Exactly !
Scale is important, and while we work with chemistry (molecular level), physics is either looked at the sub atomic level or at the engineering standard level (like Newton's apple :-) ).
What was called in 1936 the Chimie-Physique (Curie), working at what is called today the nano scale (bricks of several big molecules) is a future bearing technology... Not so because it's high-tech (or even low-tech in some cases), but because for the same amount of energy you get a much higher effectiveness.

But then, why on European Tribune ? Maybe because, unlike the casual french politician, the knowledge of how building can progress can be a real asset in coining a new way of living (ergo: a new society).

 These materials are important in public health first !

• We use asbestos for fire proofing, we scare because it can give cancer (not knowing that there are 2 asbestos minerals, the other not being related to cancer).
  
• We create an array of electro magnetic fields (related to frequent off work days) with machines and transformers.
  
• We are keen on windfarms, solar panels, solar heating, forgetting that some have it's own lot of health related problems (solar heating water temperature, ideal for Legionnela!)
  
• We rant on energy (petrol or nuclear), mixing up the industry demand and the individual one. While with aerogel insulation (again silicia) we could light a few candles for a full day of comfortable temperature.
  
• We care about immigration, but we don't even have a thought for the main employment - building works - that still kills or maim for life most of them, because we just love that "nice little house", so cheap !
  
• We care about other people, other countries, mostly third world's ones, and we sell them our old rotten techniques, either creating a technical dependancy, or just polluting where we still can (Bopal).

It could go on for a while...!

The fight for a better world starts -also- at a lower level. Or how you deal and manage a territory (weather, crops, industry, cities), and how those techniques can be improved, creating new jobs, new relationships between people... Often in a subtle but very common way of dealing with it !

While I'm not an economist, neither a scientist, I was thinking of posting, from time to time, some diaries about those problems. Basic information at first, then the  "what we could do" with those techniques and at what relative cost... Neither utopia nor dystopia !

"What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman