the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

OOPS 38
When the widespread damage done by Midgley’s chlorofl uorocar-
bons became undeniable in the 1970s, thanks to the work of University of
California, Irvine, chemist F. Sherwood Rowland and others, “the idea
that a little hair spray and a little deodorant in the morning could affect
our children’s children changed everything,” said Don Blake, a Rowland
research partner at UCI. “When it comes to the atmosphere, there are no
longer any [geographical] or political boundaries.” The university’s chancellor,
Ralph Cicerone, agreed, telling OC Metro magazine in May 2000
that the idea that “people with little spray cans could affect the global
environment seemed preposterous to almost everyone” before atmospheric
ozone depletion was discovered.
Realizing that little things could do big damage changed the way
many scientists looked at the world. And their work took on added urgency
when they realized that the environmental problems they were
studying knew no boundaries. “Whenever we are doing experiments in
the lab or field we are thinking of the larger picture, of how the results fi t
into and impact the interdependent global environment,” UCI earth system
sciences professor Susan Trumbore told OC Metro. “It is easy to forget
how new that kind of thinking is. [But] globalism is a natural concept
to scientists of my generation.”