INTRODUCTION

More than 4 billion years ago the Earth began to cool and the water vapour formed by volcanic eruptions condensed and oceans were formed by precipitation. More than 3.5 billion years ago, life was formed with microorganisms that invented photosynthesis, a process that generates the necessary oxygen. Life originated in water and is maintained thanks to it; areas where it is scarce become deserts, such as the Sahara, which until 5,000 years ago was a jungle like the Amazon. But almost all forms of life have always been under the threat of extinction.

Hundreds of millions of years before the human species appeared on Earth, there were mass extinctions of animal and plant species, the causes of which are not clear: volcanoes, earthquakes, glaciations, meteorite impacts. What is known is that these species, animals and plants, did not cause these mega-disappearances. Today the Earth is preparing to see a new mass extinction, but this time the cause and the causer are perfectly clear: climate change as a component of the planetary crisis induced by THE 1% of the human species that has the economic, political and military power of the world.

According to Honty, G. (2019), 65 million (MM) years ago, the most recent mass extinction occurred, with the disappearance of the dinosaurs and other animal species. It is estimated that the possible cause was climate change due to volcanic activity and/or the impact of a large asteroid, which by creating a barrier of particulate matter in the atmosphere, prevented the entry of sunlight, and with this the paralysis of all photosynthetic processes that depend on it occurred, with the consequent disappearance of all types of plants.

Honty (2019) mentions other similar mass extinction processes between 199-244 MM due to climate change due to volcanism, as well as 251 MM ago. 364 MM ago, scientists estimate that there was another mass extinction of unknown cause and the oldest is dated 439 MM ago, the cause being estimated to be changes in sea level.

Very early on, the predecessor species of homo sapiens sapiens (us) made use of fire, the first known chemical reaction: a combustible material + oxidizer (oxygen in the air) + heat source. It is estimated that 500,000 years ago such action corresponded to Homo erectus pekinensis.

Homo sapiens sapienshas an estimated existence of around 250 thousand years and it is considered that 15,000 years ago, hunters and gatherers became farmers, the first felling of trees for construction and heating began, the mobility of soil nutrients, hydraulic works, the first settlements, which later became large cities, generating waste that since then has not stopped polluting the air, soil and water of the entire planet.

Since ancient times, the uses of many materials to satisfy basic needs have been discovered: eating, protecting oneself from the weather and having a home. The cure of illnesses, poisons, etc. gave other uses to materials, chemistry was already in full development. Thus, it is estimated that ceramics were worked 12,000 years ago, plaster and lime 11,000 years ago, while copper was processed in what is now Turkey and Iraq 9,000 years ago, bronze is more recent, 6,500 years ago bronze was obtained by fusing malachite and cassiterite with coal.

It is known that paper was developed 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, although the paper we know today was developed in China about 2,500 years ago; iron, 3,500 years ago, thanks to the Hittites, who with their iron weapons dominated the region for several centuries, they were an Indo-European people from present-day Türkiye. Glass has been known for 3,500 years, in ancient Egypt.

Since our human species and its predecessor species began to occupy territories, there was what the Organic Law of the Environment (2006) calls contamination: the release or introduction into the environment of matter, in any of its states, that modifies the environment in its natural composition or degrades it, understanding the environment as the set or system of elements of a physical, chemical, biological or socio-cultural nature (which is in constant dynamics due to human or natural action) that governs and conditions the existence of human beings and other living organisms that interact permanently in a given space and time.

But this contamination was initially very natural, gradual, without an apparent impact on the world as a whole, since the great impacts were seen in cities due to the lack of management of liquid and solid waste and residues, but everything was changing in an increasing and sustained manner, until it reached the industrial revolution, just over 200 years ago. In such a short time, with the products of science in the hands of a few, we have reached the point of putting the lives of all species in danger of extinction.

The determining factors:

Without a doubt, the main factor in the pollution of the planet was the appearance and development of a production and consumption model that jumped from artisanal work to industrial work.

