic suits were replaced daily.

546
00:35:24,700 --> 00:35:28,503
Working ten-to 12-hour
days in subzero weather,

547
00:35:28,537 --> 00:35:30,671
they dug a 200-foot-long shaft

548
00:35:30,706 --> 00:35:33,207
into the ice of Antarctica.

549
00:35:33,242 --> 00:35:35,209
It was a form of time travel,

550
00:35:35,244 --> 00:35:38,413
to recover snow that
had fallen three centuries ago,

551
00:35:38,447 --> 00:35:41,582
before the start
of the Industrial Revolution.

552
00:35:42,618 --> 00:35:44,385
Nose!

553
00:35:44,420 --> 00:35:46,521
Wipe your nose, damn it!

554
00:35:46,555 --> 00:35:48,623
There's a thousand times more lead in you

555
00:35:48,657 --> 00:35:50,057
than in this ice!

556
00:35:50,092 --> 00:35:53,094
You want to contaminate
the whole damn sample?!

557
00:35:56,765 --> 00:35:59,634
After four grueling weeks

558
00:35:59,668 --> 00:36:01,636
of painstaking sample collection,

559
00:36:01,670 --> 00:36:04,572
Patterson was ready to go back to the lab.

560
00:36:06,275 --> 00:36:10,144
As with the oceans, he
found that the amount of lead

561
00:36:10,179 --> 00:36:13,948
was much lower in the snow
of a few hundred years before.

562
00:36:13,982 --> 00:36:16,250
No matter where he searched on earth,

563
00:36:16,285 --> 00:36:19,086
no matter how far he traveled back in time,

564
00:36:19,121 --> 00:36:22,056
the results always told the same story:

565
00:36:22,090 --> 00:36:25,793
The naturally occurring levels
in the air and water in the past,

566
00:36:25,828 --> 00:36:28,262
were far lower.

567
00:36:32,167 --> 00:36:34,936
For thousands of years, lead had been known

568
00:36:34,970 --> 00:36:38,106
to cause brain damage,
developmental impairment,

569
00:36:38,140 --> 00:36:41,642
violent behavior, and even death.

570
00:36:41,677 --> 00:36:43,644
In searching for the age of the earth,

571
00:36:43,679 --> 00:36:45,480
Patterson had stumbled on the evidence

572
00:36:45,514 --> 00:36:49,350
for a mass poisoning
on an unprecedented scale.

573
00:36:53,322 --> 00:36:55,289
But Kehoe and the other scientists

574
00:36:55,324 --> 00:36:57,492
employed by the lead industry

575
00:36:57,526 --> 00:37:04,000
persuaded the public they
had nothing to worry about.

576
00:37:04,034 --> 00:37:07,670
Until one man started to pay attention.

577
00:37:11,661 --> 00:37:14,363
Patterson went public with his discoveries

578
00:37:14,398 --> 00:37:16,031
about lead in a big way.

579
00:37:16,066 --> 00:37:17,466
He published his findings

580
00:37:17,501 --> 00:37:19,368
in a major environmental health journal

581
00:37:19,403 --> 00:37:21,704
and sent copies to
various government leaders,

582
00:37:21,738 --> 00:37:25,374
including one highly influential senator.

583
00:37:29,780 --> 00:37:33,049
Edmund Muskie of Maine was the chairman

584
00:37:33,083 --> 00:37:36,485
of the senate subcommittee
on air and water pollution.

585
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:40,556
In 1966 he held hearings
on the lead question.

586
00:37:40,590 --> 00:37:42,491
The first witness

587
00:37:42,526 --> 00:37:46,395
was Dr. Robert Kehoe,
longtime scientific advocate

588
00:37:46,430 --> 00:37:48,531
for leaded gasoline.

589
00:37:48,565 --> 00:37:51,734
Is it, uh, your conclusion that, in 1937

590
00:37:51,768 --> 00:37:54,103
to the present time, there has been

591
00:37:54,137 --> 00:37:56,572
no increase in the amount of lead

592
00:37:56,606 --> 00:38:00,443
taken in from the atmosphere by
the average traffic policeman,

593
00:38:00,477 --> 00:38:03,813
service station attendant,
or... Or motorist?

594
00:38:03,847 --> 00:38:05,681
There is not the slightest evidence

595
00:38:05,716 --> 00:38:08,384
that there has been
a change in this picture

596
00:38:08,418 --> 00:38:10,386
during this period of time.

597
00:38:10,420 --> 00:38:12,722
Not the slightest.

598
00:38:12,756 --> 00:38:14,656
The hearings were scheduled to take place,

599
00:38:14,668 --> 00:38:19,522
when the fiercest critic, Claire
Patterson was off in Antarctica.

