SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Man of Science

In an era of super-specialization, there are few true Renaissance men or women. But Roger Revelle, who died Monday, would have met most definitions of that term.

Revelle the professor founded a University of California campus in San Diego that has become one of the top research institutions in the country.

Revelle the oceanographer guided Scripps Institution of Oceanography to its international reputation.

Revelle and his wife, Ellen, patrons of the arts, helped to rescue the San Diego Symphony and to sustain many other arts organizations.

But Revelle’s area of impact was much broader than Southern California.

Revelle the scientist issued an early warning on global warming, long before the term greenhouse effect became popular.

At Harvard, he founded the Harvard Center for Population Studies. And in West Pakistan he helped increase agricultural production.

This intellectually and physically imposing man spoke his mind plainly, whether in support of legalized abortion or in opposition to sewage treatment standards of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

He believed that technology could meet the material needs of the Earth’s billions of people but that it was being wasted on “military problems instead of real problems.”

Revelle followed that belief in his own work, applying science broadly.

As a result, he left Southern California an intellectually and culturally richer place for all of us.