Of Oil, Fertilisers and Haber process!

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

Director: Ron Howard

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_heart_of_the_sea

I had to remind myself of these two points while watching this film. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, when people discussed oil exploration, they often referred to whale hunting. Petroleum had not yet been discovered as an energy source, and the Industrial Revolution had not yet begun. 

Whale oil was used in the Western world for street lighting, to illuminate homes, street lamps, and offices, for industrial lubrication, and for manufacturing soap as well as margarine. It was also valuable in the production of explosives. With the discovery of kerosene as a cheaper alternative, whale oil fell out of fashion. 

Another thing we often take for granted is agricultural fertilisers. We assume they have always been synthetically produced. Wrong. In the 19th century, the best fertilisers in the world came from the 'Guano Islands', a land made of bats and birds' droppings. As the world recognised its importance in farming and the need to feed the growing population, guano was also known as White gold. The same title was also given to cotton later, as it also drove the US and British economies. 

Essex
https://essex.nha.org/the-whaleship-essex/

Great imperial powers, including the US, Britain, France, and Spain, competed to control the numerous Guano islands off South America. Chincha Island, near the coast of Peru, became a key location that served as the centre of the alliance among Spain, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador. Spain lost this war, marking the start of its decline as a superpower. Peru became impoverished when the guano reserves were depleted and the accumulated debt became unsustainable. The global guano trade inspired Haber and Bosch to develop their Nobel Prize-winning process for producing ammonia on an industrial scale. We also know how that turned out for the production of TNT.

This film depicts the true story of the ill-fated whaling ship Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean in 1820, after being struck by a giant sperm whale. Its crew of twenty escaped in three whale boats, but only seven of them ultimately survived, enduring a gruelling ordeal of hardship, dehydration, hunger, and resorting to cannibalism. One of the surviving boatmen, the youngest at fourteen when he embarked on the voyage, lived to tell his story to Herman Melville, who later wrote 'Moby Dick' in 1851.

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Start a revolution from my bed?

Hunt for Red October (1990)

Many keyboard warriors are so convinced by what they see online. They fail to understand why others are so dumb (in their eyes, of course). To them, truth our there is as clear as day. And everyone else just ought to follow, no questions asked. What these modern warriors or influencers, as they are referred to these days, need to know is that sometimes we become too blinded with our beliefs that we fail to practice mindfulness. They should wear another hat and maybe a different colour lens, other than rose, to get a different perspective on things. A revolution cannot be started by an army of one. It begins with the revolution of the collective minds and hearts of the people. This change is difficult, more so in modern times, as we are so divided by ideologies, cultures, faiths and identity.

This film is based on Tom Clancy's 1984 novel which in turn was loosely based on Soviet Union's 1975 attempted mutiny aboard a warship. In the 1975 revolt, a brand-new Russian frigate, Storozhevoy, is hijacked by its Third Rank Captain, Valery Sablin. He was convinced that Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union had lost its original Leninist's visions. The system was plagued with corruption and lies. Sablin wanted to use the hijack as a political statement to stir the Russian to engage in its Second Revolution. His plan fell flat, and he and his fellow men were incarcerated.

Storozhevoy

In the book and the film version, the warship was changed to a spanking new state-of-art nuclear-powered radar-escaping submarine. A rogue Russian Captain uses the invincibility of the sub to defect to the USA. The problem is the US Navy does not know of his intention and are wary of the intrusion of a Russian submarine in international waters. At the same time, the Russian authorities realise the rogue Captain's plan. The Russians are at wit's end to stop the Americans from laying their hands on Russia's highly advanced submarine. 

The highly suspenseful drama describes how the US Navy manages to save the day. They help the Russian crew to defect, rescue the submarine and embarrass the Russian at their own game.

It is naive to believe that truth will always prevail in the end. Things in real life are much more convoluted than that. The power brokers, financiers, the leaders, big pharma companies and the media moguls have the final say of how history ought to be written. Poetic justice and honesty are left to pacify the romantics. It is the rule of the majority. Annoyance from the minority can be easily boomeranged back to the senders by the powers that be (spoiler alert). 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.