The development of the Haber - Bosch process, I
believe has had an overall negative impact on human civilization. The Kolbert
article gives several details that support the fact that the increasing
nitrogen is affecting humans and animals in a negative way. The article
mentions TFR (total fertility rate) and how the Haber - Bosch process
causes these number to change.
When the yearly meeting of the German Bunsen
Society became to end, a well-known chemist named Walther Nernst discredited a
junior colleague named Fritz Haber. The synthesis of ammonia at very high
temperatures was the topic. When Haber went back home, Karlsruhe, his skin
broke out in hives, before Nernst’s attack, he hadn’t been all that interested
in synthesizing ammonia. “The insult had the unintended consequence of
stiffening his resolve. Haber threw himself full time into proving that ammonia
could indeed be cooked up in the laboratory, using hydrogen and ordinary
nitrogen gas. The result of this effort, which eventually became known as the,
had unintended consequences of its own, some of which proved to be
world-altering.”
In a 2007 best-seller, Alan Weisman’s new book,
“Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?” (Little, Brown), shows
a less comprehensive thought approach. “Instead of eliminating people from the
planet altogether, Weisman wants only to get rid of several billion of them. He
argues that when Haber figured out how to make bread out of air, things took a
turn for the worse.” The avoiding of the nitrogen cycle has allowed Homo
sapiens to reproduce at an unprecedented pace. The results of this
explosive growth has been a development of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
which puts not only humans but also pretty much every other creature on earth
in danger. Since it was the Haber-Bosch process that made the surge possible,
the process also suggests a target for the abatement.
“When demographers peer into the future, the key figure that they look at is the total fertility rate, or T.F.R. The T.F.R. is designed to offer a snapshot of a process—childbearing—that occurs over many years. Roughly speaking, it represents the average number of children that the average woman will produce in her lifetime.” There are a lot of countries where the T.F.R. is close to one, and even some where it’s dropped lower than that. Singapore’s T.F.R., for example, is just .79, Taiwan’s is 1.1, and South Korea’s is 1.2. Almost all European countries have T.F.R.s less than 1.5; this includes Italy, Spain, Germany, and the Czech Republic. In some countries where the population still increases at a rapid speed, the fertility rates are way down: Iran’s T.F.R., for example, is 1.9 and Brazil’s 1.8.
Even if their fertility rates are low, the amount of nitrogen being produced into the air will make the living conditions very hard to a point where humans or any creature on Earth can live. Greenhouse gases increased by the Haber-Bosch process can be reduced by the same thing that increased them. If these chemicals are not reduced then they will destroy the Earth’s atmosphere.
