chapter 5 - Department of Chemistry

The Mosaic browser, developed in 1993 by a student, MarcAndreessen, and Eric Bina of the National Center for SupercomputingApplications, “did more than any other developmentto bring about the phenomenal growth of the Web andthe Internet” [TCAW, 1995, 4(4)]. There were only 100 Websites in 1992, but hundreds of thousands by the end of thedecade. With the development of the Internet came “[a] newtrend: using the Internet to provide information and supportfor products and services” [TCAW, 1995, 4(4)]. Some examplesof the enhanced use of the Web were the arrival of AmericanChemical Society (ACS) journals online and the ASAP (AsSoon As Publishable) publishing system for rapid release ofarticles, the availability of Pittcon ‘97 Web sites, and, in 1998,the ACS presentation of “Pittcon Live” on the Internet.Environmental FluxAt first, even the environmental movement seemed to haveslowed, despite the celebrations of the 20th anniversary,Earth Day and the comments of Jim Byrne, president ofCentcom, who announced at the 1990 Pittcon that “environmentalanalysis [was] undoubtedly one of the most significantgrowth areas for analytical instruments” [Today’sChemist, 1990, 3(4)]. Part of the problem was a backlashagainst what was seen as environmental excess. Articles inToday’s Chemist at Work emphasized what the writers saw asoverreaction to the dangers of chlorinated compounds,global warming, pesticides, dioxins, lead, and other environmental“risks.” In 1990, Patrick P. McCurdy, then editorof Today’s Chemist at Work, said, “Some scientists even seegood in global warming.” Contributing editor Ken Reese remarked,“Bashing lead, in fact, quite apart from the meritsof specific cases, has become politically correct” [TCAW1995, 4(3)].Antiregulatory-versus-environmentalist battles grew evermore heated. “Everything in life is full of one-in-a-hundredrisks. If the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] isspending all its time trying to protect the public againstone-in-a-million hypothetical risks, then it’s spending itstime on trivia,” A. B. Nichols said [TCAW, 1992, 1(4)]. Congressionalbacklash in 1995 led to Republican moves toslice the EPA budget 34% and attempts to provide industryimmunity to certain Superfund liability provisions.One key triumph was overturning what had been seen asonerous overregulation. The hated Delaney clause was replacedin 1996 with far less restrictive requirements than“zero tolerance.”The 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to PaulCrutzen, Mario Molina, and F. Sherwood Rowland, whobroke the news on ozone depletion, was seen by most as avindication of their work. Still, antienvironmentalists complained“that the ozone depletion theory is based on badscience” and that the award was “a desecration upon theheritage of Alfred Nobel” [TCAW 1996, 5(10)].On the whole, the public did not appreciate attempts tocounter regulations, nor did they share in the view of a putuponindustry. Opinion polls conducted by the Chemical ManufacturersAssociation (CMA) in 1990 found that “there [was] alack of trust in chemical manufacturers on the part of the public;indeed, people [did] not like the chemical industry as awhole” [Today’s Chemist, 1990, 3(2)]. And even though the authorof a February 1992 Money magazine poll claimed thatchemists had “excellent” prestige, according to Today’s Chemistat Work, this label did not apply to the industry in which theyworked [TCAW, 1992, 1(4)]. As seen by the early CMA poll, theissues of antiscience and antichemical industry grew in importance.Polls taken in the latter part of the decade still showedthat a favorable opinion toward the chemical industry wasbarely higher than 20%, despite the efforts of the ResponsibleCare program, inaugurated in the 1980s.In 1992, promoting the spirit of voluntary self-regulation,the CMA adopted the Product Stewardship Code as part of ResponsibleCare and imposed a deadline for member adoption.The Green Chemistry program was another attempt at environmentallybenign and consumer-friendly manufacturing.In 1995, the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awardswere established to reward companies that had managed tomake the transition to “green” manufacturing practices. InEurope, throughout the 1990s, HP spent nearly $1 million ayear on the popular Rhine Basin Program, which by 1997 hadexpanded to include environmental monitoring of 15 otherrivers and was expanding its partnership with various Europeanauthorities.As a result of this new wave of environmental and healthgive-and-take between industry and the general public, riskand risk assessment became hot topics. To deal with this issue,in 1995 Chemical & Engineering News sponsored a symposiumentitled “Risk Issues and the Chemical Industry: TheSummit on Risk-Based Public Policy.”90 Made to Measure March 1999 http://pubs.acs.org