A Toast to Scientist’s Tenacity : UCI Fetes Japan Prize Winner
F. Sherwood Rowland, the UC Irvine chemistry professor who was awarded the prestigious Japan Prize on Wednesday, was late for a campus reception in his honor. He was teaching his morning atmospheric chemistry class.
Rowland, a tenacious researcher who discovered that substances found in aerosol sprays, air-conditioning systems and cleaning solvents are destroying the Earth’s ozone shield, explained that it was “class as usual.”
Chancellor Jack Peltason was considerably more effusive. The award, which recognizes scientific and technological achievements that contribute to world peace, is accompanied by a cash prize of 50 million yen--about $387,600 at current exchange rates.
“The whole world is cheering him,” Peltason said in a champagne toast Wednesday. “He didn’t just do the work in the laboratory, but he realized the consequences of his discovery and at great personal risk . . . spread the word to Congress and around the world.”
The world recognition is long-awaited vindication for the 62-year-old scientist who was derided as a crackpot and a publicity hound for years after his 1974 discovery with postdoctoral researcher Mario Molina. Rowland’s research and warnings resulted in a 1978 U.S. congressional ban on chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, in aerosol sprays and the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international plan to control the compounds.
The ozone layer is a band of gas that protects animals and plants from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Depletion of the ozone is expected to lead to higher skin cancer rates and potentially disastrous climatic changes.
The extent of damage from existing CFCs won’t be known until the next century, but Rowland said there has been significant progress to find chemical substitutes for CFCs. Japan’s largest manufacturer of CFCs, the Asahi Chemical Co., announced earlier this week that it has developed a replacement compound, Rowland said. The firm contends that the new compound will do much less damage to the ozone.
“The problem on a global basis now has a life of its own,” he said. “Solutions are being sought by many governments and the United Nations, and changes are being made. . . . The direction in which things are looking is (toward) a (worldwide) ban within 15 years.”
Harold Moore, UCI’s dean of physical sciences and a longtime friend, described Rowland as an extraordinary and committed scientist for whom “it would have been out of character” not to persevere despite opposition to his findings.
“Sherry’s contribution to environmental sciences is unparalleled. There hasn’t been anything else that has touched everything and everyone so profoundly,” Moore said Wednesday. He ranked the Japan Prize, the Nobel Prize and the Welch Award, presented by the Welch Foundation in Texas, as the top three honors in science.
The challenge of the future, Moore said, will be preventing new ozone damage around the world.
“Clearly it’s a proud moment for the university and for Sherry,” Moore said of Rowland at the reception. “It’s also a sad moment for all the rest of us, because what Sherry is being recognized for is the depletion of the ozone layer. It is time for the world to wake up and recognize the significance of what it has done.”
The Science and Technology Foundation of Japan, which awards two Japan Prizes each year, also honored Harvard University professor E.J. Corey for his work in the field of medicine. Corey was named a recipient of the Japan Award for his 40 years of research in organic chemistry, particularly in human cellular immune functions. He also receives a prize of 50 million yen.
