ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
©Copyright 1995 by the American Chemical Society
COMMENT
EDITOR
William H. Glaze, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Walter Giger, EAWAG (Europe); Ronald A. Hites, Indiana University; Cass T. Miller, University of North Carolina; Jerald L. Schnoor, University of Iowa (water); John H. Seinfeld, California Institute of Technology (air); Mitchell J. Small, Carnegie Mellon University; Joe Suflita, University of Oklahoma ADVISORY BOARD
Hajime Akimoto, University of Tokyo; Alvin L. Alm, Science Applications International; William L. Budde, EPA Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory; Joan M. Daisey, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; Fritz Frimmel, University of Karlsruhe; Michael R. Hoffmann, California Institute of Technology; Sheila Jasanoff, Cornell University; Richard M. Kamens, University of North Carolina; Michael Kavanaugh, ENVIRON Corporation; M. Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University; Joseph M. Norbeck, University of California Riverside; Dennis Schuetzle, Ford Motor Company; Joanne Simpson, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Alexander J.B. Zehnder, EAWAG WASHINGTON STAFF
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The Environmental Nobel Prize
T
he receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry by F. Sherwood Rowland, Mario Molina, and Paul Crutzen this month is probably not recognized as a particularly significant event by many chemists, but to the environmental sciences community it is a tremendous victory. Now for the first time the world's most prestigious research prize in chemistry goes to three environmental scientists. In the Oct. 16 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Robert T. Watson, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is quoted as saying "This prize gives recognition to environmental issues as part of credible, mainstream science." Some of us remember when that was not the case. We recall when many chemists felt that environmental science was too applied, too descriptive, and not fundamental enough to be in the mainstream. Many still feel that way, as evidenced by the fact that environmental chemistry has only recently begun to penetrate the academic curriculum. The awarding of the Nobel Prize should symbolize to all that environmental chemistry now deserves a place in the society of science equal to that of any other field of scholarship. It is true that much of what is done by environmental chemists must be characterized as secondary science, in the sense that it depends upon techniques and methods developed in more "basic" areas of science and mathematics. Few environmental scientists actually develop the techniques that they use in molecular structure and dynamics studies. But the significance of scientific discovery is not just in the development of new tools; often it is in the use or modification of well-known tools to reveal phenomena of significance that were not previously appreciated. It is not necessary for environmental chemists to develop a new spectrometric technique. It is just as significant to apply an established technique to reveal the nature of processes that are fundamental to life on earth. After all, to determine the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick did not invent X-ray crystallography. Environmental chemistry is different in another way from much of chemical research in that it eventually has to deal with systems that are extraordinarily "dirty" compared to the controlled experimental conditions in the laboratories of other chemists. But this dirtiness is essential to the significance of the work whose value is not just in the elucidation of chemical dynamics or molecular phenomena, but also in a more complete understanding of the complex system itself. Such is the work of Molina, Crutzen, and Rowland, who carried out controlled studies in the laboratory but eventually had to go into the skies to test the hypotheses they had generated. When the data came back, it was clear that the fundamental concepts were correct but incomplete, forcing new hypotheses that included surface catalysis and that went beyond the scope of their original ideas. We rejoice with these fine scientists in the awards they will receive in Stockholm, through which they will become new role models for young chemists from all over the world. They symbolize to the new generation that environmental chemistry has finally made it.
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5 3 4 A • VOL. 29, NO. 12, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
William H. Glaze Editor
0013-936X/95/0929-534AS09.00/0 © 1995 American Chemical Society
