"I came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when concern about environmental problems included anti-industrial sentiments. My interest in the natural environment had always been strong. But even then I viewed most environmental problems as linking back to a chemical component. And I realized that technology - whether seen as good or bad - was going to remain a significant part of the environmental equation. Industry and technology may have created the problems, but they also were the means for solving them. So I thought that I'd better learn a lot about both." In this way, Greg Carmichael quietly explains the path that led to his career as a professor of chemical and co-director of CGRER.
Jerry Schnoor, who co-directs CGRER with Greg, grew up in Iowa about the same time, and from an early age shared Greg's environmental interests. But he traces his professorship in civil and environmental engineering to one person. "Mary Sievert - that's why I'm where I am today," he says, referring fondly to the teacher at Davenport Central High School who sparked his interest in chemistry.
Once launched, the tracks of Greg's and Jerry's careers ran parallel in several ways. Both received undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering from Iowa State. Both moved on for doctorates elsewhere, Jerry to the University of Taxes and Greg to the University of Kentucky. Both returned to Iowa City for their first teaching positions, and both have stayed ever since, each racking up over fifteen years of service at the University of Iowa. Both have become accomplished in executing the triumvirate of professorial activities- teaching and guiding graduate students, research, and service to the extra-university community - and both have collected many honors in the process.
Greg has served twelve years as chair of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. He has in recent years chaired or served on the university's Research Council, the Research Foundation Board, The Governor's Science Advisory Board, and boards of several other state, national, and international groups including the Atmospheric Chemistry Committee of the American Meteorological Society, which he presently chairs. In addition to teaching a full load of courses and working with a research group of six to eight graduate students and a similar number of undergraduates, he has brought in over 2.5 million dollars of research support in contracts and grants. Greg presently has projects with the NSF, NASA, NOAA, DOE, World Bank, and Central Research Institute for Electric Power, Japan.
Jerry, recently named University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor, is a diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, associate editor of the journal Environmental Science and Technology, and editor of John Wiley and Sons' environmental texts and monographs. Noted as a gifted teacher as well as researcher, he is justifiably proud his breadth of service, including his present position as president of the university's Faculty Senate.
Throughout their energetic professional lives, both Greg and Jerry have made concrete attempts to establish ties with researchers in related disciplines. Thus neither is surprised that they now occupy desks side by side, in a center dedicated to promoting such links among faculty members and researchers throughout the state. "Anyone who works deeply in an area is forced to extend beyond the subject at hand," states Greg. His efforts in atmospheric chemistry- in trying to understand how humans have impacted the atmospheric environment - have always demanded that breadth. Physics, meteorology, chemistry, computer science- knowledge of all these fields is fed into Greg's sophisticated mathematical models that trace the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants.
In recent years, Greg's extensive research on acid rain has expanded to include investigations of ozone in the troposphere, that lowest level of the earth's atmosphere where ozone is transformed by sunlight into a deadly pollutant. (Only in the upper atmosphere is ozone a beneficial shield from the sun's ultraviolet radiation). And although he continues his studies of midwestern air pollutants, his focus has been drawn to Asia, where rapid industralization and population growth are being matched by exploding levels of air pollutants.
There he is asking whether pollution assessment and control technologies developed for western nations can alleviate the burgeoning air pollution of the eastern hemisphere. And he is adjusting technologies for use in countries where trained personnel, electricity, reliable transportation, and other such amenities are at a minimum. For example, under a $1.2 million World Bank grant, Greg now is establishing an air pollution monitoring network in Asia using a passive, non-electrified sampler, and he is training local scientists in its use, He also is simplifying a computer model that predicts future levels and movements of air pollutants, given differing scenarios of industrial growth. This model, Greg hopes, will by be used by Asian governments to chart governmental policies and plans concerning industrial growth.
Greg's work in Asia will directly impact future air quality in the Midwest. The testing of his models on another continent will increase the validity and reliability of their use on this continent- and hence will increase their strength as planning tools. And if Greg's plans for Asia succeed on a grander scale - if through his teaching and modeling he helps Asia reduce its growth of air pollutants, which if left unattended are predicted to exceed those of the developed world within a decade - the air flowing the world from Asia will remain cleaner and healthier for Iowa's citizens as well.
