There are times not even us chemists realize the impact we have in the world... And truth is if we don't t
hen why we should expect non-chemists do?
Once, while reading about nobel prizes, I came across the story of a guy named Franz Haber. His great accomplishment was generating ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen... so what???
Well from the chemical point of view the interesting thing is he grabbed two molecules that we breath every day and turned them into something new. As air quantity is something close to infinite well you never run out of material.
This is where everybody asks again so what?? Well with ammonia you can produce SODIUM NITRATE, for example one of the bests fertilizers.... fertilizers make better crops.... better crops make more wheat.... more wheat means more bread, less people hungre etc... You see where I'm going?
Truth is the earth's sole capacity for feeding use would not be enough witout the help of fertilizers ! Half of the planets population or more wouldn't exist.
After this "little" discovery followe Carl Bosch's genius. He managed to scale up Haber's process and create an industrial process. That meant tons and tons and tons of ammonia and therefore tons and tons and tons of fertilizer.
We could make lots of reflexions from this story (some I plan to make in the near future) But for now just every time you have a vegetable, fruit even bread on your table think about the two men that made it possible.
Chemistry gives us food... I can't be too bad isn't it? Giver her a chance
