Chemistry : A Gift or a Curse?

I just made this for my chemistry assignment. Hope you like it.


Life as we know is the most complex gift from God. From the prehistoric prokaryotic cells, to the the most complex multicellular organisms that exist today, Chemistry plays a vital role in life even 4.6 billion years ago.

Chemistry, as what I had read in some chemistry books, is the broadest branch of science; it is the central study of all sciences, which deals not only with the elements and atomic numbers, but also with other things such as the daily household chores, hobby and even leisure. Take these for example, in cooking, Chemistry revolved in these important things in the kitchen like cooking oils, vinegar (acetic acid), fish sauce (patis), iodized salt and other important things related to cooking. We can see that there's a lot of benefits that Chemistry offers to the society, most especially in this millennium – the third millennium. Through Chemistry, scientists around the world had done with extensive case studies, countless and possibly boundless researches and they usually spent countless hours, sitting and examining their own experiments inside the monochromatic life and color of their state-of-the-art laboratory. They haven't failed to make our lives faster, easier and transactions were in a jiffy. Without them, we would still experience the life of a prehistoric nomad in a community. Life would be rather slow and not exciting.

Despite the knowledge that we've acquired through Chemistry, we failed to realize that there are still numerous limitations regarding the technology of Chemistry contributed by the pioneering scientists in the world. People are technology oriented through this years, thus they tend to forget the side effects of a certain technology which remained the scientists puzzled. Scientists today are still perplexed of how to make a certain technology without harming the environment and to the people involved in this area.

I can state this one good example of a certain technology which wreaked an almost unimaginable havoc in the planet earth. We are all familiar with this compound named CFC, or chlorofluorocarbons. This complex compound is very essential on manufacturing refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosol sprays. In the early 70's and to the late 90's, CFC became the main issue on televisions, newspapers and other forms of media. This made CFC as an instant celebrity for just one main reason: it destroys our Ozone Layer, the protective layer in our atmosphere primarily to shield us from the harmful UV (Ultraviolet Rays) emitted from the sun. Ozone Layer is made up of free Oxygen atoms (O3), a highly reactive atom. When CFC is released in the air, just only one CFC can be proved fatal in our Ozone Layer which destroys almost a million particles of O3. During that time, the society had an intense usage of CFC they didn't have any proper understanding of CFC. Nevertheless, the concentration of O3 decreased drastic manner. The hole in the ozone layer is very visible, even today at the South Pole of our planet.

Let's not just concentrate with the ozone and CFC issue. Primarily, there are many unsolved issues in our environment regarding Chemistry. Inasmuch, we must take a part of it and have some serious actions on it like the proper knowledge of chemicals and their effects in the humanity and to the environment. Through this, we can solve these issues partially though.

In other words, Chemistry is a blessing to all of us. We can use its significance in our daily lives just to make our living fast and hassle-free. But it's up to us if we consider this a curse. Chemistry can't be a curse, it's our carelessness which made it a curse.

Chemistry benefits us in our daily life but it could wreak an unimaginable havoc which could be possibly Earth's apocalypse in the near future. We will not know this but there's an endless possibility of this feared day. Infinite inquiries from countless people remained scientists, particularly chemist to sit in their respective lab stools, looking at their experiments, as if their looking for a certain ant in an endless horizon of green meadows.