Our health goes hand in hand with a healthy environment. At the beginning of the 20th century, UC chemists developed a high-voltage “electrical rain” device to clean smokestack emissions by grabbing toxic particles before they entered the atmosphere. That process is still used today. A half-century later, UC engineers were the first to identify the photochemical process that creates smog. As pollution from automobiles increased, UC researchers designed a carburetor that led to fuel injection for cleaner-running cars.

Looking higher into the sky, UC scientists in 1957 were the first to recognize global warming, or the “greenhouse effect,” that traps solar heat in the earth’s atmosphere. In 1974, a UC chemist discovered that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were depleting the ozone layer. That finding led to the 1976 ban on CFC propellants such as those in aerosol cans.

In the early 90s, UC researchers invented a steam injection process to clean contaminated soil. UC scientists also developed the first practical process for turning salt water into fresh water – a discovery that has created fresh-water rivers in North Africa and the Middle East.

UC scientists looked to the seas in the 1950s to help save the gray whale from near-extinction; and a UC Bird Research Group began nursing California’s peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction in 1975.

Please visit the topic pages for:
     Agriculture, Plant Sciences and Food
     Air, Climate and Space
     Energy and Transportation
     Water and Marine Sciences
     Wildlife and Natural Habitats

as well as the UC general and topic-specific resources listed below.

John Muir Institute of the Environment
Davis Tahoe Research Group
Davis Information Center for the Environment - a cooperative
     effort of UC Davis and more than 30 private, state, federal,
     and international organizations interested in environmental
     protection
Davis Environmental Outreach
Irvine Department of Environmental Health, Science and Policy
Los Angeles Institute of the Environment
White Mountain Research Station – North America’s highest
     research station (elevation 14,249 feet)
Sierra Nevada Research Institute - will conduct research on
     sustainability issues such as watersheds, air quality, fire
     ecology, biodiversity, climate change, land use and
     transportation, and resource management
Earth Sciences at Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley National Laboratory Microbial Ecology and
     Environmental Engineering Department
UC Merced - Saving A Precious Landscape (pdf)
UC Press is worldwide distributor for Sierra Club books

Earthquakes and Geomechanics
Northern California Earthquake Data Center
National Information Center for Earthquake Engineering
George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES):
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center
Berkeley National Laboratory Geophysics and Geomechanics
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Seismic Network
Seismology research at UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Institute for Crustal Studies

Forestry
Berkeley Center for Forestry
Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program
Center for Urban Forest Research
California Oak Mortality Task Force

Remediation, Waste Management and Toxics
Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Remediation
     Technology Program
Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Science and
     Waste Technology News Releases
Berkeley Institute for Environmental Science and Engineering -
     water pollution, solid waste management, environmental
     pathogens, applied ecology, geomorphology, air quality,
     industrial exposure to chemicals, water re-use,
     bioengineering, and nuclear waste management
Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program
Riverside Environmental Toxicology
Santa Cruz Environmental Toxicology Department

Wildfires
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Wildfire Modeling

UC National Labs and the Environment

Ask the Experts about Agriculture and Environmental Topics