UC San Diego Sea Expert Will Share Science Award

A UC San Diego chemical oceanographer who has concentrated on finding solutions to ocean pollution has been named as co-recipient of the nation’s most prestigious environmental science award.

Edward Goldberg of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will receive the Tyler Prize tonight at a dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles.

Goldberg shares the $150,000 prize with Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist in West Germany, who in 1982 co-wrote the scientific paper that originated the ideas behind what was later termed “nuclear winter.”

The paper proposed that a nuclear war would have the previously unanticipated result of sending so much smoke into the atmosphere that it would threaten life worldwide by blocking out the sun. The director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in West Germany, Crutzen also was instrumental in the early recognition that man-made chemicals might deplete the Earth’s protective ozone later.

Since joining Scripps in 1949, Goldberg has dedicated his career to monitoring ocean pollution and finding ways to remedy it. He worked to get the state Legislature to ban toxic tributyl tin marine paints in California and proposed and inaugurated the widely used program to monitor pollution by measuring the levels of contaminants in mussels.

“Edward Goldberg is the most innovative, influential scholar to ponder, investigate, write and speak about ocean pollution problems,” said John W. Farrington, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Massachusetts, in commenting on the award.

Established to honor landmark discoveries confirming humanity’s capacity to upset the global environmental balance, the Tyler Prize was endowed in 1973 by Alice C. Tyler and her late husband, John C. Tyler, who founded Farmers Insurance Group. The prize is administered by USC.

Tyler Prize winners are selected by a committee of scientists from nominations received worldwide. There have been 25 recipients, including UC San Diego founder Roger Revelle in 1984.