Attack on Ozone Science

摘要

When the winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry appeared at the flower-filled Stockholm Concert Hall in December 1995 to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf, they were met by pickets. Why? Because two of the three Nobelists, F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, were being rewarded for their pioneering work on the chemistry of ozone depletion. Their research showed that compounds called chlorofluorocar-bons, or CFCs—once widely used as refrigerants and as propellants in spray cans猘re responsible for the progressive thinning of the ozone layer, which shields us from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. The work of Rowland and Molina, along with that of other atmospheric scientists, has led to a worldwide phaseout of CFCs.