Healthy Wealthy Sustainable World Author:John Emsley This book explains to the general reader the roles of chemistry in various areas of life ranging from the entirely personal to the worryingly global. These roles are currently not widely appreciated and certainly not well understood. The book is aimed at educated laypeople who want to know more about the world around them but have little chemic... more »al knowledge. The themes relate to the importance of chemistry in everyday life, the benefits they currently bring, and how their use can continue on a sustainable basis. Topics include: Health - conquering the diseases and stresses which still threaten us Food - the role of agrochemicals and food chemists Water - drinking water; the seas as a resource of raw materials Fuels - what are they and from what are they made? Plastics - what are the used for and can they be sustainable? Cities - what role has chemistry in modern life? Sport - chemistry has changed the game. The number seven has a special resonance in human affairs, as is demonstrated by the seven deadly sins, seven wonders of the world, seven seas, seven days of the week and lucky seven. To reflect this, the contents are arranged in seven chapters and, within every chapter, there are seven sub-themes. Each chapter ends with seven simple pieces of advice. The final chapter tackles the issue of communicating knowledge about 'chemicals' to a wider public. The word chemicals is placed in inverted commas because it is now widely misused to mean something which is assumed to be harmful or polluting. The author argues that, just as there is a placebo effect in which as many as a third of people in double-blind tests appear to benefit from a non-active agent, there is an anti-placebo effect in which a large number of people appear to be adversely affected by what they perceive to be a dangerous substance when in fact it may even be beneficial.« less