Chemistry Will Secure the Future of Humanity

In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus predicted a terrifying future for humankind. In his famous book An Essay on the Principle of Population, he explained that if the population grew by 10%, the amount of food in the world would not be enough to feed all people, leading to the destruction of the human race by famine, epidemics, and mass slaughter in wars for survival. These apocalyptic predictions were made when 750 million people populated the planet at the time, 90% of whom made a living from food production in agriculture.

Amazingly, 225 years after Malthus's pessimistic prophecies, after the world's population grew by 1000% to 7.5 billion people, most people eat their fill and their life expectancy has extended from 30 to more than 80 years, with only 1% producing food in agriculture.

Advertisers and promoters in all media, who know the wonders of the human mind, understand that the two topics that attract attention and sell the newspaper are sex and prophecies of apocalypse. Therefore, apocalyptic predictions of terrible crises that will bring about the end of the human race will continue to be popular. It is also a fundamental insight used by politicians and celebrities fighting for attention.

Global challenges and existential problems
Admittedly, humanity has continuously faced global challenges and existential problems. These problems have constantly threatened humanity's very existence because known technologies could not solve them. But history teaches us that entirely unpredictable future technologies solve problems. We face six challenges: energy, raw materials, water, air, food, and health, and each of these challenges represents a package of problems. For example, the climate crisis, which for various reasons now occupies the top spot in public attention, is part of the Air package.

Energy. About 80% of all energy consumption worldwide comes from non-renewable sources: oil, coal, and natural gas. Nuclear reactors, which provide 6% of the energy, use uranium, which also comes from limited sources. Global energy demand is expected to double by 2050, not only because of overpopulation but mainly because of economic growth and rising living standards. Moreover, using these fuels produces greenhouse gases, which cause global warming and the climate crisis.

Raw materials. The increasing consumption of minerals and metals is at least as serious a problem as the energy problem, although it receives less public attention. All manufacturing industries are highly dependent on rare earth metals. For example, cars, computers, TV display screens, and many other products are based on antimony, cobalt, lithium, tantalum, tungsten, and molybdenum. Solar cells require indium, gallium, selenium, and tellurium. The chemical industry uses catalysts based on nickel, palladium, platinum, and other metals, and their demand is growing steeply. Most metals are discarded as waste and are not recycled. The European Union has defined at least 14 rare and endangered metals with enormous economic implications.

Water. 97% of all water in the world is salt seawater. The remaining 3% is fresh water, but 90% of it is locked in glaciers or inaccessible groundwater. For all its needs, humanity is forced to make do with 0.3% of the water on Earth, so 80% of the world's population lives in risky areas, where the water supply is not guaranteed. These also include intensive agricultural regions and dense US and European populations. Over two million people die each year from contaminated water, drought, and water shortages for agriculture.

Air. The main environmental consequences of air pollution are the acidification of the oceans and the land and climatic changes due to the greenhouse effect, mainly caused by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and ozone. According to the World Health Organization, over three million people die each year from diseases directly attributed to air pollution, including respiratory diseases, heart disease, and lung cancer, a number that is much larger than the number of people who die in road accidents.

Food. Water scarcity directly affects food security. Many countries cannot support agriculture at the levels necessary to sustain their growing populations. Overexploitation of the land and erosion also threaten the yield of agricultural lands. Increased fishing depletes ocean fisheries and threatens populations in developing countries, for which fishing is a crucial source of protein. Although global food production exceeds demand, the inability of poor countries to pay for imported food results in hunger and malnutrition. The UN Food and Agriculture Agency has identified 27 countries where food supplies are low to the point of endangering the population.

Health. Health challenges change continually as a result of an aging population and processes of urbanization and globalization. All these accelerate the spread of infectious and chronic diseases. Infectious diseases now cause more than a fifth of the world's deaths. In addition to the emergence of new infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, and the exacerbation of existing diseases due to climate change, we also face the challenge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes, degenerative diseases, and brain disorders—all cause more than 40 million deaths worldwide. Moreover, improving the standard of health only in certain parts of the world increases global inequality.

