I guess, presumably, because it can then be used to create various
Nitrogen-providing fertilizers (like ammonium nitrate, which incidentally
has nice explosive powers as demonstrated by a ship exploding in the Texas
City harbor in the late '40s flattening a quarter of the town, and in
Oklahoma City just recently...). This is just perpetuating the "great
person" school of history. Fact is, the large population growth this
century is due to new agricultural practices, along with improvements in
health, such as vaccines that are easily exported to the developing world.
But, truly, there is such a cluster of issues surrounding population growth
this century, it really sounds naive to give such credit to an
infrastructure chemical process.
- Jim