These are natural processes but both compounds can be synthesized in chemical reactions outside our bodies. In the early 1800s, Friedrich Wohler found that urea could be made simply by evaporating an aqueous solution of ammonium cyanate. Nevertheless, no matter how urea and hydrogen peroxide are synthesized, they are still urea and hydrogen peroxide. Urea is used as fertilizer and hydrogen peroxide as an antiseptic. The alcohol in wine may taste good but has serious health implications.
Medications are useful when used as prescribed but harmful if used inappropriately.
It is up to us to become educated about how we use any chemical, natural or man-made, to protect our environment and ourselves yet provide for life in abundance. For each ton of CO 2 the corn plant inhales, three-fourths of a ton of oxygen is exhaled back into the atmosphere. Instead of pillorying chemical fertilizers, perhaps environmentalists should check a mirror as to who is really culpable. Using their logic, we should eliminate humans and save the planet. You ll also learn in this issue of the Fluid Journal how effectively the corn plant and other crops remove CO 2 from the air to counterbalance the quantities put in by fossil fuels and by Mother Nature.