With the steam controller, developed in the third half of the 18th century, coal displaced wood as a source of energy and allowed a change in the way of producing. The Industrial Revolution led to the Social Revolution, closing the chapter of feudalism and opening that of capitalism, and its way of consuming, generating waste of all kinds, but in quantities that tend to infinity, which made capital believe that the planet has infinite resources. In the mid-70s, when it was shown that the oil production curve had reached its inflection point, people began to think that resources are not infinite.

The repercussions of industrial, urban and agricultural pollution on water, soil and air have been disastrous. Air emissions have skyrocketed and have not stopped growing to this day: we have been releasing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere for over 200 years, the chemicals released into the environment have travelled around the planet, in many places, especially marine areas, so much waste has accumulated that islands have formed, together with the loss of soil and biodiversity.

This pollution, which began with the formation of the cities, Çatalhöyük in present-day Turkey (9,700 years ago), Uruk, Ur and Babylon, all created between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, has never stopped since then, although some people have tried to alleviate this pollution, for example, the Romans built aqueducts but did nothing to treat the wastewater that was expelled into the Tiber River. This whole situation has been exponentially increased by the pollution that began in the pre-industrial era until today, a process that continues to rise.

Indiscriminate logging and burning prevents the accumulation of water in the subsoil. The capitalocene uses the soils of ancient forests and savannas for extensive industrial crops. The water will move the agrochemicals from these crops, facilitating processes of eutrophication and death in the bodies of water where they arrive.

These soils, so mercilessly treated, will be the seat of extensive crops to feed the meat industry, which means that, if today we are 8 billion human beings, there are 80 billion animals on farms (meat production factories) at a rate of 10 animals for each human being.

It is important to note that the warming of the planet in this era of the capitalocene, as Moore (2020) prefers to call it, did not begin with the industrial revolution, but with the conquest and plundering of the American continent by England, Spain, Portugal and also the Netherlands. We are talking about the middle part of the 15th century. This allowed speculative financial capital (redundancy intended) to have the initial capital to later cover industrial capitalist production.

It is no small thing that Europe owes to the American peoples, with the aggravating factor that such wealth was forged over the lives of no less than 60 million native beings and an as yet unestimated number of African peoples who were enslaved to satisfy Europe's thirst for consumption of goods.

For the author Federci (2010), the original accumulation generated by women throughout the entire feudal process, in which men were used for the constant intra-European wars, allowed, first the feudal lords and then the nascent bourgeoisie to have the capital to make the great leap from artisanal production to industrial production.

We think that both processes of formation of the initial capital, the gold and silver looted in America and the work of women formed such a base, which will expand logarithmically after mechanism (invention of all kinds of machines) found its launching platform in the domain of thermal energy.

But to achieve such development, capitalism resorted to cheap labor. To do so, they first opted for the destruction of knowledge and the role of women in peasant life, for which they were served on a silver platter by the Inquisition, a macabre process developed by the Christian Church, both Catholic (Spain) and Calvinist (England), as Federici (2020) rightly points out, but also in the process of expulsion of peasants from their lands, after the great triumph of the feudal lords in the peasant struggles of the 14th and 15th centuries, the peasants stripped of their lands and their work tools went to form the so-called industrial reserve army.

The end of artisanal production had been reached, where the artisans had control of what they produced, they were the owners of the means of production, just like the peasantry. Work became a commodity.

The great contributor: the chemical industry.

In the history of chemistry there are very important milestones such as the Bain-marie, a cooking technique used by Mary the Jewess in Alexandria, an alchemist of the 3rd century, and the invention of gunpowder in the 7th century in China. Alchemy sought to transform any metal into gold, but what happened was that this search led to the development of key practices and experiences in the development of chemistry.

But it was with the mechanism and industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that the extractive chemistry of aromatic compounds such as benzene, toluene, xylenes and phenol, which were contained in coal tar, a residue of coking, as a basic raw material for the textile industry, began.

