Interview: Paul J. Crutzen
Five Questions for...
In 1995 the media praised the Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen as the “Savior of the Climate” after he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with U.S. scientists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina. The three researchers had identified chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as the cause of the ozone hole. This discovery resulted in a global ban on CFCs. After working as a researcher in Sweden and the USA, Crutzen, who was born in 1933, held the position of Director of the Atmospheric Chemistry Division at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.
