A couple years ago, UNESCO, the science and culture education arm of the UN, declared 2009 to be the International Year of Astronomy. This year they’re promoting 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry . Personally, I think this is a smart way to combat the blatant ignorance behind the anti-vaccine movement, the global warming denialists and the plethora of psuedoscience and woo that people espouse on a daily basis. The great thing about this is that it highlights chemistry’s contributions to society and how it will help humanity tackle some of our largest problems such as renewable energy and clean drinking water.
So, to help promote this understanding, the IYC released this amusing video to show what a day without chemistry would look like. Afterwards, I highly recommend heading over to their website and finding ways to participate in the celebration. After all we as scientists use chemistry on a daily basis to explain how our nook of the world behaves and operates. Let’s return some of that love.