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> "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history" Interesting! Fritz Haber & Robert Le Rossignol (who are both out of th

by shoo 7y ago

> "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history" Interesting! Fritz Haber & Robert Le Rossignol (who are both out of the running for being killed by their own inventions) might have a reasonable competing claim to their shares in "most impact on the atmosphere" for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process > Due to its dramatic impact on the human ability to grow food, the Haber process served as the "detonator of the population explosion", enabling the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018. [...] Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process. Being responsible for removing a bottleneck that enabled +100% more biomass of tool-using fossil-fuel-burning* primates arguably may have been a much larger indirect impact on the atmosphere (and many other things, for better or worse), leaving aside the direct impact on the nitrogen cycle. * also, for various subsets of primates, perhaps add: airplane-flying, meat-eating, truck-driving, aircon-running, tree-planting, fish-catching, land-clearing, television-watching, hackernews-reading, list-enumerating, ...

alexanderdmitri 7y ago
If I remember correctly, Haber freed up a great deal of labor to be put into the Germany's military complex which empowered the country for WWI which embittered the country leading to WWII. I think nitrogen run off from soil has had quite an impact on changing water habitats as well, eutrophication and fish getting beat out by algae for limited oxygen resources.
- InitialLastName 7y ago
  On a (slightly) smaller scale he also figured out how to weaponize chlorine gas and heavily evangelized its use (to the extent of bringing a tank to the front against orders and releasing it at Ypres).
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    As father of chemical weapons he oversaw their use on the battlefield and gave the world Haber's rule for more effective mass gassing. Mustard gas too, and I think he even had some part in development of Zyklon B. He was completely unapologetic about it - he thought gas a better form of killing. Both his wife and daughter seem to borne some guilt from his poison gas work. His wife committed suicide a week after Ypres - though some have disputed if it was connected. His daughter's suicide was on learning her research into poison gas cures couldn't be continued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule
    - InitialLastName 7y ago
      Yeah that dude killed people and damaged the earth on a whole bunch of different scales.
- deleted 7y ago
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by shoo 7y ago

alexanderdmitri 7y ago

If I remember correctly, Haber freed up a great deal of labor to be put into the Germany's military complex which empowered the country for WWI which embittered the country leading to WWII. I think nitrogen run off from soil has had quite an impact on changing water habitats as well, eutrophication and fish getting beat out by algae for limited oxygen resources.

InitialLastName 7y ago
On a (slightly) smaller scale he also figured out how to weaponize chlorine gas and heavily evangelized its use (to the extent of bringing a tank to the front against orders and releasing it at Ypres).
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  As father of chemical weapons he oversaw their use on the battlefield and gave the world Haber's rule for more effective mass gassing. Mustard gas too, and I think he even had some part in development of Zyklon B. He was completely unapologetic about it - he thought gas a better form of killing. Both his wife and daughter seem to borne some guilt from his poison gas work. His wife committed suicide a week after Ypres - though some have disputed if it was connected. His daughter's suicide was on learning her research into poison gas cures couldn't be continued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule
  - InitialLastName 7y ago
    Yeah that dude killed people and damaged the earth on a whole bunch of different scales.
deleted 7y ago
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