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Monthly, April 2019
Photo: D Sharon Pruitt, Pink Sherbet Photography from USA [CC BY 2.0]
 
Spotlight on sustainability

A reoccurring aim among the Nobel Laureates’ achievements is to help us live more sustainable lives – whether it’s growing enough food to ensure nobody goes hungry, or making our chemical processes cleaner and greener. Here are some of the ways Nobel Laureates have worked to make the world more sustainable.



Frances Arnold
“I started my career back in the 1970s working in solar energy.”
© Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Chemistry Laureate Frances Arnold has always had an interest in the environment. In 2018 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for using the process of evolution to make new and better enzymes. “I see a sustainable future for the planet by using some of these designed processes and designed molecules that nature invented,” says Arnold.

Watch an interview with Frances Arnold
 

Wangari Maathai
One of the Earth’s staunchest defenders
© Green Belt Movement
In 1977 Wangari Maathai began encouraging women to plant trees in her home country of Kenya to combat deforestation. Her Green Belt Movement gave jobs to women and became a symbol for democratic struggle. Today over 51 million trees have been planted in Kenya alone, and the campaign has spread across Africa.

Watch Wangari Maathai deliver her Nobel Lecture

Sherwood F. Rowland
“A symbol of what the environmental movement can do.”
 
Photo: Arun Kulshreshtha [CC BY-SA 2.5]
The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of a number of different gases, including ozone. Our ozone layer plays an important role in protecting life on Earth by preventing dangerous radiation from reaching us. In 1973 the two scientists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina made the important discovery that the ozone layer was continually depleted.

Listen to Chemistry Laureate Sherwood Rowland telling his story
 

Norman Borlaug
Provided bread for a hungry world
Photo: 3268zauber [CC BY-SA 3.0]
A daily supply of food is essential for survival but also for peace. After the Second World War, supplying food to the world’s growing population became an important issue. Plant geneticist Norman Borlaug developed crops that were adapted to farming based on fertilisers and new farming equipment, resulting in higher yields. Borlaug’s work was central to what later became known as the ‘green revolution’, empowering nations across the world to feed themselves.

Read Norman Borlaug’s speech when awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize
 

William Nordhaus
Working for a more sustainable future
Photo: Tesseract2 [CC BY-SA 3.0]
At its heart, economics deals with the management of scarce resources. William Nordhaus’ findings deal with interactions between society, the economy and climate change. In the mid-1990s, he developed a model that describes how the environment and economy can affect one another, and was the first person to simulate the global interplay between the two. In his speech at the Nobel Banquet Nordhaus spoke of his wish for a more sustainable future: “I hope that you can say that we, in this generation, had the resolve to overcome the obstacles and take the steps necessary to preserve our unique and beautiful planet.”

Watch or read William Nordaus’ banquet speech

Monthly quiz

No paper plates

The tables at the yearly Nobel Banquet in December are set with tableware created by Swedish designers. How many porcelain pieces are used during the dinner? Make a guess and click to submit your answer.

3,540


BILD

6,540


BILD

9,540


BILD

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