I spent a few quarters working in his labs between 1994-1995 (and was fortunate enough to be around when his Nobel Prize was awarded!). Those experiences were my first taste of research that "really mattered". I had another project I was working on simultaneously in the Engineering department, having something generically to do with microelectronics, but when I took a step back, I asked myself, "Who cares about this?" I wanted to be working on a project, in whatever capacity possible, that had real societal impact. Studying and measuring the impacts of air pollutants just seemed a hell of a lot more important to me. While later in my career in graduate school and as a postdoc I drifted away from atmospheric chemistry, those early experiences were formative, and I still aligned myself with research that I believed mattered (solar energy, water purification).
Whenever I think of my research experience in Rowland's group, it both inspires me for what is possible when science drives policy making, but also discourages me, considering the sorry state of affairs we're in right now. I continue to be blown away at how comparatively easy it was to go from the discovery of ozone-depleting reactions by Rowland, Molina and colleagues, to the discovery of a hole in our ozone layer, to later passing the Montreal Protocol. While I'm sure those events felt like an eternity to those guys between the late 70s to late 80s, they are going to seem like a blink of the eye relative to how much time we're going to continue to filibuster on the issue of climate change. More specifically, the anthropogenic causes of increases in atmospheric CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) and its resulting impact on global temperatures. See this article in Tech Review for additional historical perspective.
How was it that we managed to muster enough will to get the Montreal Protocol passed? What was different then compared to today? You still had large corporate lobbies and interests to fight against. For example,
The chair of the board of DuPont was quoted as saying that ozone depletion theory is 'a science fiction tale...a load of rubbish...utter nonsense' (Source)I think the popular explanation here is that politics was less polarized back in the 80s. That feels too simple and sentimental an explanation. However, I do have this gut feeling that at least science was not as politicized back then. Politicians were smart enough to realize that they weren't smart enough to issue well informed opinions on technical matters themselves.
What changed then? For all the positive attention it has brought to the issue of climate change, Al Gore's work in 90s may have flipped the switch and turned science into politics. I believe it to be mostly well-intentioned - you're passionate and well informed about a topic, you have political clout, so you want to get the message out and see if you can drive change. Sadly, not all politicians "did their homework" as much as Gore did on this subject, and so subsequently you had every bonehead on The Hill weigh in with their take on global warming.
I've proposed this wacky idea before, but a scientific literacy test for Congressman might help. You just have ask the question, are these politicians really that poorly informed about "real science", or are they just pretending to be obtuse and playing the political game? If you assume the former, we can try to inculcate some science into politicians or try to convince a scientist to become a politician. But while politicians today liken themselves to armchair scientists, I'm not sure any self-respecting, successful scientist would want anything to do with the practice of politics.