Friedrich Wöhler (1800-1882) created the first organic substance made from inorganic components; he was the first to transform an inert material into an organic product. He discovered that by mixing ammonia with cyanogen (a gas obtained from cyanide) he could produce oxalic acid and white crystals that he could not identify. Later he realized that these crystals were urea.

And this story, the whole story is nothing more than a list of discoveries that began in 1791, in France, when Nicolas Le Blanc discovered the process for producing sodium carbonate. But the high point came in 1850, when the French Society of Pharmacy offered a prize of 4,000 francs to anyone who managed to synthesize quinine (to break the Dutch monopoly). In pursuit of this prize, the British William Perkin accidentally discovered violet dye (Perkin's dye), the first synthetic dye, in 1856. Perkin set up the first English dye factory. He also synthesized the fungicide and detergent cinnamic acid and glycol, the raw material for herbicides

Chemical pollution was rampant. Thus, in 1865, BASF was founded in Germany, which is currently one of the largest chemical companies (and the largest producer of polluting products) in the world. At that company, Caro synthesized methylene blue. German chemists took advantage of Perkin's founding work, as well as that of French and Russian chemists, and developed the gigantic German chemical industry based on coal.

In 1905, the German company Hoechst developed the technology to produce nitric acid based on Ostwald's patent (later Nobel Prize winner) which in turn was based on the synthesis of the Frenchman Kuhlmann (1839). In 1906, Hoechst installed a plant in Bochum with a production capacity of 10,000 tons/year. In this company, Haber patented his process for obtaining ammonia, which BASF would later produce industrially.

In 1913, the first ammonia plant was installed with the first high-pressure reactor, with a production capacity of 4,000 tons/year, thanks to the contribution of Bosch and Mittasch, who tested more than 2,000 catalysts. Synthetic ammonia produced a significant increase in the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers and with it the contamination of soils and waters escalated

The British Empire, along with France, Holland and Italy, had divided up the world. Spain and Portugal had colonies in Africa. Germany arrived late to this division. Japan aspired to dominate China and expand further. For this reason, Germany and Japan wanted markets, and all this was the cause of the war. BASF, Bayer, Hoescht and others were linked to military production. During World War I, Haber and other Nobel Prize winners were involved in the development and production of poisonous gases.

The first synthetic fibre based on vinyl chloride monomer was also produced in 1913. In 1917, in view of Germany's imminent defeat in World War I, a club was created between the 7 major German companies (6 of them chemical, including BASF, Hoechst and Bayer), previously associated in the production of dyes.

At the Versailles Conference that followed the end of that war, it was agreed to dismantle the German military-chemical industry, but Bosch convinced the Allies not to destroy the chemical plants (as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles) in exchange for sharing know-how and advising on the construction of ammonia and nitrate plants in France.

In 1925, IG Farben was formed, an association made up of the 7 most important companies in Germany. IG Farben brought together the greatest inventors of the time: Klate: vinyl chloride; Bosch and Haber: ammonia, Mittach: methanol and Duden: acetylene chemistry. IG Farben bought Dynamit AG and other companies, gaining control of the munitions industry. It soon became linked to Hitler in his policy of self-sufficiency for Germany and genocide of Jews, communists, gypsies and homosexuals.

At the beginning of the First World War, the German chemical industry was the most advanced in the world. In parallel with the development of the ammonia industry, Bergius (Nobel Prize winner) patented the process of hydrogenation of coal, which would be put into practice during the First World War. Bosch bought Bergius' patent in 1927 with funds from Standard Oil of New Jersey, allowing ammonia plants to be converted into coal-based gasoline producers. The American company's relationship with Germany sparked its interest in converting heavy crude oils into light materials.

In 1924, Pier and Bosch developed the commercial process for high-pressure methanol synthesis, and in 1925, Fischer and Tropsh developed the synthesis of hydrocarbons and oxygenated derivatives from synthesis gas, based on the work of the Frenchman Sabatier. In 1934, the first plant was built with a capacity of 400,000 tons/year. This contributed to the generation of detergents. By 1945, Huls produced synthetic rubber from carbon, high polymers, synthetic fibers, including nylon.