600
00:38:20,504 --> 00:38:22,539
But he unexpectedly appeared

601
00:38:22,573 --> 00:38:26,109
on the fifth day of testimony.

602
00:38:26,143 --> 00:38:28,311
Uh, looks like there
seems to be an increase

603
00:38:28,346 --> 00:38:31,314
in the concentration of lead in people

604
00:38:31,349 --> 00:38:33,750
as a result of exposure to the environment.

605
00:38:33,784 --> 00:38:35,452
Is that correct?

606
00:38:35,486 --> 00:38:37,253
That is correct.

607
00:38:37,288 --> 00:38:39,923
In identifying typical lead levels,

608
00:38:39,957 --> 00:38:44,494
you use actual measurements
you've taken in the field?

609
00:38:44,528 --> 00:38:45,962
Yes.

610
00:38:45,997 --> 00:38:48,498
Are these observations different

611
00:38:48,532 --> 00:38:51,968
from the ones we've been
hearing about from other witnesses?

612
00:38:52,003 --> 00:38:55,972
No, th... They're the same observations.

613
00:38:56,007 --> 00:38:59,109
You... You've testified that there has been

614
00:38:59,143 --> 00:39:02,112
no change in natural
lead levels, is that correct?

615
00:39:02,146 --> 00:39:03,346
That is correct.

616
00:39:03,381 --> 00:39:05,081
You're sure about that?

617
00:39:05,116 --> 00:39:06,750
Absolutely.

618
00:39:06,784 --> 00:39:09,619
The levels we see in
people today may be typical.

619
00:39:09,654 --> 00:39:12,155
But they are
not by any means natural.

620
00:39:12,189 --> 00:39:15,825
So you don't disagree
with Dr. Kehoe's numbers?

621
00:39:15,860 --> 00:39:17,327
Uh, no, no.

622
00:39:17,361 --> 00:39:19,296
You're saying that the same numbers

623
00:39:19,330 --> 00:39:21,831
are leading to different conclusions?

624
00:39:21,866 --> 00:39:23,300
Yes.

625
00:39:23,334 --> 00:39:25,802
You know, this is the kind of thing

626
00:39:25,836 --> 00:39:30,140
we expect to hear from
lawyers, not scientists.

627
00:39:31,809 --> 00:39:34,511
I would agree with that, yes.

628
00:39:34,545 --> 00:39:37,981
You seem to be very sure
of your conclusions, Dr. Kehoe.

629
00:39:38,015 --> 00:39:41,518
It so happens that I have
more experience in this field

630
00:39:41,552 --> 00:39:43,720
than anyone else alive.

631
00:39:43,754 --> 00:39:48,191
At these levels, lead
is a severe chronic insult

632
00:39:48,225 --> 00:39:50,126
to the human body.

633
00:39:50,161 --> 00:39:53,129
There is no medical evidence
that lead has introduced

634
00:39:53,164 --> 00:39:55,465
a danger to public health.

635
00:39:55,499 --> 00:39:58,969
It's irresponsible to mine millions of tons

636
00:39:59,003 --> 00:40:02,172
of toxic material and disperse
it into the environment!

637
00:40:02,206 --> 00:40:05,475
If there was proof of harm,
we would have found it.

638
00:40:05,509 --> 00:40:07,877
Not if your purpose is to sell lead.

639
00:40:07,912 --> 00:40:12,382
Patterson fought the
industry for another 20 years

640
00:40:12,416 --> 00:40:16,253
before lead was finally banned
in U.S. consumer products.

641
00:40:16,287 --> 00:40:18,722
The man who figured
out the age of the earth

642
00:40:18,756 --> 00:40:20,724
was also responsible for one

643
00:40:20,758 --> 00:40:24,561
of the greatest public health
victories of the 20th century.

644
00:40:24,595 --> 00:40:27,797
In just a few years, average lead levels

645
00:40:27,799 --> 00:40:31,601
in the blood of children
plummeted by some 75%.

646
00:40:31,603 --> 00:40:34,771
Today, the medical
consensus is unanimous...

647
00:40:34,773 --> 00:40:37,807
there's no such thing as a nontoxic level

648
00:40:37,809 --> 00:40:41,111
of lead in humans, however small.

649
00:40:41,113 --> 00:40:42,746
Today, scientists sound the alarm

650
00:40:42,748 --> 00:40:44,948
on other environmental dangers.

651
00:40:44,950 --> 00:40:47,250
Vested interests still hire
their own scientists

652
00:40:47,252 --> 00:40:49,286
to confuse the issue.

653
00:40:49,288 --> 00:40:51,221
But in the end,

654
00:40:51,223 --> 00:40:53,990
nature will not be fooled.

655
00:40:54,792 --> 00:40:57,793
Synced and corrected by oykubuyuk
www.addic7ed.com