Celebrating the anniversary of a solar pioneer

FresnoBee.com
09/08/07 00:03:44

Concern with solar and other forms of alternative energy, green
chemistry, global climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, biomass
conversion and a host of environmental problems has proliferated in
the media.

As a result, politicians, journalists and other public figures have
finally recognized what scientists have known for some time:
anthropogenic climate change is real and a serious threat to our
existence.

However, Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others are not the first
to advocate measures to mitigate the adverse effects of our actions on
the environment.

That honor belongs to Giacomo Luigi Ciamician, the Italian-Armenian
chemist, several-time Nobel Prize nominee, Italian senator for life
and founder of photochemistry (reactions catalyzed by light), who
carried out research and lobbied for solar energy in the early 1900s.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Ciamician’s birth, a
historical-scientific conference will be held on Sept. 16-18 at the
Department of Chemistry named in his honor at the University of
Bologna (the oldest continually operating degree-granting university
in the world, founded in 1088), where Ciamician spent most of his
career. He was a century ahead of his time.

George B. Kauffman, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, California State
University, Fresno

Giorgio Nebbia, Professor Emeritus of Merceology, University of Bari

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress