Healthy, Wealthy, Sustainable World: RSC - Hardcover

John Emsley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847558623 ISBN 13: 9781847558626

Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2010

Synopsis

This lay person's guide explains the roles of chemistry in areas of life ranging from the entirely personal to the global.

About this title

Review:

Chemistry As The Good Guy

A Healthy, Wealthy, Sustainable World
John Emsley
RSC Publishing, Cambridge, UK, 2010, 170 pp (HB) ISBN 978-1-84755-862-6" "

"Reviewed by Keith Taber"
This book reflects two major premises. One is that we face a major crisis because of the way humans have been using the world's resources in a way that is totally unsustainable. The second is that although this is a major problem, there is hope, and much of that hope centres on chemistry. This is an important message. Of course chemistry is neutral, and sometimes its applications have caused damage to people and places. Yet its successes often go unnoticed, and the prospects for future prosperity are dismal without it.

Emsley's book is divided into chapters according to major areas of application of chemical sciences: food, water, health, fuels, plastics, cities and sport. Within each of these contexts, a case is made for how chemistry can make a continuing major contribution to maintaining a

From the Back Cover:

The world stands at a crossroads. What route to the future should we take? The road to a sustainable future beckons, but what effect will this have on chemistry, which appears so dependent on fossil resources? Its products are part of everyday living, and without them we could regress to the world of earlier generations when lives were blighted by disease, famines, dirt, and pain. In fact the industries based on chemistry - the chemical, agrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries - could be sustainable and not only benefit those in the developed world but could be shared by everyone on this planet and for generations to come. This book shows how it might be achieved. John Emsley is a popular science writer whose first book, The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide, won the 1995 Science Book Prize and has been translated into 12 other languages. Then came Molecules at an Exhibition, Vanity, Vitality & Virility, and Better Looking, Better Living, Better Loving, all devoted to the benefits of chemistry. A Healthy, Wealthy, Sustainable World will deal with the things we regard as essential to a developed lifestyle and which depend on chemistry, namely food, water, fuel, healing drugs and plastics, as well as other areas where its role is less obvious, such as city living and sport.

About this edition

• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1847558623
• ISBN 13: 9781847558626
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 242