Jerry, like Greg, develops mathematical models that can predict the magnitude and transport of environmental pollutants. But Jerry's research traditionally ahs focussed on water quality and groundwater studies, which only recently have been extended to the modeling of greenhouse gasses as well. He also has sought ways of encouraging living organisms to rid the earth of environmental poisons. His "bioremediation research" questions, for example, whether trees planted around landfills, mine tailings, or other areas of contaminated soils could pull toxicants from the earth and then store or metabolize these pollutants. Preliminary results indicate that such plantings could indeed reduce the flow of soil pollutants into streams and groundwater.
Jerry consistently extends his efforts beyond university portals into he policy realm. "To me, the most interesting challenge is to try to come up with technologically feasible, socially just, and politically acceptable policies," he contends. He also expounds his belief that engineers and scientists need to become more active in expressing knowledgeable perspectives on issues. This belief has led Jerry to active consultation efforts in the "Black Triangle" of Eastern Europe, a land so heavily polluted through industrial development that children at times are assigned gas masks for outside play at recess. In addition, Jerry attended the June, 1992, Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, on behalf of the Iowa Division of the United Nations Association, returning home to become an outspoken advocate of the treaties and charter developed for that summit. Experiences such as this lead Jerry to proclaim the satisfaction he takes in his jobs. "With my opportunities to work with students, faculty, and researchers far and near, to share similar views with them, and to take real steps toward solving problems, I feel I have the best job in the world," he asserts. Mixing his dual passions for research and policy development, Jerry and Larry Bean (at Iowa's Department of Natural Resources) are proposing a project that would essentially reduce to zero Iowa's net emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. This would be accomplished by balancing carbon dioxide production with strategies to reduce gas production (through increased energy efficiency) and with the planting of trees (which take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into living tissues.) Jerry believes that Iowa has a very real chance of leading the nation in accomplishing this goal - which would mean that Iowa would become the first state to eliminate net discharge of "greenhouse gasses" that could lead to global warming in the future. Jerry's breadth of vision shapes his teaching efforts. He sketches environmental problems on a large canvas, looking beyond the here and now, encouraging consideration of their historic roots and probable futures, both in this country and around the world. He encourages students to take related courses in law and public policy. And he attempts to bring students back to earth by exhorting them to consider the human dimension. "I impress on my students that all our grants and projects affect, in a positive or negative way, and daily lives of many individuals," he states, recalling how his own father, a used car salesman in Davenport, went out of business because of environmental regulations. "I never forget that."
And, realizing that wise policy begins with a knowledgeable public Jerry regularly accepts invitations to speak to school classes, environmental groups, local clubs, and the like. In these lectures, he attempts to assuage apathy created by the overwhelming magnitude of environmental problems by stressing the challenges that these problems present. He demands the same action-oriented approach of CGRER, which he believes can "light the paths of the problem-solving process." Together, prodded by the efforts and interests of other CGRER members, Jerry and Greg play upon their similarities and differences to seek new ways of addressing the earth's wounded environment. What are their dreams for the future? Greg's focus on continuing solid scientific research that produces both fundamental and practical applications. He trusts that CGRER will add yet another dimension to this dream: "The students are the ones who will benefit most from the Center s success," he states. "By fostering true partnership arrangements whereby faculty members from very different disciplines together attack complex problems, our students will be able to tackle more cutting-edge problems. They will become plugged into a national and international agenda, and become true interdisclinary earth systems scientists." Jerry's dreams take the scenario one step further, into a world where many of the university's disciplinary boundaries dissolve. These boundaries compartmentalize faculty members' ideas and restrict researchers from attacking complex problems," he states. "And students are taught to inspect one aspect of an environmental problem rather than address the earth's systems as complex wholes. Departmental structures are, in a way, anachronistic." He views CGRER as one mechanism for creating the interdisciplinary university liaisons that will integrate diverse research and training efforts. Both he and Greg believe hat such CGRER-fostered liaisons will stimulate new thought patterns which are capable of churning into reality dream that may lead us more samely and safely into the twenty-first century.