9-12-12 The Father of Life and Death

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EIF 9-12-12 pod.MP3

The invention of nitrogen fertilizer was arguably the most important technological breakthrough of the 20th century.　 But not many people know the tragic story of the German chemist who pioneered chemical fertilizer, Fritz Haber.　 His wizardry　allowed the growth of enough crops to feed about three billion people who might have otherwise starved, according to calculations by Jan Willem Erisman, James Galloway and colleagues, published in Nature Geoscience.　 But the same innovation also contributed to major global environmental problems and　was　used to create powerful explosives that killed as many as　150 million people.