World War II led U.S. capitalists to build large plants to produce gasoline, explosives, solvents, etc. Thus, by the end of the war, the American plants were ahead of the German ones, which had to adapt to new technologies. Petroleum chemistry in the United States originated thanks to the interest of capital to economically control the world. Although it was clear that oil was a better raw material than coal, the main component of oil was paraffins (not very reactive).

In 1912, Burton invented thermal cracking, then Dubbs improved it. In the 19th century, companies that produced coke oven gases and coke tar (coal, gas and steel production) did not use them as raw materials. It was the German, French, English and later American chemical companies that saw the opportunity.

But a new source of energy was emerging: refinery gases containing olefins. For many oil companies, the chemical business was not an investment due to its much smaller size than oil; few saw the opportunity. In the 1930s, of the main ethylene derivatives, only ethylene glycol, glycol esters and ethanol were produced in any volume. Ethylene from refinery gases was not used. Vinyl monomers were virtually unknown, as was polyethylene.

Union Carbide (Bhopal) was established in the 19th century to produce calcium carbide (first synthesized in Germany) which reacted with water to give acetylene. Looking for other routes to obtain acetylene, they began to study the arc process on gas oil, producing half a mole of ethylene per mole of acetylene. This was the first company to be interested in producing ethylene. They would later succeed in cracking ethane.

Oil and gas field operations were very primitive and had no contact with the chemical industry. A new field of application for the knowledge of engineers arose: Chemical Engineering. Chemical engineering may be the key to achieving the cost advantage of economies of scale in U.S. plants.

The establishment of research and development (R&D) laboratories led to the production of various ethylene and propylene derivatives such as: ethylene glycol, ethylene oxide, ethanol, ethanolamide. Later, isopropanol, acetone, acetaldehyde, etc. In 1934, Union Carbide produced 35 ethylene derivatives and 15 propylene derivatives. In 1984, it was responsible for 5,000 deaths in a single night in the Indian city of Bhopal and 20,000 more over the years.

Shell was the first to suggest that if chemical companies could produce hydrocarbons, oil companies could produce chemicals. Its strategy was to develop and market technology to use refinery waste streams or natural gas. To do so in the United States, due to the abundance of these raw materials. In order to secure this strategy, Shell founded an R&D laboratory in Emeryville, which would be directed by Clofford Williams. In the laboratory, they would be able to produce, among other products: Ammonia from natural gas, Sec-butanol, Isopropanol-acetone, Alkyl phenols and the recovery of toluene.

Dow Chemical started out with the exploitation of bromine-rich salt, from which they extracted chlorine, bromine, sodium, magnesium and calcium, and sought to locate itself in Freeport, taking advantage of sea water and natural gas. Establishing this plant in the warm climate of the south implied savings of up to 50% compared to plants in the north. Many companies replicated this idea. After the Bhopal Tragedy, it acquired the shares of Union Carbide. Together with Monsanto, it produced Agent Orange, a defoliant that caused 500,000 people with mutagenic damage in the US war against the people of Vietnam (1970s) and in numerous US troops.

Standard Oil (Exxon)'s contribution was based on the application of Chemical Engineering to the valorisation of petroleum fractions. His close ties with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), combined with the German know-how he had, through his contact with IG Farben, allowed him to develop the hydroforming process to obtain BTX from naphthas and later catalytic cracking in a fluidized bed.

There is much evidence that the Standard Oil company always supported Hitler, as did the Ford, General Electric and IBM companies in his attempt to finish off the USSR, until the father of Nazism decided to conquer Europe at the same time, which resulted in a frustrated attempt to undermine Russia, as had happened in the past to the French, with Bonaparte.

After World War II, the deep government of the United States decided to transfer to its territory thousands of scientists, chemists, physicists and biologists who had contributed to the military development of Germany, appropriating the know-how that led it in a few years to be a military power of such nature, that together with the other power of the moment, the The USSR brought the planet to the brink of a final war.

