The chemist who linked chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to ozone layer depletion, F. Sherwood Rowland, will inaugurate the Jill and Ken Iscol Distinguished Environmental Lectureship at Cornell University April 20 and 21 with lectures on science and public policy.

"Our Changing Atmosphere: Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Warming" is the title of Rowland's general-interest lecture on Wednesday, April 21, at 5 p.m. on Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. On Tuesday, April 20, at 4:40 p.m. he will deliver a scientific lecture, "True, False and Side Steps toward Understanding -- the Case of Ozone Depletion by Chlorofluorocarbons" in 200 Baker Laboratory. Both lectures are open to the public free of charge.

The Iscol lectureship is endowed at Cornell by Kenneth H. Iscol and his wife, Jill, to bring to the university scholars who are working at the frontiers of scientific inquiry on issues of paramount importance to humankind. Iscol lecturers spend one week on campus, meeting with undergraduate and graduate students faculty members and researchers, and delivering two public lectures.

A 1960 graduate of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and president of Tel-Star Communications Corp, Kenneth Iscol is a member of the Administrative Board of the University Council at Cornell. The Iscol Distinguished Environmentalist Fund was established in 1991, and Rowland is the first designated lecturer.

Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul Crutzen and Mario Molina "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." One result of the studies was the 1987 Montreal Protocol of the United Nations Environment Program, the first international agreement for controlling environmental damage to the global atmosphere by reducing the manufacture and release of CFCs.

Subsequent studies by Rowland, who is the Donald Bren Research professor of Chemistry at University of California, at Irvine, are demonstrating the impacts on the atmosphere of methane gas and other hydrocarbons. In his general-interest lecture, Rowland is expected to explain how atmospheric concentrations of several gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide as well as CFCs) have changed under the influence of industrial activity and how long the ozone layer will take to recover ("most of the 21st century," he says).

Rowland's scientific lecture is expected to discuss how processes of science, especially under the uncontrolled circumstances outside laboratories, involve competing hypotheses, measurements and previously unknown factors. "When these currents of change also involve substantial public awareness and billion-dollar industries, false steps of many kinds can occur," Rowland says.

The Iscol lectures are administered by the Cornell Center for the Environment, where Kenneth Iscol funded the 1990 award-winning film, "Endowment for the Planet." Iscol has served as a member of the Task Force and the Advisory Council for the Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management Program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He also was instrumental in establishment of an ILR course, "Human Resources Management for Small Businesses," in which alumni who run small businesses share experiences with students and analyze real-life problems faced by small-business owners.

The Cornell Center for the Environment is a university-wide program committed to research, teaching, and outreach focused on environmental issues, with the goals of enhancing the quality of life, encouraging economic vitality, and promoting the conservation of natural resources for a sustainable future.