The challenges will be solved by future technologies
Today, these problems appear threatening to us because they are unsolvable based on the technologies we know. But we can assume that these challenges will be solved by future technologies that are not yet known to us. My optimism about the future of humanity is based on four main reasons: (1) the fact that science and technology are entirely unpredictable; (2) the explosion of knowledge in the world; (3) the development of the social network; and (4) the strengthening of human freedom throughout the world.

(1) The inability to predict the future in science

None of us, including professional futurists, has any idea what our world will look like in 50 years, or even 10 years from now. The same is true for commercial products. Most of the great inventions of the 20th century, which changed our lives beyond recognition, appeared by complete surprise, either by mistake or by research aimed at another purpose. Some well-known examples are X-ray imaging, radioastronomy, the use of lithium salt to treat manic depression, cancer chemotherapy using cisplatin, electrically conductive polymers, DNA diagnostic technology, and electronic cameras.

Many politicians believe in good faith that the future of science and technology can be predicted by convening committees of renowned experts. So did Franklin Roosevelt, one of America's most successful presidents. In 1937, he formed a committee of over 300 scientists and engineers, instructing them to predict the expected technological developments over the coming decades. Roosevelt received two recommendations from the committee: to develop agricultural research and to advance technologies for converting coal into liquid fuel.

The failure of the Roosevelt Commission reverberates to this day. None of these scholars could have predicted the great discoveries of the 20th century, including nuclear energy, radar, laser, transistor, integrated circuits, nuclear magnetic resonance, tomography, personal computers, CDs, jets, missiles, space travel, fax machines, mobile phones, synchrotron radiation, the plastics industry, antibiotics, biotechnology, protein engineering, DNA structure, molecular genetics, genomics, monoclonal antibodies, birth control pills, organ transplant surgeries, artificial organs, the global positioning system (GPS) - the list is endless.
Another long list is of renowned experts whose learned predictions today provoke wild laughter. Both Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh argued in the late 19th century that building aircraft heavier than air would never be possible. Lord Rutherford, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the atomic nucleus, said in 1933, a few years before the Manhattan Project, that energy could not be produced from nuclear fission. British astronomer Richard Woolley and Nobel laureate George Thomson declared in 1956 that space travel was complete nonsense. Their opinion did not stop the first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, from traveling in space in 1961. In 1943, the chairman of IBM estimated that no more than five computers would be needed worldwide. Bill Gates argued in 1981 that personal computers with memory greater than 640 kilobytes would not be needed.

An amusing example of the limitations of the human imagination is a series of futuristic paintings produced by the German chocolate company Hildebrand in 1900. All the paintings that depict the reality that awaits humanity in the year 2000 now look silly and ridiculous, a reminder to the prophets and futurists among us, who claim to guess what the world will look like in the year 2100 (https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/life-year-2000-1900/).

(2) Knowledge explosion vs. population explosion
The human population grows as a geometric progression, doubling roughly every 50 years. But according to the US Science History Institute, human knowledge grows more steeply, doubling every year and a half. This is an astonishing rate of growth, compared to which the phenomenon that the prophets of doom call overpopulation is virtually insignificant. These numbers mean that there are currently 6-60 million scientists and engineers worldwide, and that their number doubles every 15 years. Of all the scientists and engineers who have ever lived throughout history, including Archimedes and Leonardo da Vinci, more than 80% are alive today.

(3) The evolution of the social network

For animals, sexual reproduction is the main engine of biological evolution. By absolute analogy, the main engine of scientific-technological evolution is the ability of ideas to have sex and give rise to new ideas. The great story of human history, which began 120,000 years ago, is the habit of humans to communicate with each other and create a collective intelligence. The result is that everyone works for everyone, with knowledge no longer stored in just one brain, but dispersed throughout human society.

Before 1990, no one could have predicted the birth and extent of the World Wide Web. No one could have guessed that there would be 5.5 billion people roaming this network, that is, almost every person on the planet. Twenty years ago, no sane person could have imagined that one day the smartphone would appear and be in the pockets of 7.5 billion people, including those without pockets.

Intensifying interactions between all humans on Earth have made the entire human race an effective problem-solving machine. Just as a single brain cell is useless unless it is part of a complex network of neurons, so is the individual brain compared to a complex network of billions of brains worldwide. The planet is groaning under the weight of 600 million tons of people. Life on Earth will be saved thanks to an active network of nine million tons of human brains.

