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Our Chemically Modified Organisms (CMOs), 22.5 x 33"
"Industrial chemistry is a 20th century phenomenon. During World War I, military demand for war gas was a great boon for the new industry. But in 1925, with the signing of the Geneva Protocol that banned chemical warfare, industry had to look for other markets. The production of nerve gas (a phosphorous-containing chemical) gave way to a new line of insecticides and the chlorine used in weapons such as phosgene and mustard gas was diverted into newly designed solvents, PCBs and, eventually, plastics.
The chemical industry really took off after World War II. In the United States, synthetic organic chemical production has grown more than thirty-fold since 1940. Today industry produces billions of tons of chemicals per year of approximately 90,000 substances." More...