Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future

by Johan Norberg

‘What has been the most important technical invention of the twentieth century?’ asks Vaclav Smil in Enriching the Earth. He rejects suggestions like computers and aeroplanes, going on to explain that nothing has been as important as the industrial fixing of nitrogen: ‘the single most important change affecting the world’s population – its expansion from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today’s six billion – would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia.’ Without the Haber-Bosch Process about two-fifths of the world population would not exist at all, Smil claims.17 Sadly, Fritz Haber’s brilliant mind was also put to the task of killing. He was a pioneer in chemical warfare and developed chlorine gas for the German troops to use against enemy forces. He directed the first release of fatal gas himself on 22 April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres. Six thousand French soldiers were killed. As Haber put it, ‘During peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.’18 Coming from a man who saved more lives than perhaps anyone else, but also destroyed lives on a massive scale, this might be one of the best possible arguments against war.