The German physical chemist Wilhem Ostwald (1853-1932) received the Nobel Prize in 1909 on his research on catalysis but his work to discredit atomism deserves now some interest because it may be taken as a predecessor of the ideology of climate change catastrophism. In my view, climate change catastrophism is the idea that we, humans, due to our nefast actions, we are the only to blame for the climate change now in course in our planet. As we, humans and scientists, don’t have a full knowledge of the planetary and cosmological factors in action over the nature of this planet (isn’t a reasonable hypothesis?), sustaining politically without a doubt that climate change has an antrogenic origin is a «set of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.» Ostwald, together with Ernst Mach are the last major figures in Germany and Austria to sustain arguments against the atomic theory. Ostwald proposed instead as an alternative to atomism, the Energism, with the tenet that all natural processes are consequences of transformation of energy.
Ostwald was a friend of Svante Arrhenius and Jacobus van’t Hoff. Arrehnius, according to some, was the man who foresaw climate change [2].
The Energism sustained that energy was more fundamental than matter, tha molecules, atoms and ions were nothing else than mathematical fictions to explain the energetic processes, “matter is only a convenient term which we use to imbue changing events with permanence”.
To Ostwald, the Energism was a”science of science”, a monistic view of the universe that would bridge tha gap between physics and chemistry, and ultimately, the physical and biological realms. The Energism was a complement to Darwinism, according to him, a theory that was based in physics and chemistry to explain the “universe in a state of flux”.
Ostwald later accepted the atomism, after Jean Baptiste Perrin succeded to determine molecular weight determination of Avogadro’s number through a statistical examination of the Brownian movement in colloids, verifying Albert Einstein’s explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirming the atomic nature of matter. But with his recognition of the fundamental characteristic of nature manifested in the “discontinuity” in the structure of matter, Ostwald converted the Energism into a social and political dogma.
Moreover, Ostwald converted to the German Monistic movement (a movement founded to popularize Darwinism), a sort of politicization of science, endeavoring to implement the “scientific point of view” to social and political intricacies in Germany, just before WWI. The German Monistic movement, althoug initially anti-Nazi and with the raising of Nazism was dismantle, Nazis took over the ideology to defend their ideology, arguing that the movement were pionner in the political use of biology [3].
Then, he became president of the influential Monistenbund (from 1911 through 1915), advocating the “key principle” of Energism as the “energetic imperative”, in his view of the “energetic imperative” as an outcome of his version of the second law of thermodynamics. The resulting doctrine sustained that humans were obliged to “Do not waste energy, but convert it into a more useful form.” Based on these beliefs, Ostwald launched Energism as a scientific creed embracing altogether the ideals of pacifism, internationalism, and eugenic programs. Exposing the inner contradictions of his political doctrine, Ostwald supported the German war effort in World War I, while condemning the war in general as a “waste of energy,” a plain contradiction of the need for “efficiency” commanded by the “energetic imperative.”
Ironically, the war sealed the end of both of his research in physical chemistry and as well his politicization of science by the persistent activities to elevate Energism to a unitary scientific monism.
REFERENCES:
[1] Holt, N. R. (1970). A Note on Wilhelm Ostwald’s Energism. Isis, 61(3), 386–389. doi:10.1086/350655
[2] https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/svante-arrhenius-the-man-who-foresaw-climate-change/ Link Here.
[3] Monists & Nazis: A Question of Scientific Responsibility, Niles R. HoltThe Hastings Center ReportVol. 5, No. 2 (Apr., 1975), pp. 37-43 (7 pages)
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