Twenty five years ago, the discovery of the ozone hole above the Antarctic made waves. The ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, which protects Planet Earth from 90% of the sun’s ultraviolet rays, diminished. Only two years later, in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed. There would not have been a chance to stop this ongoing reduction unless some chemists had described the possible reactions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other substances with ozone in the 1970s. These findings by Paul Crutzen, Mario José Molina and Frank Sherwood Rowland, who all were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995, led to the Montreal Protocol.

At the Lindau Meeting I had not only the chance to listen to Sherwood Rowland’s lecture about “Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change”. I even had the opportunity to talk to the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry together with two young researchers from the Global-Young-Faculty. 

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Energy and sustainability are this year's focus for the panel discussion and the exhibition on the Isle of Maine. A couple of thoughts in advance (1). About 80 percent of the world's energy needs today are met by fossil fuels: oil, coal and gas. The combustion of materials millions of years old has made humans ever more mobile and accelerated the pace of industrialisation. Supplies, however, are finite, and wasteful burning of these resources is leading to exceedingly high emissions of carbon dioxide, with all the attendant consequences for the earth's climate. (More)

Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen will be at Lindau this year, along with his fellow recipient F. Sherwood Rowland. The two along with Mario Molina contributed to one of the most significant intersections of science with politics and public policy in the twentieth century when they discovered the effects of chlorofluorocarbons and other chemical compounds on the all-important ozone layer. Crutzen is well-known for that contribution. (More)

If you ever have the time to take a deeper look at the history of the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting, you will recognize that concerns for humans and the environment shape it. The openness of the scientific debates and solution seeking fosters the specific spirit of Lindau ever since the first meeting in 1951.

One idea behind the founding of the meetings was the desire for a restoration of the scientific bridges between people from different nations after the Second World War. These new bridges the Laureates used immediately, in order to put their concern for humanity and the environment on the agenda. (More)

I am one of the lucky people who may attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting several times. This will be my third time. But there’s a big BUT: The more often I have been, the more sad I am about all the other meetings I have missed. This year, the Lindau meetings celebrate their 60th anniversary and the list of Laureates and lectures is the largest in the history of the meeting. One of the most outstanding persons I have never had chance to listen or even talk to at Lindau is the Grand Dame of Sciences Rita Levi-Montalcini (101). (More)