By counting back through these layers and measuring the amount of lead in each, he could work out global lead concentrations at any time for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. The notion became the foundation of ice core studies, on which much modern climatological work is based.
只要往前數一數這些層次，測量一下每一層里鉛的含量，你就可以計算出幾百甚至幾千年里任何時候全球大氣里鉛的濃度。這個見解成為冰核研究的基礎。許多現代氣候學的研究工作都是建立在這個基礎上的。
What Patterson found was that before 1923 there was almost no lead in the atmosphere, and that since that time its level had climbed steadily and dangerously. He now made it his life's quest to get lead taken out of gasoline. To that end, he became a constant and often vocal critic of the lead industry and its interests.
彼得森發現，1923年之前，大氣里幾乎沒有鉛；自那以后，鉛的濃度不斷危險地攀升。現在，把鉛攆出汽油成了他一生的追求。為此，他經常批評鉛工業及其利益集團，而且往往言辭很激烈。
It would prove to be a hellish campaign. Ethyl was a powerful global corporation with many friends in high places. (Among its directors have been Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell and Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society.) Patterson suddenly found research funding withdrawn or difficult to acquire. The American Petroleum Institute canceled a research contract with him, as did the United States Public Health Service, a supposedly neutral government institution.
這證明是一場殘酷的斗爭。四乙公司是全球一家勢力很大的公司，上頭有很多朋友。（它的董事當中有最高法院的法官劉易斯·鮑威爾和美國地理學會的吉爾伯特·格羅夫納。）彼得森突然發現研究資金要么被收回，要么很難獲得。美國石油研究所取消了與他簽訂的一項合同，美國公共衛生署也是，后者還算是個中立的政府機關呢。
As Patterson increasingly became a liability to his institution, the school trustees were repeatedly pressed by lead industry officials to shut him up or let him go. According to Jamie Lincoln Kitman, writing in The Nation in 2000, Ethyl executives allegedly offered to endow a chair at Caltech "if Patterson was sent packing."
彼得森成了一個對本單位越來越不利的人。鉛工業界官員不斷向加州理工學院董事會成員施加壓力，要么讓他閉嘴，要么讓他滾蛋。杰米·林肯·基特曼在2000年的《國家》雜志中寫道，據說，四乙公司愿意向加州理工大學無償提供一名教授講席的費用，“如果能讓彼得森卷鋪蓋走人的話”。
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