The chemical and petrochemical industry turned out to be humanity's Pandora's Box. Even today, the interrelationship with nature is still unknown, and environmentally sustainable processes are only just beginning to be discussed.

The current situation:

Nowadays there is abundant information about the global climate crisis, what happens is that the average person does not get the fuse to go beyond what is reported to us, but there are valuable documents such as the one published in the journal BioScience by researchers William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R Moomaw (2019). I will only present a list of its main headlines that speak for themselves:

* The human population growth trend has been 15.5%/10 years despite the fall in the fertility rate, -10.9%/10 years. This means that we require more and more resources to sustain this growing population, which is largely growing with the consumerist pattern of the Western world, predatory of nature.

The growth trend of the ruminant livestock population has been 8.72%/10 years and meat production 11%/10 years. It has been said that if everyone became vegetarian we would have no problem with population growth.

Gross Domestic Product growth worldwide has been 80.5%/10 years. Global forest cover loss has been 49.6%/10 years, meaning that while wealth (for a few) grows, forests are shrinking.

Forest loss in the global Amazon has been 24.3%/10 years while fossil fuel growth is; 11.9%/10 years for oil, 22.5% for coal and 30.1% for gas. The paradox is that the eventual source for consuming these greenhouse gases is disappearing. * Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions covered by the price of coal are 256%/10 years, coal prices fall to 33%/10 years and fuel subsidies fall to 1.08%/10 years. Capital is taking advantage of the economic crisis to put coal on the market.

The growth rate of CO2 is 4.98%/10 years and that of methane is 3.65%/10 years, and it is known that the impact of methane exceeds the impact of carbon by several points.

The growth rate of N20 is 2.46%/10 years. The temperature is growing at a rate of 0.183%/10 years. All agreements aim to prevent global temperature from continuing to rise, but they do not go beyond that, beyond the agreement.

The minimum area of ??sea ice in the Arctic is decreasing at a rate of 11.7%/10 years. The loss of ice in Greenland is 2,610 GTM/10 years, and this is changing the climate on both sides of the Atlantic, which we owe to the oceans.

The loss of ice in Antarctica is 1,230 GTM/10 years. The thickness of the glaciers is reduced at a rate of 4.84 m of water equivalent/10 years, thus increasing the sea level.

The absorption of heat content by the oceans is increasing at a rate of 6.16x1022 joules/10 years, which generates extreme weather events. Currently, hurricane researchers are considering a new category, predicting climatic phenomena of this nature at a faster rate than those known.

The pH of the seas and oceans is falling at a rate of 4.12%/10 years (leading to acidification)

The average sea level relative to 20 years is increasing at 31.4 mm/10 years. In the USA, the burned area is increasing at a rate of 44.1%/10 years.

Extreme meteorological/climatic/water events are increasing at a rate of 43.8%/10 years, causing annual losses in US dollars of 83.7%/10 years.

If we review the Club of Rome report, a report prepared by MIT researchers headed by Dr. Meadows et al (1972) for a group of businessmen who held a meeting in that city, we will find that all these issues appear in that document.

But the most serious thing is that this research has an overwhelming conclusion: our civilization had 100 years left before plunging into total collapse, that is, in 2072.

But as Jorge Riechmann said in a personal conversation, we now use supercomputers that exceed the capacity of those that MIT had at the time when that report was made, we have incorporated into the modeling programs used in the 70s variables that were not considered then, the values ??of the variables used initially have been updated and the projections indicate that the breaking point would not be in 2072, but sometime between 2030 and 2050, that is, the day after tomorrow.

The minority that rules the world (THE 1%), through transnational banking, food, medicine, agro-industry, energy, arms and drug trafficking corporations, to mention the most notable activities of capitalism, knows this well, and is preparing to see hundreds of millions of people disappear in the next decades as soon as possible, as a consequence of the impact on crops, farmland, marine and animal life in general, which will be expressed as new famines, human displacements like never before, generated by the way in which natural resources have been exhausted, pollution, and especially, anthropogenic climate change.