(4) Human freedom as an engine of innovation

Scientists who make scientific breakthroughs are rebels by nature, nonconformists who revolt against conventions. These people choose dangerous scientific paths for their careers. They are willing to quarrel with the entire scientific establishment and even be ostracized and banned, like Nobel laureate in chemistry, Dan Shechtman, before he gained international recognition for discovering the existence of quasicrystals. They could lose their jobs at the university, like Nobel laureate in chemistry Ada Yonath, before she succeeded in the impossible task of forming the ribosome. They may be marginalized by working in an unpopular field far from the centers of international interest, like Nobel laureates in chemistry Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, who studied how to break down proteins when the whole world was interested in building them.

Such people have no place in an undemocratic regime because they are opinionated and unafraid to stand alone against the whole world and have no problem expressing extreme and unpopular opinions even publicly. Almost all Nobel laureates in the world are such people. In general, such scientists cannot develop in a dictatorial state because the system will filter and block them at the very start of their careers, and they will not be accepted for any academic position. It is not surprising that more than 90% of Nobel laureates in science were born in democratic countries, and of those who were not born in a democracy, most immigrated to such a country and worked there. For example, 11 Nobel Prize winners in science were born in Hungary, but only one lived and worked in his own country. Many scientists born in China win prestigious awards only after immigrating to liberal democracies. This will be the fate of the State of Israel as well if the planners of the coup d'état succeed in realizing their intentions.

Chemistry is everything
Chemistry is everywhere simply because all sciences deal with matter, because all materials are made of atoms and molecules, and because a true understanding of any system, living or inanimate, is a journey that progresses from the individual to the whole, from the molecule to the complex system. The same applies to the design and construction of new systems. Chemistry, rightly called "central science," is the driving force that significantly influences other areas of science, including technological and industrial fields. No one can predict how and when the problems described above will receive satisfactory solutions. Still, it is possible to predict that any solution will be based on chemistry as a key factor because all these problems are mainly chemical. Chemical sciences will continue to play a critical role in the ongoing quest to address these challenges.

How can we expedite solutions to global problems?
Our inability to predict the future makes a mockery of all prophecies, especially prophecies of doom. Policymakers have always been motivated by the desire to solve difficult problems as soon as possible. Unfortunately, administrators cannot plan the direction of the solution and it would be pointless to tell scientists what and how to investigate simply because no one has any idea where science is headed. Therefore, the best we can do is to equip scientists with modern laboratories and support curious, groundbreaking, and high-risk research programs. Pioneering scientific activity can lead to surprising discoveries and revolutionary technologies that no one imagined possible. In addition, liberal democracy and human liberty and dignity must be strengthened, and economic growth must be encouraged everywhere. Only rich countries can advance science, technology, education, and health, and these are the elements that give rise to solutions to global problems.

History teaches us that when a problem worsens, it creates market forces and economic incentives to find solutions. This has happened in the past and will happen in the future. The classic mistake of pessimists is the assumption that the future will be a revamped version of the past, which is complete nonsense. In most cases, the solution involves changing habits and thought patterns.

Humankind will survive on Earth for many years to come, sooner or later all the problems mentioned above will be solved, and chemistry will of course play a central role in these solutions. The problems on the list look scary, but they're all likely to be solved by future technologies that we have no idea what will look like. The more difficult challenges are social, especially the widening gaps between those who march forward and those who are left behind and remain in the darkness of scientific and technological ignorance, superstition, alternative science, and imagined reality.

Is the size of the Earth fixed?
It should be remembered that we no longer live in nature. We all live in an artificial environment, feed on genetically modified crops and animals, wear synthetic or genetically modified fibers, and travel on man-made machines. We all live on products that are figments of the human imagination. This leads to an exciting conclusion: since there is no limit to human imagination and creativity, there is no limit to the effective size of the Earth and the number of people who can live happily ever after.

The author is Professor of Chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion and former Dean of the Faculty. He is President of the Israel Chemical Society, President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), Editor-in-Chief of the Israeli Journal of Chemistry (IJC) and AsiaChem magazine, member of the Wolf Foundation Council, Board Member of the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies, author of the book The Ammonia War. He initiated and encouraged national and international activities to promote chemistry, especially among the younger generation