MIT SCIENTIST SHARES NOBEL FOR IDENTIFYING OZONE DAMAGE
Author: By David L. Chandler, Globe Staff
Date: Thursday, October 12, 1995
Page: 1
Section: METRO
Mario Molina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and two other
scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry yesterday for ground-
breaking work showing that man-made chemicals were destroying the Earth's
protective ozone layer. It is the first time the prize has recognized
environmental research.
Their work, begun in the '70s, was greeted skeptically at first but was
confirmed more than a decade later, providing the first clear evidence that
human activity can have dramatic effects on the environment on a global scale.
Molina, along with two chemists, F. Sherwood Rowland of the University of
California-Irvine and Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
in Germany, will share the award for the work that eventually established
that chemicals called CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, were destroying the ozone
layer that protects all life on Earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays.
"The three researchers have contributed to our salvation from a global
environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences," said the
Royal Swedish Academy of Science's citation.
The chemists' findings led to an international agreement, signed in
Montreal in 1987, calling for a worldwide ban on the use of CFCs by the end of
this year.
Also yesterday, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Martin L. Perl of
Stanford University and Frederick Reines of the University of California-
Irvine for their discoveries of tiny subatomic particles called the tau and
the neutrino.
Chemistry prize winners Molina and Rowland published a paper in the journal
Nature in 1974 that outlined how CFCs, then widely used in air conditioners,
refrigerators and the manufacture of styrofoam, could be transported to the
upper atmosphere and react with and destroy the ozone, which is a form of
oxygen with three atoms in each molecule, instead of the more stable two-atom
version.
"Many were critical of Molina's and Rowland's assertions," the Nobel
citation noted. "Today we know that they were right in all essentials." The
Nobel Prize committee often waits many years before making an award to assess
how well the research holds up and what its ultimate impact is.
The prediction was confirmed in 1985 when satellite data showed the
appearance of an "ozone hole" over Antarctica. At that point, negotiations
began in earnest for reducing the use of the ozone-depleting chemicals.
While ozone at ground level is a smog-producing pollutant, a thin layer of
the gas in the upper atmosphere plays an essential role in protecting life
from ultraviolet light, which can cause mutations in many species and skin
cancer in humans.
Robert Birgeneau, MIT's dean of science, noted that Molina is "a Mexican-
American and one of our first underrepresented minorities to win the Nobel
Prize."
MIT's president, Charles Vest, added that "this award emphasizes that the
most fundamental scientific inquiry can turn out to have extremely important
ramifications for our world. It also shows that sometimes nice guys finish
first."
Molina said that when he came to his office yesterday morning, "The Nobel
Prize was not on my mind." When he got the news, at first "it didn't sink in."
In light of the skepticism that initially greeted his work on the ozone
layer, he said, the award "does feel like a vindication.
"It is very rewarding to see that environmental science is taken very
seriously now," he said. Molina, 52, was born in Mexico City and earned his
doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. His wife, Luisa T.
Molina, is a research scientist who also studies ozone depletion at MIT.
There was irony in the timing of the award, since just last month two
members of the US House of Representatives introduced legislation to postpone
implementation of the ban on ozone-depleting chemicals, saying the scientific
evidence was still unclear. The legislation is in committee.
Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric physicist with the Environmental
Defense Fund in Washington, said "the work of Rowland, Molina and Crutzen is
one of the most fundamental scientific discoveries of the 20th century. It
proved that human beings can destroy the global systems that support life on
Earth."
Oppenheimer added that the Nobel Prize selection "unequivocally puts to
rest any claims by special interests far outside the scientific mainstream
that human-caused ozone depletion is not a problem."
CHANDL;10/11 CAWLEY;10/12,15:47 NOBEL12
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